Adam covering his equipment to prevent an M/M author from thumping it
Have you ever wondered why so many strange things happen in M/M romances? I know that het has its share of funky stuff but M/M seems to spawn something new every week. Does this sub genre have its own language and customs? It would seem so.
I complain often that our authors don’t show enough imagination in their plots and characterizations, but can there too much imagination at times?
Over a year ago Stuart, a very astute gay man who had lived most of his life in New York, questioned some of the tropes and assumptions that authors made about gay men and their lifestyles. We had a lot of fun with Stuart and his favourite tropes, including the very popular one about whether penises twitched when erect, linked here. 🙂
Recently I came across a few of his issues that I never posted and since I’m all tapped out mentally for new ideas for this week’s rant commentary, I thought that today I would use some of his unpublished comments in addition to a few situations that I’ve encountered recently.
Stuart was amazed at the amount of butt wiggling going on in M/M romances. He wondered how this could be normal behaviour for a gay man (maybe he was out of the butt wiggling loop.) :)It seemed that the ‘cock twitch,’ real or imagined in M/M romances, could often be set off by one character wiggling his butt at another. This was supposed to be especially amusing when said wiggling occured in a public place, triggering one of those massive, uncontrollable erections in the other protagonist. Stuart said and I quote: “I have never wiggled my butt in sexual provocation, I have never had a butt wiggled at me in sexual provocation, I have never seen a butt wiggled in sexual provocation. An exception would be on the dance floor. There is far too much bizarre butt wiggling going on in M/M romances.”
What’s your view of butt wiggling in M/M romances? 🙂
Here’s another one from Stuart. Is the pronoun “I” in danger of disappearing from our M/M vocabulary? When things get hot and heavy this seems to happen a lot. Why in M/M fiction do the protagonists stop using the pronoun “I” when they are in a state of extreme sexual arousal. Suddenly the characters are saying: “Want you.” “Need you.” “Need you to fuck me.” “Want you inside me.” Stuart claims never to have noticed an inability to use pronouns in bed, assuming he’s able to speak and is not moaning, ululating or making some kind of noise he would be embarrassed for anyone but his partner to hear.
Do you find the sudden inability of M/M protagonists to use the pronoun “I” a particularly irritating trope in M/M romances?
Overused words and phrases:
a. The protagonist is “fucked into/through the mattress.”
b. The protagonist “melts”
c. The protagonist “huffs” out a word or phrase.
d. The protagonist “smirks” or “winks” when successfully teasing or being teased.
e. the protagonist “snorts.” I thought only animals (pigs do this a lot) snorted, except for someone with a cocaine habit. 🙁
So much snorting going on. Have gay men gone back to the days of cave men or prehistoric beasts, or are they just porkers? Why do they snort, smirk and wink so much in M/M romances?
Here’s something else I have been noticing a lot. When one of the protagonists has an erection at an inappropriate time he thumps his cock to deflate it. Have any of you or your men tried thumping to deflate an erection? I’m told that it’s very painful and none of the men I know do it, so why is it so prevalent in M/M romances? Can the guys not think of something really gross to deflate their erections? (e.g. A picture of their 80 year old math teacher doing the nasty might work) 😉 What’s the fixation with thumping?
Guys, what do you think of thumping to get rid of an erection? Have you ever tried it? Send me pictures of the injured part in bandages or splints. LOL – Kidding! (OK you can send the pictures to my sekkrit email address if you really want to) 😉
What about you? Are there some M/M tropes you find just as annoying? Or maybe you have some you’d like to mention that are really funny.
BTW I’m told all the time by authors that while the stories are fantasies the characterizations are realistic.
Enquiring minds – Stuart’s and mine – even though he seems to have gone underground, would like a few answers if you have the time or inclination. Please don’t beat me up. This is a fun post, although the thumping could land a guy in hospital with broken equipment. 🙁
Whimping! That happens a lot in M/M romances (though it is kind of cute…)
Maybe a bit OTT but lately I have seen some real outlandish plot devices used that I am not sure is necessary. The weird angel in Xu for example and I recently read a blurb that seemed interesting, it was about some FBI agents, and then suddenly the story is coupled to a story from ancient Egypt.
Hi Sunshine
Good morning.
I noticed a lot of “whimpering” too.
