Porn!: Dirty Gay Erotica

The new paperback book Porn! Dirty Gay Erotica ($17.95, The Haworth Press), is a collection of 20 short stories meant to titillate and arouse the reader. The anthology, edited by Ian Philips and Greg Wharton, contains a wide variety of smut - some of which you'll read with relish, others you'll stop reading after the first paragraph and move onto the next.

Bozo Boy, written by TruDeviant, is about a man who dominates another by putting the naked man in clown make-up and hitting him in the face with pies. They sound like characters out of a John Waters movie, but their short story is anything but erotic. Instead of wanting to jerk-off, you'll want to search the fridge for some dessert.

The Guy with the Dick, credited here to "Horehound Stillpoint," tells the story of three phases of a man's life: his first sexual initiation, his long relationship with the love of his life, and finally, his sleazy life after the death of his ex-partner. The surprise identity of the writer (No, silly, it's not John Travolta!) is revealed at the end of the story.

Sugar by Justin Chin is an example of those stories you stop reading as soon as you begin them. The first line of this story about a junkie being worked over by his drug dealer will give you an idea why: "The diarrhea had gotten so bad that fucking his ass was like poking at an overfilled water-balloon with the jagged-edged finger of a chronic nail-biter." It's all downhill from there.

Paul J. Willis' Slingin' in the Wind is the story of a young New Orleans man who's the victim of a brutal hate crimes beating. To recuperate he goes to Washington, DC to visit his master and his friends who put him through some rather exhausting sexual paces.

Greg Herren's Son of a Preacher Man tells the story of two teenagers in a small town and their struggles with being gay and their attraction to each other.

Saving Billy by Bob Vickery is about a young man who joins the Marines, but his fuck buddy outs him to his recruiting officer in order to try and save his friend's life.

Like beauty, erotica is in the eye of the beholder. This collection will likely be the appreciated by many gay readers, but most of the stories in the book weren't this reviewer's cup of pee. I mean, tea.