EROTICA FOR WOMEN ... the ebook revolution

Sales of Erotic Fiction Soar as Women Too Shy to Buy In Store Now Download Saucy Tales Onto Their eReaders
----  brief excerpts from an article in  the women's pages of the Daily Mail (UK), 16 March 2012 :-
      "Erotic fiction is becoming a booming market thanks to the development of eReaders. Sales of erotic novels have increased by 30 per cent, according to today's Sun, as readers ditch hard copies in favour of digital versions.
      Downloading saucy stories is becoming increasingly popular with women as the anonymity of the transaction means they are spared the blushes of having to buy a naughty book in stores. The portable nature of eReaders, like Amazon's Kindle, and the fact no-one can see what you're reading, means women can now read erotic fiction where-ever they are without fear of embarrassment.
      Publisher Caroline Ridding told The Guardian, that erotic fiction has 'enormous global online constituency' which was 'driven almost exclusively' by female readers.  ....
....   A small Australian publisher first printed Fifty Shades of Grey, by British writer E L James, but sales boomed when it became available digitally. The book has since has topped the New York Times bestseller list for eBooks as well as Amazon and Barnes & Noble charts.
      The erotic novel has been dubbed 'Twilight for grown-ups'. It's about a sexy entrepreneur who seduces a young graduate and draws her into his world of bondage and kinky sex. .... "
----  see more of the Daily Mail's article at :-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2116030/Sales-erotic-fiction-soar-shy-buy-women-download-saucy-tales-eReaders.html
----  & see a news report about Fifty Shades of Grey being auctioned to movie producers, at screenerblog.com, 15 March 2012 :-
http://www.screenerblog.com/2012/03/fifty-shades-of-grey-a-racier-twilight-may-be-turned-into-a-movie.html

MAN-TO-MAN DYNAMICS in writer Jeff Mann | Gay Literature

Leather & Lore: Jeff Mann on Poetry, 'PURGATORY', & Norse Gods
----  snippets from an extensive interview with academic & poet Jeff Man by Kilian Melloy at EdgeBoston.com, Jan 2012 :-

      "Whether he’s writing poetry, erotic short stories, or novels, Jeff Mann brings a fluency to the form at hand and a dose of man-to-man electricity generated by shifting power dynamics.
      It might not be a surprise to Mann’s readers to know that he’s a bondage enthusiast; Mann’s stories often feature stark and passionate contrasts between roughness and sweet sentiment, restraint and tenderness. He’s a literary painter whose particular brand of chiaroscuro is not light and shadow but rather dominance and submission. It’s an form of artistry Mann embraces with gusto: In one interview, Mann characterized himself as "a rampant BDSM/Wiccan leatherbear."
      Mann is also a professor of English at Virginia Tech, with a strong interest in Appalachian Studies. As a gay Appalachian himself--or, as he might put it himself, a mountain man--the poet and scholar has used his own life experiences and inner journey as source material in examining what it means to be a man from the rural South who loves other men, and loves them with a certain (even specialized) vigor. ....

....  EDGE: You often write about bondage, and you have certain recurring tropes: Big, powerful men restrained, feeding a tied captive Southern cooking by hand, the seductive power of helplessness and surrender. Your first published novel, "FOG," deals with all of that, and more--revenge, love, identity.  ....

....  JEFF MANN:  I’m very aware that, no matter how literary the style, how careful the use of literary elements like allusion, rhythm, symbolism, and imagery, many readers will dismiss a work that deals frankly and explicitly with gay sex, in particular BDSM sex. Such material will be written off by the literary mainstream as "merely erotica" (or, worse, "porn," as one colleague of mine referred to my fiction during my tenure process). That’s a fact that pisses me off--no one wants to be dismissed--but there’s little I can do about it. I’m going to write what I please  .... "

----  see more of Kilian Melloy's probing interview with Jeff Mann about his new book "Purgatory" and his view of gay erotica in literature at EdgeBoston.com at :-

http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=entertainment&sc=books&sc3=&id=128581&pg=1

JOHNNY DEPP, VAMPIRE | Cool New Movie

Tim Burton 's Most Ridiculous Movie Yet?
----  a grab from Meredith Woener's showbiz report at io9.com, 15 March 2012 :-

      "Check out the first ever trailer for Tim Burton's swinging 70s vampire epic Dark Shadows. And it looks like Burton is taking it to the max — not a single bit of 70s shtick is left untouched by Johnny Depp's fluttery dance steps (someone literally tries to kill him with a giant disco ball). It's pretty wonderful, and the costumes, oh the costumes!
Based on the classic supernatural soap opera with the same name, the movie follows a lost vampire from the past (Depp) who's stuck in the 70s, where everyone is horny all the time. This really could be Burton's most ridiculous work yet. Which could be a very good thing. We miss Burton's spooky slapstick side.  .... "
----  see the original io9.com report at :-
http://io9.com/5893731/the-dark-shadows-trailer-this-might-be-tim-burtons-most-ridiculous-movie-yet/
----  & visit the trailer in the sidebar opposite, plus see a similar report at nextmovie.com at :-
http://www.nextmovie.com/blog/new-movie-trailers/dark-shadows-trailer/

SEX ADDICTS ... Or is 'addiction' the norm?