Don’t get me going on the strange plots. Like you, I have noticed that plot ideas seem to be getting stranger and stranger. 🙂
I dont think these weird plots helps them sell books though. I mean, I have a detective/agent fetish and I would buy almost anything in that genre but I am not so interested in reincarnation from ancient egypt so they lost me as a customer…
Well, I don’t know, but my kid and I snort all the time when something stupid is said, something ridiculous. That is NOT an animal trait or else you guys only know very serious people who can’t see the amusement in the ridiculous and make a sound that expresses that. It can be a sound (kind of in the back of your throat) or a huff of air through the nose. Not weird to me at all.
Cutting out I? Whatever. I like winking and smirking. I like people who wink and smirk, female and male. *shrug*
I don’t have issues with any of these things. But then I consider myself a “forgiving” reader. You can’t read 400 stories a year and expect not to find repetition of some kind. There are not 400+ ways to express certain things. 400 descriptions for a teasing look? I think not.
I’m also reading fiction. I don’t care if guys don’t wiggle their butts in real life. It’s fun to read about it. Werewolves don’t exist in real life, I like to read about it. To be honest I get a bit frustrated at times by people who pick on minute details and go “people I know don’t do that”. Umm. Yeah well, people I know do, including me it seems (although I’ve never thumped a cock), and if you want to read a realistic fiction, m/m ROMANCE is not the place to find your reading material. Whew. Rant done. LOL
Tam
First of all, my apologies for being late but I was somewhere no one wants to be – at a funeral for a friend – which is why I wanted to write something fun.
I doubt I have read 150 books this year because I have to work and there are other forms of entertainment than reading. To read 400+ books I would have to put the rest of my life on hold, including working. Oh BTW, I do read other types of literature such as biographies, general fiction, murder mysteries etc.. 🙂
Okay, this is supposed to be a fun post not something to get anyone’s knickers or shorts in a twist, although there are some semi serious overtones. I believe I said from the outset that almost everything in the post was from Stuart (mainly by emails). This is one of several posts I did using his comments.
I cop to the comments about “snorting” and “smirking” because they seem to be staples of some authors in how they describe sounds and facial expressions. I now refuse to read and review books by a few authors who don’t know any other expressions.
As for the butt wiggling, I guess if I were a gay man I would feel somewhat mortified at being made fun of in M/M romances.
It’s all a matter of perspective. You tolerate some stuff in books until you can’t any more.
In closing, this WAS supposed to be a “fun” post and I’m sorry you didn’t find it funny. 🙁 I’ll try to do better next time.
Wave, I’m so sorry about your friend!!
**massive hugs**
Ally
Thanks Ally.
It was a horrible day so I’m glad for the distraction of responding to the comments. He was a very nice man. 🙁
It was funny and I knew that, but I think sometimes we sound like a whiny lot. “I don’t liiiiike that”. Oh well. I read tons of shorts, thats why I said stories. LOL 12 pages is a story, not necessarily 250. Eeek.
Sorry about your friend. That’s always hard.
I’m afraid I’m laughing too hard to give you a sensible answer.
Madelynne
It was supposed to be funny so I’m glad it achieved its objective. 🙂
Hehe, I’m with Tam on the winking, smirking and butt wiggling! So long as it fits the character, bring it on 😀
Agreed with the loss of pronouns problem, though. That is quite irritating. I’d rather have a safari-style chorus of grunts, snorts, moans, groans, whimpers, wails, yelps, mewls, growls, howls, snarls and roars… sorry, how many animals were there in this bed?!
What can I say? I love noisy sex and I love my thesaurus ;D
I’d rather have a safari-style chorus of grunts, snorts, moans, groans, whimpers, wails, yelps, mewls, growls, howls, snarls and roars… sorry, how many animals were there in this bed?!
Almost snorted my coffee. Too funny.
And I’m afraid to say the mention of cocks twitching woke up my limerick muse (long presumed dead):
There’s this trope that has some readers bitching,
But which others do find quite bewitching,
‘Cause in M/M Romance
Hidden in those guys’ pants
Are cocks that won’t stop leaping and twitching.
Oh gawd! I can’t stop laughing. What a wonderful way to begin Friday- with a huge smile on my face. 🙂
Always happy to put a smile on people’s faces!
And because my limerick muse won’t stop bouncing around, here are two more:
If your men like to flirt with a wink
And their cheeks flush delectably pink,
Bet they melt in a puddle
Of lust when they cuddle
And then climax exactly in sync.
There once was this young guy from Quimper
Whose dick couldn’t be any limper,
Till he twigged he was queer,
Took a cock up the rear
And then came with a kittenish whimper.
