Swelling Manhood, Heaving Bosom

Have you ever seen someone do something with such frequency and passion that you simply HAD to do it also in order to find out what was so great about it? This week's episode of the Sarah Silverman Program demonstrated that when Sarah's dog constantly licked his own ass. Sarah was so curious as to why he did it so much that she licked it too.

When I was younger, my grandmother would come visit us for the summer. Along with her normal luggage, she'd have a huge box full of Harlequin romance novels that she would intend to read before she left. She'd read two of them each day and sometimes we'd have to tear the book from her hands in order to have a conversation with her.

What was in these books that she found so fascinating? I held my grandmother in the highest regard because she taught me how to read and inspired me to find and absorb knowledge wherever I could find it, so it naturally . I had to figure out what was so great about these weird books with funny cover art like shirtless pirate men clutching a wench or an office man not paying attention to a secretary who was looking at him.

My first Harlequin romance novel featured two rival architects, a man and a woman, competing for a top spot at their company. The guy was a womanizer and the woman had many bad relationships and they ended up marrying each other in the end after it was discovered that the buildings they designed could be integrated into one mega building that suited the needs of many clients. That part was well and good, but all of the love scenes in between the romantic fodder were fucking hot.

Keep in mind that I was a wee lad who had to look up some of the words in the dictionary. I did figure out what was meant by Jonathan's "stiffening love." I was nearing puberty and didn't have access to a lot of porn back then, so I'd borrow a lot of those romance novels so I could explore sexuality without a lot of embarrassment coming over me.

Grandmother was actually impressed with my interest in romance books. She was an English teacher, so she used that opportunity to school me on the literary structure and formula of the romance novel genre. I was more interested in Jonathan's hungry mouth devouring Sandra's eager milky bosom, but I pretended to listen to grandma's explanation as to why the romance novel is a valid literary genre anyway. It was the pre-pubescent gay boy's equivalent to reading Playboy and pretending to be interested in the articles.

Now I come to find out that there are a whole slew of gay-themed romance novels and I am pleased as punch! The one I am currently reading is called "Discreet Young Gentleman," a period book about a wealthy land owner who falls in love with a male prostitute.

You can laugh all you want, but I'm not ashamed of being into romance novels - straight or gay. They're actually preferable to porn when you've seen as many films as I have. You'll eventually get to a point where you rent a porn film and it's the same old actors doing the same old acts of depravity in the same old remote locations of the Great Salt Lake and you realize that if you've seen one Mormon porn, you've seen them all.

They're also great for stimulating the imaginative side of your sexuality. I love the fact that I can embrace my romantic side by living through the characters without the hassle of going out and getting a boyfriend and being forced to listen to his boring day when all I want to do is cup his throbbing manhood and have his strong sinewy arms wrapped around my twitching, nubile flesh.