SEXUAL ADDICTION: Real or Myth?
----  the introductory pars from a substantial essay by Joe Kort PhD at the Gay Voices pages of The Huffington Post (US), 14 March 2012 :-
[Joe Kort PhD is a psychotherapist, sexologist, and relationship therapist; & founder, Center for Relationship and Sexual Health (USA)]
      "A new book is coming out titled, The Myth of Sexual Addiction, by David J. Ley. In it he talks about how sexual addiction is not real. I disagree.
      While it is true that sexual behaviors get labeled as sexual addiction when they are not, and that sexual addiction may not be the best label for out-of-control sexual behavior, the fact remains that those suffering with out-of-control sexual behavior do exist.
      Being certified as both a sexual addiction specialist and sex therapist lets me assess whether or not someone is actually addicted to sex. The main symptoms are loss of control, failed attempts to stop the unwanted sexual behavior, and a pattern of negative consequences such as anxiety, depression, legal troubles, sexually transmitted diseases, and relationship problems.
      The model of sexual addiction and compulsivity disorder has generated controversy in and outside the gay community. Some say that using this model makes sexual behavior seem "bad" and denies enjoying positive sexual experiences with as many people as one likes, any way one wants. But it doesn't demonize sexual activities unless they involve adults being sexual with children, or ignoring someone's limits against their will, such as in the case of rape. Nor does it judge people who enjoy a variety of sexual desires, partners, and behavior. In fact, sexual addiction is not about sex at all -- it's about suffering and unhealed trauma that has become eroticized. .... "
----  see more of Joe Kort's informed essay & its reader's comments at The Huffington Post at :-
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-kort-phd/sexual-addiction_b_1342302.html

SPARTACUS: VENGEANCE ... true love blossoms

Gay Romance Heats Up SPARTACUS: VENGEANCE
----  brief excerpts from a report by Jase Peeples at gay.net (US), 10 March 2012 :-

      "If you haven’t seen a single episode of the sexy Starz original series Spartacus you’ve been missing one of the hottest shows on television. Not only is the series overflowing with gratuitous man-candy, but the show’s fluid depiction of sexuality has hooked a legion of gay fans.
      Gay characters have been a staple of the sword and sandals saga since the show’s earliest episodes and their inclusion is a creative choice the series creator and head writer, Steven S. DeKnight, fiercely defends. “One of the things, to this day, I’m still getting comments about is, ‘all the gay shit in my show’ and people asking me to tone it down,” says DeKnight. “I always say, ‘no.’  ....
....  To the delight of many fans, the budding same-sex romance between Agron and Nasir is a welcome addition to the current season.  ....
....  Fan-made videos highlighting the softer moments between the sword-swinging lovers have begun to populate YouTube at an increasing rate. You can check out one of our favorites at YouTube along with a clip from a recent episode that made us smile."
----  see the original gay.net item by Jase Peeples at :-
http://www.gay.net/tv/2012/03/10/gay-romance-heats-%E2%80%98spartacus-vengeance%E2%80%99
----  or check the videos in the sidebar opposite as a sampler.
SPARTACUS: VENGEANCE is currently screening on Starz in the US at 10PM Friday nights. It will make its appearance in other global markets in forthcoming months.

JOHN CARTER ... of the abs-sword-&-space genre

Ignore the critics : JOHN CARTER is fantastic!
Disney’s John Carter is a sword-and-planet space romance. If that’s what you’re after, you’re in luck.
----  brief excerpts from an applauding review in Forbes magazine blog by contributor Erik Kain, 9 March 2012 :-
      "It’s fun and trendy to trash science fiction and fantasy films that aren’t Very Serious Movies. That’s what we’re seeing happen with Disney’s John Carter, a fun, campy action-adventure directed by Pixar’s Andrew Stanton, and written by Stanton, Mark Andrews, and novelist Michael Chabon.
      Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote a very particular sort of story, and it wasn’t really science fiction per se. Burroughs wrote his John Carter of Mars stories as planetary romances. The series fits into the ‘sword and planet’ niche – science fiction in appearances only. There is very little science, and quite a lot of fiction.
      JOHN CARTER isn’t so different than Burroughs’s other, and more famous, creation: Tarzan of the Apes. Both are adventure-style romances and neither pretends to be at all realistic.
....  A Princess of Mars was written in 1917, and while some literature at the time was grappling with the horrors of the Civil War, plenty of it was also just there for escapism. John Carter is an escapist romance. We should judge it based on its merits within the genre it inhabits, not the genre – or themes – we wish it represented."
----  see more of Forbes' unexpectedly savvy review at their website of :-
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/03/09/ignore-the-critics-john-carter-is-fantastic/
----  see another cheekier review plus its reader's highly affirming comments at The Deadbolt at :-
http://www.thedeadbolt.com/1003025559-john-carter-what-went-wrong.html
& check out the most recent trailer in the sidebar opposite.
----  [PS: Your host has seen the new movie & found it to be a rip-roaring muliplex space-adventure fantasy suited to anyone who's a teenager at heart. - GG]

GAY MARRIAGE: some historical realities ...

GAY MARRIAGE: Torn asunder from historical reality
The argument that gay marriage undermines straight marriage is as unconvincing as it is insulting
----  excerpts from a newspaper publisher's Editorial in The Guardian (UK), a major British broadsheet, 8 March 2012 :-

      It is surprisingly hard to find in the Bible a consistent endorsement of heterosexual marriage as we now understand it. The Old Testament is replete with stories of men like King Solomon who had 700 wives and 300 concubines. And the New Testament is generally populated by single men and women whose domestic arrangements have little in common with the model of Christian marriage that is now being aggressively defended by Cardinal Keith O'Brien (UK) and others.  ....
....  Traditionally, the church has explained the purpose of marriage in terms of three features: that it's the proper context for raising children, that it promotes monogamy and that it exists for the mutual comfort and society of one person for another. How can the application of these three features to gay marriage justify the cardinal's blustering hyperbole?  ....
....  The argument that gay marriage undermines straight marriage is as unconvincing as it is insulting – as if the currency of marriage is devalued by extension to those who find love with members of the same sex. In fact, the reality that religious conservatives are themselves failing to face is that civil partnerships are already being understood as a form of marriage, with or without the endorsement of the church.  ....
....   Gay marriage is effectively already a reality. And [UK Prime Minister] Mr David Cameron is right that the law needs to catch up with where people are.
----  see more of The Guardian editor's argument at The Guardian site at :-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/08/gay-marriage-torn-asunder-from-reality
----  see too the subsequent contribution from Petra Davis at New Statesman (UK), 10 March 2012 :-
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2012/03/gay-marriage-rights-lgbt

Gay soldier "YOSSI" returns to Tribeca, New York ...