Patty
Next week I’m going to charge. LOL No more free fun. 🙂
Wave, I’ll willingly pay if next week’s post is as fun/funny as this week. By the end of my week, I’m ready for a good laugh; even at the expense of my keyboard. 😉
Josephine, where would you like your internetz delivered? That limerick was good for a coffeesnort!
Then OMG, you had followups! ROFL!
Hehe, thanks! I do love writing the things. Usually they’re filthier than this, mind… ;D
Internetz? Does that mean I win something? 😀
Josephine
That’s great for the first 10 or 20 books but try reading 150 or more where the constant repetition is like a nail on a blackboard, or something equally annoying to the point that I want to throw my very expensive ereader against the wall. 🙁
I guess the number of animals would depend on whether the book was a contemporary or paranormal. 🙂
I’ve noticed an amazing amount of gay men in these books getting fully hard in an instant. (From a smirk or a wink no less.) Wouldn’t take cause fainting? I think there should be a study done on the time it actually takes with nothing more than visual stimulation. Volunteers? I’ll bring my stopwatch.
Oh, and I know I’m guilty of the missing pronouns. But, like Tam said, that’s something I’m happy to lose occasionally myself.
The only time animal noises bother me is when they don’t make sense or can’t be done: “I love you,” he grunted. Pardon?
I think it can be pretty individual. Age plays a factor, general health, whether the guy’s been drinking or doing drugs, his emotional state, etc etc. I’ve known guys who could go from zero to sproing in a few seconds without a hand on ’em, no problem *g* Any guy who faints from getting a hard-on, though, should probably see his doctor. Even a really BIG dick doesn’t hold all that much blood when it’s hard.
**takes off nurse hat**
Ally
I want to be a nurse so that I have an excuse to handle all kinds of equipment in the cause of “research.” 🙂 Do you get to … ahem ….examine the blood flow and check whether there’s too much of a sudden flow of it to the brain? On second thought, who cares about the brain, go lower, much lower. LOL
Alright I’m finished being a perv.
Hi Missy
They are just overly virile or maybe it was the blue pill at work. 🙂
See, it’s not just me and Stuart. LOL
LOL nice rant, Wave. Butt wiggeling. Hmmm… I can’t say I’ve given it any conscious thought. I do seem to have read a few stories in which one lover “wiggles” in his lover’s lap. But now that you wrote this, I keep imagining man wiggeling their butts like dogs wag their tails…thanks for the visual 😉
Hmmm the absence of the use I… mesa thinks that is has a twofold reason. 1 is it is hot and (much) talking during sex… nah. 2. it’s become a literary tradition. (here I got again with the lit. trad.) but it has become populair and if it works for one author…who says it doesn’t work for another. Much like the use of three fingers or the lube hiding under the pillow (sorry, but if I have something under my pillow my neck is guaranteed to hurt the next morning) or, or, or 😉 same goes for the other words used.
I can’t say how much it has begun to annoy me that characters “whimper” always during sex… in my vocab, whimper is not always a good thing, though that can just be me! 😉
Larissa
Save me from everyone who wants my head. Didn’t they read that this was supposed to be a fun post? Where is everyone’s sense of humour?
That’s exactly what I thought when I read Stuart’s email. Now gay men are wiggling like dogs? 🙁 I guess I can see his point.
“Whimper”s okay for the first 50 books. After that you take your chances with the red pen. LOL
Like everything else, overuse leads to readers going “What – not again” which is the stage I’m at.
hahaha but it’s because you’re always so serious that people never think fun! I thought it was good and funny, but a bit serious too 😉
Or people just want to give you their opinions!!
Miraculously the “I” comes back near the end.
I want you = Invitation to sex
…want you = Foreplay
I……Oh!… = Almost there 🙂
Sims
I never looked at it that way and I guess Stuart didn’t either. 🙂 Good point. I wonder about other phrases involving pronouns. LOL Something to ponder.
The thumping always makes me wince! But then the thump-ee always seems to recover so quickly (and bruise-free), so at least there’s the comedy…
Our editor always dings us on too many snorts, smirks, winks, et al; they’re distinctive and memorable words and tend to lose their impact if used too often. Luckily, we catch much of it in edits, but I’ll be honest and supremely grateful for my amazing editor who makes us kill even more as we go. Otherwise, I’d be blushing furiously and pretending I never saw this… (kidding!)
