GUEST POST with GIVEAWAY: Making Men by Sam Standish

Too busy to read a guest post? You’ll kick yourself if you miss this one 🙂 Sam Standish has joined us to talk about his new novel. The post makes really interesting reading with some links to some excellent (must be kept under a link) photos. Make sure you follow Sam’s Tumblr too. I checked it out and you won’t be disappointed! Unless of course, you don’t like naked men. 🙂 Plus don’t forget to enter the giveaway.

Greetings, all! I am very excited to be sharing today an interesting piece of my experience writing and marketing my novel Making Men. As well as a realization that it all led to.

In the course of publicizing Making Men, I became a pornographer. I did not foresee this. I had created a “Sam Standish” page on Facebook and shared sexy pictures of men. I embarked on a blog tour, revealing details of my sexual history and fantasies. But it’s when I went on Twitter and Tumblr that a flood of cocks and abs and butts overcame me, and I had to keep the flood flowing to others (along with repeated posts of my cover image and links to blog appearances like this one). I sort through dozens of pictures, finding what to retweet and reblog. The onslaught has begun to bore me, or some of it has, and so it has made me think about what I really like in men. Bored with the ripped and the rock-hard and the scowling, I have become a fan of tumblrs devoted to average bodies (dadbods) and small and/or soft dicks. After all, the characters in Making Men have average bodies. Wait. You’re kidding. Average bodies in an erotic novel?? Yes. It’s their hearts and souls that are exceptional. I always wanted it to be like that. I want it to be like that in any future erotic fiction I write.

Anyway, getting back to the visual, I was actually surprised that soft dicks are a major thing, with many tumblrs and blogs devoted to them. Other people thought like I did, but I wasn’t even sure how I thought. So I thought about how I thought about bodies and dicks.

Professional photos of hard bodies often tire me because they have layers of defenses. First, all that unnecessary muscle. Then the meticulous manscaping that may subtract hair but that adds a layer of alienating perfection. Then PhotoShop. The men end up looking like they were made of brushed aluminum or plastic. In erotic photos, men may display the ultimate defense: the erection. Many guys seem not to have a relationship, a connection with their erect penises. They put them up like walls and scowl out from behind them at us. No wonder I began to love guys, especially amateur guys, who go naked before the camera—or are pleasantly surprised by it—all guileless, grinning and soft. Like this guy. Or these two. Caught by a lover or friend. Posing a bit awkwardly. Not caring what anyone thinks. Guys who are smiling, for God’s sake! Leaping, running, swimming, playing. Like these guys. Or this one. I don’t know really these men or the circumstances of their being photographed, but I like to think these guys are free not just of cares and clothes, but, on a beautiful day in a beautiful setting, of any absurd preoccupations that their endowments matter.

I have begun to look less the turn-on in pictures and more for emotional content: joy, pride, openness, desire. I don’t eliminate large endowments, but some put me off. Some are too for me to imagine doing anything with them very easily. Some look PhotoShopped. Some are out of proportion with the bodies to which they are attached. But if a guy is enjoying his cock, if he is relating to it manfully, I don’t care what the size, big or small. On the small-dick sites, some of those guys look like they’re having a great time. I do not eliminate hard-ons, either, but I prefer photos—of which there are few—in which the man truly has a relationship with his erection. You know a man is a good lover when you look at him erect and indeed think of it as him being erect, not just his cock. This guy comes as close as any I’ve seen to being one with his erection—revealing himself through it, not defending himself with it. I want him to fuck me. He looks like he wants to fuck me. Not impress me or beat me down. (My tumblr, by the way, is here, with many more pictures like these and some more traditional. After all, big or small, hard or soft, ultimately it’s ultimately not the dick, but the man.)

How does this relate to Making Men? When I sat down to write erotica, I wanted to portray sex as a vehicle for deep, passionate love, and I wanted to portray deep passionate love as a vehicle—as the vehicle—for unveiling our most intimate desires, needs, beliefs, vulnerabilities, even flaws. To uncover yourself as a whole person, every time. This is easier to do physically than to do emotionally and spiritually. You forget your physical flaws in the moment. Your raw needs and passions abide in you always, and each new day with the loved one is an opportunity to dissemble or reveal. Most of us do both. It can be a rare treat to let a twisted desire fly out in the presence of the one before whom we feel most vulnerable. Making Men has two scenes (at least, maybe more; I tend to forget what I’ve written!) in which men fear their bodies will disappoint their lovers. In both cases the fears are unfounded. Myself, I do not reveal much about the characters’ bodies. It’s the enlargement of the heart and spirit that matters to me, more than the engorgement of cocks. Although, since I make the penis a symbol of the male spirit, the penises in my book stay very hard for very long, and they ejaculate wildly. And holes are opened gladly and semen taken hungrily. Just as I imagine it is by some of the men whose pictures I have shared with you.

I thank you for reading today, and thanks to Nic. You’re a sweetheart, and I appreciate the opportunity greatly! Good luck, everyone, with the giveaway. Whether you win or not, please read Making Men. Thanks!

Sam

BIO

SAM STANDISH lives on the edge of a dark forest by a mighty river. Making Men is his first novel.

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BLURB

Three passionate men. Tony and Kevin are older and have learned to give, body and soul, till it hurts. Into their lives comes another young man, wanting desperately to give and to take all he can. Together these three will reach heights they never imagined. And each will discover for himself where he has to go next. This is a tale of devotion and transcendence. A tale of young male bodies. A tale unlike any other you have ever read.

BUY LINKS:

http://www.wildecity.com/books/gay-erotica/making-men/#.VT_xjCFViko

COVER DESIGN CREDIT: Adrian Nicholas. (c) 2015 Wilde City Press

GIVEAWAY:

Win an eBook copy of Making Men.

Click here or on the image to enter the Rafflecopter.