Sequel to film on gay Israeli IDF soldiers to open New York's Tribeca Film Festival :
'YOSSI' to join two other Israeli films in the festival
----  excerpts from an arts news report by Nirit Anderman in HAARETZ (Israel), 7 March 2012 :-


      ""YOSSI, aka "Yossi's Story," directed by Israeli film-maker Eytan Fox, will be entered into competition next month at New York's Tribeca Film Festival. It is a sequel to Fox's popular "Yossi and Jagger," from 2002, and will open the festival's narrative competition section.  ....  "Yossi's Story" follows the life of its eponymous main character, 10 years after Jagger's death in Lebanon. Yossi is now a successful cardiologist, yet he has not fully recovered from the traumatic death of his lover. An unplanned meeting with Jagger's mother forces him to take a new look at his life, and to confront his fears and secrets.  ....
....  Fox expressed satisfaction yesterday after learning of his film's acceptance into the prestigious festival. "'Yossi's Story' is important to me, and close to my heart," he said. "It is the most personal film I've made," adding, "I am proud that the Tribeca Festival considers the film worthy of competing, and of serving as the opening film. The return to the Tribeca Festival, where a decade ago 'Yossi and Jagger' was premiered in the United States ... feels like the closing of a circle, and I'm very excited about it," Fox said.
 ----  see more of Nirit Anderman's report at HAARETZ at :-

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/sequel-to-israeli-film-on-homosexual-idf-romance-to-open-tribeca-film-fest-1.416921
----  & check more about the Tribeca Festival's line-up at the Chicago-Tribune (US) at :-
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/sns-201203061300reedbusivarietynvr1118051111mar06,0,6592485.story

ANDY WARHOL ... a new book

Andy Warhol's 'Lost' Movies Uncovered
----  extracts from the opening of a substantial article by Vincent Dowd at the BBC News entertainment pages, 7 March 2012 :-

      "Though best known for his paintings, Andy Warhol spent five years producing films. Yet most have barely been seen for decades, as a new book reveals. [Our Kind of Movie: The Films of Andy Warhol]
      At the end of 1963, Andy Warhol took a lease on a former hat factory at 231 East 47th Street in New York City. The studio, which has long since vanished, became known as The Factory. Some people called it The Silver Factory, because originally almost everything was either covered in silver foil or painted silver - including the toilet.
      It was a hang-out for Warhol's friends and for the many hangers-on who hoped his growing celebrity would rub off on them. But it was also a place of work, turning out the silkscreen images which made Andy Warhol famous around the world. Not only that, but the 37-year-old was experimenting with film-making as well.
      US academic Douglas Crimp of Rochester University has just published a study of more than 50 Factory films which have been restored by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Roughly the same number are still to be preserved. "Often people have an idea of what they think a Warhol film will be, even if they haven't seen any," says Crimp. "But there isn't a single type of Warhol film.
      One person who appeared in a handful of the early films was a young actor called Allen Midgette. He recalls a rare shoot that took place outside New York City. "I phoned The Factory to see what was going on and Andy said: 'Oh, we're all heading down to Philadelphia to make a film, why don't you come along?'
"Somehow he got us into the Museum of Art after hours, but he had no idea what to shoot. "They gave me a small loin-cloth; otherwise I was totally nude. In the very centre of the room was this incredible sphinx from Egypt on a platform. So I climbed up there - I was on LSD.
      "Andy immediately got it and started shooting. There's something very dynamic about straddling in the nude an Egyptian sphinx." ....  There were never any parts in the movies - they always asked you to take your clothes off and just sit there."
----       Our Kind of Movie: The Films of Andy Warhol by Douglas Crimp is published in the US by The MIT Press.
----  see more of Vincent Dowd's post at the BBC News site at :-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17259061

PORN'S TARNISHED GILT ...

End of the porn golden age
When I entered the industry, we were staying in French chateaus. Now, companies are struggling to stay alive
----  brief excerpts from an extended article by Michael Stabile, a writer and filmmaker based in Los Angeles, posted at Salon.com, 3 March 2012. Michael is currently in production on a documentary about pornographer Chuck Holmes and his relationship with the gay rights movement. You can follow him at twitter.com/mikestabile. More Michael Stabile

      "My journey into porn began 10 years ago, on my way to a screenwriting career. It was a great time to get into the industry. I stumbled into it because my would-be writing partner was working at a mainstream media company that padded its bottom line with sales of hardcore DVDs. By 2002, even in the midst of a recession, that padding was getting pretty thick. The studios noticed the sales that the Internet generated. They needed someone who could string together a press release, or a script, or a marketing campaign that would work in this new world. It was good money, and plenty of porn. For two gay guys – hell, for two any guys – the next five years were a string of Christmas mornings.
And not just for lucky idiots like us. Everyone was making money. Internet startups had started to figure out streaming video, and you could still sell DVDs all day long. Hundreds of new companies sprouted, like mushrooms after a rainstorm. We were lucky enough to be there for the harvest. We didn’t realize it then, but it was the beginning of porn’s golden age – and it wasn’t going to last. ....
....  Somewhere in 2006, we began to run out of licks. Only a year after Digital Playground produced “Pirates,” a porn movie with a $1 million budget, online video began attracting actual pirates, and they didn’t wear custom-made bras or sell for $69.95. Suddenly, those stacks of DVDs consumers had been collecting began to look like the recycling bin after a drinking binge. The party was ending. And then the economy tanked..... "
----  see more of Michael Stabile's informed inside view of the porn industry's responses to shifting technology at Salon.com at :-
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/03/life_after_the_golden_age_of_porn/

ISRAELI MOVIES COME OUT ...