Elizabeth
YOU try being a gay man whose cock is always being thumped. See how you like it. LOL I had lunch with a guy yesterday and asked him if he had ever thumped his cock … he looked at me in amazement and asked whether he was supposed to take off his clothes BEFORE thumping or after, and how was he supposed to get into position to do the thumping. He’s very into this – he wanted to know how hard to thump. I told him that I would have to consult a few authors and get back to him. He was a bit put off when I said there was no money in this for him and that it was just an experiment, and I would not be doing any damn thumping on his dick.
I salute your editors who are doing a great job for readers by making sure that not too many smirks, winks and snorts get through.
He’s very into this – he wanted to know how hard to thump.
There must be some way to funnel some grant money in his direction so that he can make a serious study of this. 😀
Val
I think he just wanted me to feel him up, the perv. 😉
(Sorry I didn’t reply sooner, I was hiding this weekend under writing and a small mountain of emails)
I was thinking that the “comedy” is really unintentional. I’ve only met a couple of guys that might possibly like something like that, and only in a very specific context with an experienced Dom/Domme. The kind of thumping I’ve read about, though, would probably cause bruising, and I can’t imagine your average guy would be thinking sexy thoughts so soon after like the books show, but… well… yeah.
Then there’s the butt wiggle. That always makes me think of my cat, about to pounce on his catnip sock. 😉
Wait…huffing is allowed – if the hero is a glue sniffer. Not that I would find that sexy but…just sayin’.
Any parent of a teenager, knows huffing is very very common. Usually followed by “Mooooottthhhherrrr” and a nice big eyeroll. 🙂
Hi AJ
I grant you that huffing is permitted if the character is a glue or cocaine sniffer. LOL
Oh my word. There are so many excellent responses here. Yes- I live with a teenager who huffs to no end. Simsala, I would have said that the loss of pronouns is irritating; however, your explanation makes perfect sense!
Wave,
I have to say, I am guilty of dropping the pronoun on occasion. 🙂 When I do it, it’s meant to convey a sense of urgency in a sexual situation, even though I know realistically it doesn’t happen. I’ve never done it, and neither have my partners, but I think fantasy is allowed just a little leeway with the particulars.
But, I agree with Tam about the smirking, snorting, winking, huffing stuff. I do all those things with my partners, and they with me, so it’s a realistic thing for me. The butt wiggling is something I view as playful, though I don’t think I’ve ever written butt wiggling. Butt wiggling isn’t an unconscious gesture usually, and there is a time and place for the fun, wiggle-wiggle of a butt at someone. 😉
Cock thumping is just bizarre. Not to mention, if you’re trying to lose an erection, touching your cock in any sort of way is not the way to go about it. There’s a reason why the cliche is to think about baseball, not punch yourself in the junk.
In the end, when I pick up a M/M romance (or write one), I realize that there is a suspension of disbelief necessary for me to fully enjoy the story. There are times I’m yanked out going, “OMG, no man would do/say/think that”, but then again, maybe they do and we just don’t know it. Still, it is just fiction, and I try very hard to always keep that in mind when reading/writing. If I didn’t, I think my Kindle would be a broken mess in my drawer.
S.L. Armstrong
Hi Saundra
Everything in moderation. It’s when everyone does a “follow the leader” that I go “enough already — someone use a different word or expression” 🙁
I have no idea who started this thumping thing but it’s getting to the point where it’s ridiculous.
I DO keep it in mind that it’s just fiction which is why I don’t complain about some things. It’s the ones like the cock thumping and a few others that make me want to throw my Kindle against the wall. 🙁
Boy, this must be Grumpy Old Readers Week. 🙂 I just put up a blog post about stuff that’s bothered me in recent reads.
I ranted about worse instances of incomplete sentences than the kinds you mention here. Fragments generally don’t bother me, unless I’m continually tripping over them.
Butt wiggling? New to me in books, but I have seen some instances of it in RL. I think it’s more a way of walking, though, than a noticeable shimmy in the rear end. (This reminds me, I haven’t seen pressed hams in a while — which is the perfect segue into the next paragraph. ;-))
Cock thumping? Maybe on “Jackass.” Probably on “Jackass.” (Sounds like a straight frat boy thing to me.)