Israeli men are coming out of the closet & onto the screen
Israeli film has given more prominence to gay characters in recent years, and allowed for a more diverse, and less stereotypical portrayal of them, concludes a new scholarly survey of the topic. 
----  brief excerpts from an extended report by Nirit Anderman in Haaretz.com (Israel) about Nir Cohen's new book on gays in Israeli movies, 2nd March 2012 :-
      "Those who follow Israeli cinema have probably realized in recent years that local filmmakers, including quite a few who are heterosexual, are increasingly choosing to include gay characters in their movies - not rarely in principal roles.  ....  This is precisely the subject of Nir Cohen's recently published book "Soldiers, Rebels and Drifters: Gay Representation in Israeli Cinema." While this English-language book (published by Wayne State University Press ) largely deals with male homosexual characters and leaves the lesbians to other scholars, it offers several interesting observations concerning the history of homosexual representation in our local cinema, and the trends that have been prominent in it. ....
....  Only in 1983, seven years after Amos Guttman's short film "Drifting" (1976 ) was banned for broadcast on local television, did his first feature-length film of the same name appear. The feature-length "Drifting" ("Nagu'a" in Hebrew ), about a young gay man who works in his grandmother's grocery store and dreams of making movies, became an important landmark in the history of local gay culture and of Israeli cinema in general.

      Guttman, the first Israeli filmmaker to treat the gay subject matter seriously, is one of the two main directors that Cohen's book discusses, the other being Eytan Fox; indeed, up until a few years ago, pride of place in this realm belonged to these two filmmakers. Like Guttman, Fox dared to place the gay experience at the center of his work, and to rebel against the traditional approach that preferred to ignore the existence of gays in Israeli society or to present them in a stereotypical and warped fashion.  ....

....     Among feature films of recent years that Cohen examines are "Eyes Wide Open," Haim Tabakman's film from 2009 that portrays a love story between two ultra-Orthodox men, and "The Secrets," Avi Nesher's 2007 film about a love story between two students at an institute for ultra-Orthodox women.  .... "

----  see more of this extensive report by Nirit Anderman at Haaretz.com at :-                 

http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/israeli-men-are-coming-out-of-the-closet-and-onto-the-screen-1.416065

GETTING SEX: guys' double standards ...

Men, Love, & Cheating
Eric Anderson's survey of male promiscuity is persuasive – but has a few obvious holes
----  the tantalizing opening pars from a questioning book review by Catherine Hakim at The Guardian (UK), 1st March 2012 :-

      "The title of this book should really be Cheat's Charter. It is a hoot, and would appeal to readers of lads' mags, if they could only ignore the ponderous sociological jargon designed to show high intellectual aims. Anderson argues that male sexual cheating is ubiquitous; that men cheat "because they love their partners" (although what he actually means is "despite loving them"); that women should understand and accept this; that western rules of fidelity and monogamy impose intolerable and irrational constraints on men's innate, lifelong, somatic need for sexual exploration and adventure; that almost all men become sexually bored with their partner roughly two years into a relationship when they decide they need more diversity and novelty; and that open sexual relationships are the only solution – for men at least.
      Anderson is an American sociologist who specialises in sexuality and sport, partly because he is gay and was a distance runner as a teenager. This explains why his study of cheating behaviour and rationales relies on interviews with 120 male university students aged 18-22, but focusing on American soccer stars. These young men are athletes at their physical peak, who live in a utopian sexual marketplace, with young women often throwing themselves at them, just as some young women groupies in Britain seek to sleep with all members of top football teams.
      By defining cheating broadly enough to include kissing, touching and flirting, he finds that four-fifths of these young men cheat on their partners, especially when they are playing away from their home base. He claims that pretty well all young men, heterosexual and gay, will cheat sooner or later if they possibly can, and that opportunity and deniability are the primary factors.
      His argument has some support in the recent national sex surveys showing that men want sex more than women do. The result is the male sex deficit, as I call it in my book Honey Money – male demand outstrips female supply, overall, in the heterosexual community. .... "
----  see more of this knockout review by Catherine Hakim at The Guardian at :-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/mar/01/monogamy-gap-eric-anderson-review?newsfeed=true

THE ORIGINS OF SEX | Gender Issues

More Sinned Against Than Sinning
----  excerpts from a review by Byron Rogers of the eye-opening new book The Origins of Sex at THE SPECTATOR site (UK), 25 February 2012. The author, Dr. Faramerz Dabhoiwala, is Exeter History Fellow at the University of Exeter, UK.