Huffing and snorting are sounds people actually make. I have no problem with them. But I truly don’t understand how spoken statements can be “bitten.” I’ve come upon a lot of characters who “bite” their utterances. Now, I’ve bitten my tongue. I’ve also bitten letters (usually the pair that melt in my mouth, not in my hand) and, occasionally, words on candy hearts. But whole vocalized phrases or sentences? I don’t know how to do that.
KZ
As I mentioned earlier, most of the stuff in this post is from Stuart whom you might remember, so I can’t take credit for the funnier lines. 🙂
I’m very happy that it’s not just readers who complain. 😉
Some constant repetition over a long period of time does get on the nerves but we overlook them most of the time. For someone like Stuart however, who at the time was a brand new reader of M/M romances some of the phrases were strange such as –
Great post! Great photo and caption! And great limericks from Josephine! Too funny.
As for overused phrases or weird things that happen too much:
* someone feeling “boneless” after sex.
* and there’s way too much humming before, during, and after sex. I mean, what the heck is up with that?
Val
>>Great post! Great photo and caption! And great limericks from Josephine! Too funny. << It took me a while to find the photo. ;-) Josephine now has a second (or third) career writing limericks. She's very good. Sometimes I like to have a little fun and it is Friday after all. >>* someone feeling “boneless” after sex.< < I know that phrase well. As for the humming? I'm told by writers that the sensation is incredible. What do I know? LOL I'm learning new things every day.
Val, I know from experi…uh, I mean certain sources that some people hum during sex because they’re bored s**tless. It’s the step that comes before reading, then texting, then falling asleep. 😉
Texting??? OMG. 😀
K.Z, that reminds me of the old joke (revamped for context):
Q: What’s the difference between a boyfriend, a lover, and a husband in bed?
A: A boyfriend says, “I love you and I’ll want you for the rest of my life.”
A lover says, “God, baby, right there. Do it again.”
And a husband says… “Beige. I think we should paint the house beige.”
That joke originally targeted women, right, Elizabeth? And the wife’s comment is about painting the ceiling?
Well, I don’t ponder the ceiling. I can’t see through the veils of smoke coming from my cigarette. So *pfff* to the joke makers!
(catching up after a weekend of writing and e-mails)
Yep, you’ve got it, KZ. It was about women originally. I love jokes, so it’s second nature at this point to find a way to tweak them for context.
Though if the joke was about you, you’d be more likely to say, “Pass the ashtray,” wouldn’t you? 😉
KZ
Reading and texting during sex? What’s next? Eating a salad? LOL
Too messy, Wave. I’ve tried it. But corndogs work. (Don’t worry; I’m not going to say how. :-))
I’m catching up on the posts I’ve missed and I’m still laughing.
Corn dogs? Truly? How? My husband and I are approaching middle-age. We’re willing to take on a sexual adventure- well, maybe. 😉
I’ve never sent a text-message while having sex. However, after stumbling out to the kitchen the morning after, I did discover my daughter had sent me a text message at 2 am in all capital letters: THE BED SQUEAKS, followed by EWWW.
Wave, I’m sorry about your friend, too. I hope you’ve had some time to relax and have a shot of Jack Daniels in his honor.
LOL. Okay, I’m at work and there’s too much to say. And you, my dear Wave, probably know what I’d say to any/all of it anyway *g*
In any case, Wave, my darling, I adore you so please take this with the love with which it is intended. If every author paid any sort of attention to all these “do”s and “don’t”s, pet peeves and things that bug people for one reason or another, every book would end up reading exactly the same way and we — all of us readers, because I count myself in that group — would be bored into giving up books altogether. For myself, with my reader hat on, I like it when fictional characters are as diverse as the real people out there in the world. Even when they include those weirdo masochistic cock-thumpers 🙂
(this is one type of behavior I have personally never witnessed, can you believe it???)
Ally
I’m so glad you’re at work or you’ll whup my ass. 🙂
That’s not what I want Ally. Every author SHOULD use his or her imagination and creativity – that’s what every reader expects, but when I open M/M books and five out of 10 (sometimes more) have the same tropes, it gets boring or just plain annoying. In this post I was just trying to say the things that annoy me (and Stuart) when we read them over and over and over again. I know that there’s just a finite amount of plots, characters and dialogue but do so many books have to sound the same?
I thought you knew everything about this sub genre. Why don’t you know about cock thumping???? It’s the new best thing. LOL. I guess no one has showed up at your hospital ER with it in splints. 🙁 I’m trying to get the guys to send me photos of the “injured members” for research purposes. 🙂
OMG, this is the funniest post EVER!! I’m laughing too hard to post any coherent thoughts on this subject. Wave, you’re a genius.