      "  ....  The Origins of Sex is about the legal and religious attempts to regulate sex outside marriage. It is thus social history, only, as you might expect, it becomes a social history of cruelty and lunacy. In 1650, under the Saints, Parliament passed an act which made adultery a capital offence, and Cromwell’s own brother-in-law supervised the hanging of an adulteress in Taunton, women being then regarded as the more culpable agents, leading men by the nose, or whatever, into sin.  ....  Thus in 1632 a young woman in Waltham Holy Cross was actually made to do penance, even though before being raped she had been dragged across the fields and beaten up by the man who then fathered a child on her. They were horrible, horrible people, our ancestors  ....
....  Religion was the real complicating factor. In 1644 a New World settler got this very badly and made a public confession of sins that included his failed attempt to have sex with a young woman. The authorities managed to trace her and hanged the two of them, she on the scaffold confessing her terrible crime against God and society. She was 18 years old. Our ancestors were not just horrible, they were barking mad. ....  Then there was a sudden change. In the 18th century, women began to be seen, not as the aggressors in sex, but as the victims ....  But the fear of sex persisted. The 18th- century judge Lord Monboddo wrote that it was so enjoyable it derailed the life of the mind. ....
....  Then there were the real head-bangers. The Beggars’ Benison was a sort of 18th-Scottish Rotary Club, except the ceremonial rites of these Rotarians included masturbating communally into a pewter platter, now one of the treasures of Prince William’s alma mater, St Andrews University, which keeps it under lock and key.  ....
....  Some odd facts. Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), whose cadaver is now stuffed & kept in a cupboard at Oxford, wrote in defence of homosexuality, then a capital offence. (In the UK between 1810 and 1831, 46 men were hanged for buggery). Bentham said that Christ had enjoyed such a relationship with St John. The practice remained a criminal offence in living memory — my living memory — but, curiously, while it constituted five per cent of all crimes against the person at the time of Wilde’s prosecution (1895), half a century later, in the 1950s, this had become 20 per cent, involving thousands of prosecutions a year.  .... "
----  see more of Byron Rogers' review of this fascinating, disturbing history about The Origins of Sex at THE SPECTATOR (UK) at :-
http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/7667298/more-sinned-against-than-sinning.thtml

"ZENNE DANCER" | Cool Gay Movie

"ZENNE DANCER": Turkish Taboos Challenged By Gay 'Honor Killing' Movie
----  brief excerpts from a news report by Pelin Turgut (Istanbul) in Time World (US), 28 February 2012 :-

      Turkish movie-theater bookers were less than enthusiastic when two directors — Mehmet Binay and Caner Alper — approached them with a film inspired by the true story of a 26-year-old killed, allegedly by his father, for being gay. Even though Binay and Alper's film, Zenne Dancer, had won awards, they were told that Turkey was not ready for a mainstream gay movie.  ....
....  The film has gone on to clock up 85,000 admissions since opening earlier this month, holding its own against other domestic and U.S. releases. Now theaters across the country are asking to screen it.  ....
....  The film centers on Ahmet Yildiz, who was shot dead in Istanbul in 2008 in what newspapers have called "Turkey's first gay honor killing." Originally from a traditional family in southeastern Turkey, Yildiz went to Istanbul as a university student seeking freedom as a gay man.  ....  Yildiz's father is the chief suspect in the murder and is believed to be hiding in north Iraq. In his absence, the trial continues at a glacial pace. Yildiz's lawyer has accused officials of being halfhearted in their efforts to find him.  ....
....  The success of Zenne Dancer is a reflection of Turkey's growing openness toward airing some old taboos — a change that is paradoxically occurring under a conservative, Islamic-leaning government with a conflicted attitude about personal freedoms. Yet democratic progress is still patchy — some 100 journalists are currently in jail, a number on a par with China. Turkey lacks adequate hate-crime legislation that might discourage intolerance of differences  ....  Still, it is perhaps this push and pull, the ongoing tussle between conservative and progressive, secular and religious and, yes, East and West, that makes Istanbul one of the world's more interesting cultural hot spots. .... "
----  see more of this extended article by Pelin Turgut at Time World (US) at :-
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2107434,00.html?xid=gonewsedit

ACHILLES' GAY LOVE STORY | Historical Novel

Patroclus & Achilles: A Great Gay Love Story
----  excerpts from an article by Alexandra Alter about a new book on Achilles & Patroclus at The Wall; Street Journal Arena page, 24 February 2012 :-
      "Nearly 3,000 years since he was immortalized in Homer's epic "The Iliad," the Greek hero Achilles is still getting literary makeovers. He has appeared in Dante's "Inferno," Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida" and the "Captain Marvel" comic-book series. A recent cluster of novels have featured the warrior, including Zachary Mason's "The Lost Books of the Odyssey," literary writer David Malouf's 2009 novel "Ransom" and paranormal-romance writer P.C. Cast's "Warrior Rising," a romantic caper based on the Trojan War (complete with steamy cover art of Achilles' bare chest).
      Now Madeline Miller, a 33-year-old Latin teacher who lives in Cambridge, Mass., has entered the arena with her debut novel, "The Song of Achilles." Ms. Miller has some advantages over other writers who have taken on the legend. She reads Homeric Greek, has bachelor's and master's degrees in classics ....  Ms. Miller labored over "The Song of Achilles" for a decade—the length of the Trojan War. Five years into the project, she threw away a completed manuscript and started over from scratch. She struggled to perfect the voice of her narrator, Patroclus, Achilles' childhood friend and closest companion and, in Ms. Miller's retelling, his lover.
      Ms. Miller isn't the first to superimpose a love story onto the famous war saga. While Homer doesn't explicitly cast Achilles and Patroclus as lovers, other classical writers, including Plato and Aeschylus, describe their romantic feelings for each other. .... "
----  see more of Alexandra Alter's article at the WSJ at :-
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203960804577239492021861290.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
---- or check out a further essay on the book at the WSJ Speakeasy page at :-
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/02/26/reimagining-the-tale-of-achilles-as-a-great-gay-love-story/

INDIA AWAKES from its historical slumber ...

Homosexuality in India | A Literary History
----  brief excerpts from a substantial essay by Nilanjana S. Roy in The New York Times, 24 February 2012 :-
      “Some men like Jack/ and some like Jill; / I’m glad I like them both; but still…/ In the strict ranks/ of Gay and Straight/ What is my status?/ Stray? or Great?”
      When Vikram Seth wrote “Dubious” many years ago, he may not have realized how long his poem would live. “Dubious” has become an anthem for Indians unwilling to be straitjacketed into heterosexuality, unwilling to accept the argument often put forward that being homosexual, lesbian, transgendered or transsexual is against Indian culture. ....
....  Seth had a long line of predecessors, as the scholar Devdutt Patnaik and the academics Saleem Kidwai and Ruth Vanita have noted. The ancient “Markandeya Purana” carries the story of Avikshita, the son of a king who refused to marry because he believed he was a woman. ....  Gender was fluid, for yakshas and humans alike, in ancient and medieval Indian culture. .... "
----  see more of Nilanjana S. Roy's extensive article with its many references in recent Indian literature to homosexuality at :-
http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/homosexuality-in-india-a-literary-history/
---- and also see the very interesting comments which follow Roy's article, such as :-
      (2) "This article tries to whitewash the problems of a still virulent and cruelly homophobic society. Nilanjana Roy neglects to mention, for example, that same sex sexual relations, even between consenting adults, was a criminal offense in India until 2009 ....  Moreover, despite the 2009 law decriminalizing homosexual acts, gays and lesbians are still harassed by police."
---- and several more comments highlighting the archaic social climate prevailing in contemporary India regarding homosexuality. See too a further article at Autostraddle's lesbian site, 1st March 2012, at :-
http://www.autostraddle.com/indias-queer-literature-persists-despite-political-controversy-over-gays-134362/

HOLLYWOOD'S HIDDEN SCREEN VOICES ... a tribute

       And now for a pleasant musical interlude :-

      Some very community-minded guy or gal under the signature lostvocals6 has recently uploaded a 14-minute YouTube collage/montage/call-it-what-you-will assembly of moments from a host of Hollywood movies across the decades where notable movie stars of their day are revealed to have had their singing voices dubbed by others. A few we already knew, & many of us will recall the hilarious sequences in Singin' in the Rain where Jean Hagen's silent movie star is undone by dubbed singing from Debbie Rerynolds. But here before your very ears, folks, the proverbial cat is out of the bag. It comes complete with all the background singers' names revealed to posterity.
      Besides being a highly-professional piece of audio editing this 14-min collage is a tribute to its collator's movie history & research skills. It is also a tribute to those backroom staff in Hollywood who attended to the more mundane chores of movie-making, like providing singing voices to stars without one.
      Please come back to this page when you've finished enjoying the YouTube video. There's more to see here.

M/M or GAY? What's the difference ... ?

On Defining M/M Romance
What is male/male romance, and how is it different from gay romance?
----  excerpts from a well-considered essay by Dru Pagliasotti at Yaoi Research.com (USA), 20 February 2012 :-

      " ....  In the past, I’ve tentatively defined the male/male romance as a narrative that focuses on the romance between two or more men that has been written by women, usually in the expectation that its primary audience will be other women. By contrast, gay romance would be a narrative that focuses on the romance between two or more men that has been written by men, usually in the expectation that its primary audience will be gay men. ....  Of course in reality we know that things aren’t that simple. Men write and read male/male romance, women write and read gay romance, and sexual orientation doesn’t fit neatly into straight/gay categories. ....
....  On the bright side, however, m/m romance writer Josh Lanyon offers plenty of anecdotal and personal information about the m/m genre in Man, Oh Man! Writing M/M Fiction for Kinks & Cash.
Lanyon’s book is both a primer on “how to write a novel” and a focused look at the male/male industry.
      "The stand-out thing about M/M versus gay romantic fiction is that there’s a distinct sensibility to M/M fiction. In effect, it’s gay men in love and making love versus gay men fucking. It’s about sensual and evocative details. It’s about the choice of language. It’s about emotions rather than mechanics." (2008:8)  ....
....  For example, a 2009 article by Gendy Alimurung in the LA Weekly noted that “most readers of gay-romance novels are — like most readers of straight-romance novels — women who devour 300-page stories of men falling in an out of love with each other, all the while having abundant, glorious and oh-so-graphic sex.” ....
....  A 2010 article by Lizzy Shramko in Lambda Literary put the issue well: “How does a genre of fiction that is exclusively centered around homosexual love, and largely written by and for explicitly straight writers and readers challenge the typical notion of what LGBT fiction is? Perhaps more significantly, how does it problematize the mutual exclusivity of homosexuality and heterosexuality?”
----  see the entire article by Dru Pagliasotti at the Yaoi Research site at :-
http://yaoiresearch.com/2012/02/20/on-defining-mm-romance/#comment-13

SANTORUM'S BIBLE & Obama's 'phony theology' ...

What BIBLE Is Santorum Reading?
----  as the US GOP primaries reach their conclusion here are a few very brief excerpts from a lengthy, provocative, challenging essay by Mike Lux, CEO Progressive Strategies, at The Huffington Post's Religion page, 21 February 2012 :-