Angel
There is no free pass. You have to tell a funny story — I really need one today, or I’ll find where you live and show up with a guy whose dick has been thumped by you or another author. LOL.
I’m not troubled by people making all sorts of noises during sex. In my experience, sex is conducive to noises and facial expressions that are not particularly pretty. I’ve never come across cock-thumping though. Maybe I’m just lucky with what I’m reading. Sounds painful.
There are few oft repeated expressions that bother me a lot, but they have nothing to do with sex. “Smile that didn’t reach his eyes,” and “breath he didn’t realize he was holding” are two. It’s not that there’s something inherently wrong with them, but they’re so overused that they’ve become trite. Unfortunately, even the best writers use them at times. They never fail to eject me right out of the story.
Lou
See, that’s the problem. When everyone uses the same phrase it becomes stale pretty quickly and it’s like being in the same place every 24 hours, like the movie Groundhog Day. 🙂
I’m going to have to ask around about the dick thumping. Is it like tub thumping? I can’t think it’s the first thing to come to mind but I don’t have one so what do *I* know??!!! If it’s so delicate, why are guys always yankin’ on it? 🙂 I’ll always remember the scene from “Grease” where Olivia NJ slams the car door and John T grabs his johnson apparently in excrutiating pain.
I’m a “snorter” myself so I kinda like it – now. It’s a fairly new development for me (started 4 years or so) and I was told is one of the joys of getting older. So I now like to consider it a charming trait…..go figure.
Great post, Wave. I do enjoy the quirky, off-the-wall subjects.
Hi Sherry
So what kinds of guys do you know? 🙂 Am I missing something here? Why am I the last to have some fun?
But I’m sure you don’t snort all the time. LOL
Oh my! Love this post! Tears are steaming down my face and I’m laughing harder than I have in a long time. Sadly, whenever I write now, I’ll be checking this list to make sure I keep my offenses to a minimum. But I would like to say, as a long term resident of the south, them good ole boys you hear about do tend to grunt. They could be practicing their deer calls, who knows? Maybe it’s their mating call.
Anyhow, if you want to do an experiment on the cock thumping, I’d like to volunteer my ex. And loved the limericks, btw.
On a serious note, so sorry about your friend. Hugs and warm thoughts from the southern U.S.
Eden
I’m so glad you had fun with the post and I really wasn’t picking on any writers today. I just wanted to have some fun with leftover cursing and swearing from Stuart. LOL
I should ask John about the grunting since he’s from Texas — maybe he could suggest a few extra sounds. 🙂
You’re volunteering your ex for a cock thumping experiment? You do realize that his equipment could be broken? Oh wait – what was I thinking? OF COURSE he would be a great subject. 😉
Not a happy day for me but these things happen and we have to move on. My friend is probably having a shot of Jack Daniels right about now.
I’ve seen guys wiggle their asses at other guys. It is done playfully… like blowing a kiss. Stuart may have lived in New York, but he wasn’t hanging out in the right places 😉
Diane
See the comments below from Ethan and Buda. LOL
Thanks for the laughs Wave! This was hysterical!! Just what the doctor ordered for me. : )
I will cop to having snorted, usually only as a result from laughing too hard or when allergies attack. It is rare…but it does happen. Of course, at this moment I’m making piggy noises on purpose because it’s making me giggle. See what you started! ; )
I have never heard of Cock Thumping, but I’m recommending a call to action to put a stop to this very heinous practice!! What the hell is wrong with these boys? You should be kind to your penis!! Talk sweetly to it, a gentle caress every now and again wouldn’t hurt…or shouldn’t. I get upset if a guy gets a little too toothy…let alone smacking my cock around like a bastard step-child…sheesh almighty! It’s sick, SICK, I say! : )
I write a lot of first person, so I am one with the ‘I’. On top of that, I suffer from a severe case of me-itis, so I’m usually all about the ‘I’. : )
Butt wiggling I actually have seen some of within our fiction. I was actually excited when I read it cause I felt like belonged…I was part of the cool clique who was like way over all the butt wiggling, dude!! (Y’all may find that odd, but I read nowhere near most of you, sadly. So it was way cool to be on the in.) In truth I’ve only seen it once or twice in books and it never registered as being odd, but to be fair I did sling cocktails in a gay bar for a very long time, so I may be a little more difficult to impress considering I’ve likely seen everything at one point or another.