      With Rick Santorum's recent comment that Obama's agenda is "Some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology," I am now beginning to wonder if Santorum, Akin, and other conservatives are just reading a different Bible entirely than the one I read. ....  there is simply no way to read the Bible I read and not come to the conclusion that it is overwhelmingly supportive of helping the poor, showing mercy to the weak, refraining from judging, treating others as you would treat yourself, calling on the wealthy to give their money to the poor, and all kinds of other liberal, lefty, progressive values. ....
....  Jesus talks about mercy to those in trouble in 24 verses of the Gospels, tells people not to judge in 34 verses, tells people to love and forgive even their enemies in 53 verses, tells people to love their neighbors as themselves and treat others as they would want to be treated in 19 verses, and specifically tells people to help the poor and/or spurn riches and the wealthy in 128 verses. ....
....  He never once condemns abortion, even though it was very common in ancient times. He never speaks against homosexuality, even though the ancient Greeks before him and the Romans living in those times openly practiced and celebrated it. He called on the Romans and the Jewish establishment to treat the poor better, not condemn an adulteress to death, and to take the money-changers out of the temple, but he never once asked the Romans to lower their taxes or lessen their regulations on over-burdened businesses. He never celebrated the greatness of the invisible hand of the market, and never discussed the virtues of selfishness, as conservatives today are so fond of doing.  ....
....  When Rick Santorum says that Obama follows a theology not based on the Bible, I have to say this: either he is not reading the same Bible I do, or he is not reading the Bible at all, because Rick Santorum's political views are in direct, fundamental opposition to the Bible he claims to follow.  .... "
----  see more of Mike Lux's incisive dispute with aspects of GOP claims at The Huffington Post (US) at :- ' http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-lux/what-bible-is-santorum-reading_b_1288094.html
---- also see the CBS (US) site where a former Senator offers opinions on Santorum's past views at :-
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3460_162-57382599/santorum-homophobic-former-senator-says/

SEX and its fundamentalist opponents ...

Inside the Sexual Counter-Revolution
----  very brief excerpts from a substantial interview by Megan Wood at Salon.com with US historian Nancy L. Cohen about her new book, “Delirium: How the Sexual Counterrevolution is Polarizing America,”, 21 February 2012 :-
     "For the last 40 years, the Right's sexual paranoia has warped our politics. An expert explains how to change that   ....   While politicians argue endlessly over what Americans should be doing in their bedrooms, statistics show that middle America agrees on legal abortion, gay civil unions and access to birth control. So why are politicians debating issues that have long been settled, while more pressing topics like unemployment, renewable energy and overseas wars remain on the back burner? ....  Historian Nancy L. Cohen, author of the new book, “Delirium: How the Sexual Counterrevolution is Polarizing America,” explains how America’s conflicted attitudes toward the sexual revolution have fueled America’s political wars for the past 40 years, causing a deep divide that has remade the cultural landscape. Cohen describes how a minority of America’s population is making antiquated decisions about legislation that infringes dangerously on the rights of America’s majority. ....
What makes sex such a central issue to Americans in particular? Other countries have managed to liberalize their attitudes successfully, what do you think makes America different, than say, England?
America is by far the most religious of the advanced nations. I think there’s a long history in America of puritanicalism, of excessive religiosity. The opposition to modern sexual mores, by this point, is really entirely concentrated among the most religiously orthodox people in the country and among the religions that take a particularly traditionalist view of sex: That it only belongs in heterosexual marriage, that sex outside of marriage is a sin, that homosexual sex is a sin, that even for someone like Santorum, sex that doesn’t lead to children is wrong. ....
What do you see as the long-term outcome of the sexual counterrevolution? Do you think there’s hope?
In 2010, 40 million Americans who voted in 2008 stayed home, and that’s how the Tea Party elected these Republicans who want to outlaw birth control, abortion and gay marriage. If all those people who had voted in 2008 had voted in 2010, we would have never had this far-right Republican majority in Congress. The answer is to vote and stay informed, and we can put an end to this."
----  see more of Megan Wood's lengthy, insightful interview with Nancy L. Cohen at Salon.com at :-
http://www.salon.com/2012/02/20/inside_the_sexual_counterrevolution/

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS rises from the grave ....

Tennessee Williams' Last Play Finally To Be Staged
(And it's As Gay As Blazes)
----  excerpts from a new report by Michael Riedel at The New York Post, 18 February 2012 :-

      "Before he choked to death on a bottle cap at the Hotel Elysée in 1983, Tennessee Williams hoped to stage a comeback with a new play called “In Masks Outrageous and Austere.” He’d written several hundred pages, but right after his death, his friend, writer Gavin Lambert, squirreled them away. Lambert didn’t want critics, who ran down most of Williams’ later plays, attacking his last work.
      But in 2005, shortly before his own death, Lambert released the manuscript. Gore Vidal took a stab at editing it, and Peter Bogdanovich was planning to direct a Broadway production starring his ex-girlfriend Cybill Shepherd. Nothing came of those plans, and “In Masks Outrageous and Austere” went back into limbo. Until now.
      Director David Schweizer got hold of the play and, using what he calls “sophisticated forensic computer techniques,” was able to craft a version that is true, he believes, to Williams’ intentions. Schweizer is directing the world premiere, which starts previews April 5 at the Culture Project on Bleecker Street.
      “In Masks Outrageous and Austere” is about the richest woman in the world. Her husband is gay and has a young lover. The three of them are kidnapped by mysterious corporate forces behind the woman’s vast wealth. .... "
----  see more of Michael Riedel's report at The New York Post at :-

http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/theater/play_finally_to_be_tennes_seen_oEdnitCDAHaDNV5JwHL2yH#ixzz1mhArtZT5
----  or check a similar report at Queertycom at :-
http://www.queerty.com/tennessee-williams-last-play-finally-to-be-staged-and-its-gay-as-blazes-20120218/

DOWNTON ABBEY, reliving a thankfully-gone bygone era ...