While I can say I have never butt-wiggled outside the confines of a good beat…I might have possibly leaned or bent over a time or two with purpose. And I’ve likely stood in a way with which to display my butt in what I hoped was an enticing manner…but in a VERY butch way, damn it!! LOL! Of course I may just go give it shot. Perhaps I’ll pop out to the mall tomorrow and wiggle my ass at random hotties when they walk by…see what happens, LOL. I’m totally laughing tears at this moment as I picture myself doing just that. I’d likely get arrested for unlawful ass-play or some such nonsense – damn Bible-belt. People have no sense of humor. ; )
Just wanted to say thanks for making me laugh out loud right before bed — always a really great way to end the day. : )
Hi Ethan
Are you saying that you were not a pig before and I turned you into one? LOL I would much rather turn you into fairy dust. 🙂
Do I want to know about “guys getting a little too toothy”? Are there teeth marks? I’m collecting photos of penises in danger – just saying. 🙂 If you want to share, Wave’s photo collection is missing samples of different injuries 😉
I really hate it when I give you ideas Ethan because you tend to like to put them into practice and I don’t want anyone to THINK you’re serious about this butt wiggling, after all you’re VERY butch.
You should have to pay for these fun times – I can’t afford to give them away for free. 😉 Maybe a free ebook would help.
Wave- great post I’m still laughing 🙂 I usually just “haunt” this site, but could not resist commenting on this… As for the research project- great idea, now if we could get some volunteers! when I started this post I almost”snorted my Diet Pepsi”; not a good thing …so, maybe I’m just out of the “loop” but, what heck is tub thumping, that Buda mentioned… “Cock thumping.” Not to be confused with Tub Thumping, because not unlike Chumbawamba, that is just not cool.lol. ??? Anyone?? When I think about “cock thumping” and No I don’t have one, makes me think of what one of my old nursing instructors told me…maybe TMI- if so sorry. She told me first time I had to place male catheter “he might get excited when you put this in, but you can just thump that thing, so you can get the catheter in!” hehe lol every time I see that particular phrase makes me think of her. Good thing none of the male patients have known about that…. might scare them..of course that should “deflate the problem” sick since of humor…right. Thanks for the great laugh.. Sorry to hear about your friend that’s always hard.
Okay, it’s been a long week, so I’m extraordinarily pleased to see a rant/rave/wave post. Put on your seatbelts, kiddies….
“Snort.” Good lord. I just finished a book I won’t embarrass by naming that included the word “snorted” 15 times and “snort” twice (in 150 pages). I started to fear for the nasal passages of the protagonists! I’m not kidding. The first four or five times I could overlook it; after that, it was worse than a trip to the dentist.
“His lover.” This phrase has got to be near the top of the list of Phrases That Piss Off Buda. Just because he’s recently put his Tab A into your Slot B does not make him your damn lover. It makes him a trick. Until there is some, ya know, love involved, the word is worthless. And annoying as …*Tab-A-into-Slot-B*! Yeah. You made me say it! 😉
“Whimper.” My dog whimpers when she’s bored or in trouble. If my man whimpered, the next bone I tossed him sure as heck wouldn’t be mine. K? K. Think manly. Would Jake Riordan whimper? *snorts* I think not!
“Wiggled his butt.” Sorry, but this is such a twinky thing to do. If your character is over 23 and has the least bit of butchness about him, he should only doing it to be amusing, not to try to turn someone on. Unless his counterpart (dare I say, “his lover”) is into nelly twinks, in which case, wiggle away.
“Melt.” Yeah, I’m so not a snowman. Nor am I Scarlett damn O’Hara before she got a backbone and learned to grow carrots. (It was carrots, right? It’s been a while.) Stop making your men melt! This is not 1940s cinema! If your guys kiss with tongue, melting is prohibited. *whew!*
“Cock thumping.” Not to be confused with Tub Thumping, because not unlike Chumbawamba, that is just not cool. As a person with one of those things, thumping it to make it deflate is so not on my agenda. I’m afraid if it thump it, it’ll never twitch again! And that, my friends, is a truly frightening thought!
“Instantaneous erections.” See, here’s the thing. Once in a while when I’m at work, a fine, fine man will come in and I will notice him with more than just my eyes. But it’s usually more of a stir, or even a slight thickening, but since I’m a few years beyond 18 (sob!), I’m able to keep control of my faculties enough to stop that in its tracks. Besides, if I didn’t, according to these authors, I’d have to thump it! No. Just…no! *winces at the thought*
Okay, now that I’ve taken up most of the ink in cyberspace, I’ll close this response and save my biggest pet peeves for…perhaps…a post of my own one day? Hmm….
*bwahahahahaha* (Sorry, it’s to soon after Halloween to let that opportunity pass!)
Buda
WOW compared to you I’m the fairy queen ( do they come in chocolate?) 😉
Well some of the posters said that they love a good snort so maybe you should send them the name of the boook(s) if they request it. LOL I read a few with mucho snorts recently and I even rated a couple of them highly because the writing was good but I swear if I encounter more than a few snorts from now on it’s game on. 🙂
Well, calling him a trick is a bit harsh. Maybe you could come up with a kinder, gentler name that doesn’t indicate that he’s doing this for cash. 😉
Ouch! That’s cold! For the record, my dog growled and woofed – he was too big to whimper. Dobe’s are very manly dogs. LOL
That’s it??? I thought you were a big hunk of manly man and that your chromosomes or whatever were always in overdrive. What about all those pictures you sent me? Were they a lie? LOL (Okay you didn’t really send me YOUR pictures but you SAID they were) 🙂
If you did have to do a thump or two and happened to hurt yourself, Ally is a very senior nurse and she would know what to do. I always email her when I have questions about illness and recovery times in books b/c authors seem to forget that their protags are supposed to be human. 🙂
Thanks Buda — you made me look like a kind and gentle person, which is not really hard to do. 🙂
Funny stuff Wave. For me, a big part of the problem is the repetition of the same tropes, snorting, winking, cutesy pet names, etc., that makes them all get on my nerves. I suppose if I read less m/m, it wouldn’t be so obvious.
But although I love a good fantasy story, and can suspend disbelief with the best of ‘em – as a man, I have trouble with some things that just wouldn’t happen.
Take getting an instant full-on hard on from a look, or thumping to get rid of an erection. If we were talking about m/f and you read a story where the girl got instantly turned on by just a look from the hot guy, so much so that her, shall we say juices flowed down her legs, wouldn’t you raise an eyebrow? I know it would pull me right out of the story.
Or maybe to eliminate that inconvenient wetness, she rushes into the ladies room to straddle the hand dryer. Hmm, perhaps that would happen. I hear sitting on the washing machine can be quite the thrill! I need to go write this all down immediately! Watch for my new m/f book coming soon. 😉
Or maybe to eliminate that inconvenient wetness, she rushes into the ladies room to straddle the hand dryer.
Oh, Tj! I’m crying I’m laughing so hard!
Hi TJ
Some authors can write a wonderful romance without all of these boring, repetitious tropes and their books are a pleasure to read. Others – not so much! 🙁
In contemporary M/M romances I’m told by the authors that the characterizations are realistic even though the stories are fantasies, but it’s hard for me to find realistic portrayals of gay men in many of these books. You can only suspend disbelief so far unless you’re reading paranormal, sci fi or fantasy books.
I have pictures in my head of women rushing off to the washroom to use hand dryers on their crotches. That’s so bad of you TJ. LOL I have an idea – maybe we can use hand dryers for the wet spot in the bed too. 🙂 Great suggestion.
TJ, some of us wear protection all month long because if we don’t every time ANYONE walks by we end up soaked to the knees. OK, TMI. But I am guilty of writing (and causing) the Insta-Boner, from simple kissing or cuddling.
My guys only butt-wiggle when they’re being silly or when they’re settling in comfortably at night. When you spoon up, you wiggle just a little to get everything settled. Or is that just me?
WAY too much cock-thumping. Good way to cause a penile fracture…
I don’t mind the pronoun lack so much. Most people I know talk that way. Then again, half the people I know speak LolCat.
Whimpering? when appropriate. When the poor guy has been ringed for five hours and tormented and is in actual pain but too stoned to bellow with rage.
I still like melt. Because that’s a how a really good kiss makes me feel. Like every bone in my body is turning to pudding and my knees are water and I’m just going to have to be mopped up off the floor until I can pull myself together. Why would I want to deprive my guys of those kisses?
Snorting and smirking I don’t notice too much. Winking strikes me as outdated, so that gets mentally flagged.
I feel a parody fic coming on from all the comments here. *wanders off snorting*
Yeah, I’ve ended up writing a bit of a parody fic too… Even the arseholes were winking ;D