'DOWNTON ABBEY': Its Upside-Down Appeal
---- opening thoughts from an extended tv-arts commentary on the inverted politics of Downton Abbey by Carina Chocano at The New York Times, revised 19 February 2012 :-

      For a man of equanimity, Robert Crawley, the Earl of Grantham and lord of Downton Abbey [played by UK actor Hugh Bonneville], is surprisingly prone to fits of temper — nothing sparks his ire like an injustice done to a social inferior in his employ. You half-expect him to tear off his dinner jacket and reveal a spandex unitard as he rushes to succor an admiring serf. When a young woman accuses his footman of cowardice, the master leaps to the man’s defense, chin quivering in righteous indignation. When his shellshocked interim valet tells him people look at him and wonder why he’s not in uniform, the master bellows, “You refer them to me and I’ll give them a piece of my mind!” ....
....  Has a fictional aristocrat as upright and honorable, as tender of heart and noble of spirit, as humble, forbearing, magnanimous, solicitous and totally ludicrous as the Earl of Grantham ever graced the screen? Supermodels playing rocket scientists in Nicolas Cage movies put less strain on my credulity. It’s not just that the earl takes his role as steward of the British class system seriously; it’s that he’s positively messianic in his flock-tending. His noblesse is all about oblige. In fact, save for an uncharacteristic, but not at all inconsistent, indiscretion toward the end of the second season, the earl’s behavior is a model of self-effacing forbearance. He simply cannot do enough. You can’t help wondering what gives? .... "
----  see more of this fascinating, extended questioning of Downton Abbey's pecking orders & social gestures by Carina Chocano of The New York Times at :-
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/downton-abbey.html?_r=1&ref=television
----  for a more critical review of Season Two of Downton Abbey see Michael Lemberger's review at Salon.com at :-
http://www.salon.com/2012/02/19/downton_abbey_were_breaking_up/

HOLLYWOOD BABYLON | Gay History?

Sex, Lies, & Celluloid
FULL SERVICE: The sex lives of the stars, by Scotty Bowers
----  excerpts from a substantial review by Roger Lewis in the Books page of The Mail Online (UK), 17 February 2012 :-

      " Gore Vidal asserts on the back-flap of this book that ‘Scotty doesn’t lie’ - but that’s not the same thing as saying that Scotty Bowers, former Hollywood pimp and male prostitute, isn’t a considerable fabulist ....  Bowers, as a hunky ex-marine, in the Forties became ‘enmeshed in a wild world of sexual intrigue the likes of which few people can ever begin to imagine’. Oh, I think most adolescent lads would be up to the task ....  But on the whole, Bowers’ Tinsel Town is thoroughly gay  ....  Bowers beds the usual suspects - Anthony Perkins, Rock Hudson, and Tony Richardson; and yet he also spends enchanting evenings with masculine, pipe-puffing chaps like Walter Pidgeon and Raymond Burr ....
....  For a modest twenty-dollars, ‘I became the go-to guy in town for arranging whatever people desired’ - and the accounts of Charles Laughton’s tastes and Tyrone Power’s proclivities turned my stomach. ....  Regular clients included George Cukor, Vincent Price  ....  Noel Coward, Cecil Beaton (‘painfully prissy’), Laurence Olivier, Peter Bull ... how curious and coincidental that all of them are dead and beyond being able to answer back!  ....
....   Bower’s chief revelation concerns Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. Despite there being massive, definitive, exhaustively researched biographies on each of them, which quite fail to mention any of this, Bowers’ contention is that the famous relationship between the stars was false and non-existent, because Hepburn was a lesbian and Tracy was a homosexual. .... "
----  see more of Roger Lewis's questioning article at The Mail at :-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/books/article-2102101/Sex-lies-celluloid-FULL-SERVICE-THE-SECRET-SEX-LIVES-OF-THE-STARS-BY-SCOTTY-BOWERS.html
---- and compare it with an earlier commentary at The Express (UK) at :-
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/299140/I-was-a-gigolo-to-the-stars-I-was-a-gigolo-to-the-stars-I-was-a-gigolo-to-the-stars-I-was-a-gigolo-to-the-stars

CONN IGGULDEN's fifth Mongol novel | Historical Fiction

From a Teacher's Tales to Terrible Tyrants
---- excerpts from an article by Sue Grant-Marshall at Business Day (South Africa), 14 February 2012 :-

     "BRITISH author Conn Iggulden writes his million-seller historical fiction the way Wilbur Smith writes novels, and with the same results — sleepless nights for his readers. In his latest book, Conqueror (Harper Collins), he sets history ablaze with such vigour and pace even I, a mere woman, am riveted by battle scenes between the Mongol and Chinese armies. Conversely, he weaves his fantastic tale about Kublai Khan, one of history’s most powerful and richest men, with remarkable insight and sensitivity.
      His characters are so exquisitely crafted that Genghis Khan, Kublai’s grandfather, who was as illiterate as he was infamously cruel, leaps to life. This is in spite of there being only one record of his rampaging existence from which Iggulden could draw.
....  His books sell as fast as the Arctic’s ice melts, yet he’s one of the most self-effacing, boyishly enthusiastic authors I’ve met. I have to wheedle his success story out of him. He’s the schoolteacher son of an Irish mother, "who, from an early age, told me history was an exciting series of stories, with dates".
      He’d written and had 17 books rejected before he turned 20. He told his wife Ella that one on the young Julius Caesar, that he’d taken a year off teaching to write, would, if rejected, "finish me off because I was running out of money".
      It marked his turning point. Five publishing houses had a bidding war over it and now, eight years on, he’s sold at least 7-million historical books.
....  Iggulden is a staggeringly prolific author. Since 2003 he’s produced a 400-page-plus historical novel every year. In addition, he’s written a children’s book about tough fairies called Tollins and a novella, Blackwater ....  "
----  see more of Sue Grant-Marshall's article about Conn Iggulden at Business Day at :-
http://www.businessday.co.za/Articles/Content.aspx?id=164847