What does male sexuality have to do with Martin Brant Novels?
Within the general brotherhood of man, concerning male sexuality, a significant percentage of men live with a closely guarded secret. More common than most people think, these men are dealing a same sex attraction. Most people, other than those they may have shared their secret with, don’t realize how many men have some degree of sexual attraction to other men. Contrary to most moral codes and various religious beliefs, these feelings are quite common and natural. They are feelings that number among the human emotions I deal with through the characters in my novels.
A writer’s first priority, mine included, is to tell a good story. Any writer worth his or her salt wants to create a thoughtfully written story and entertain those who read his or her work. It could be a murder mystery like my latest novel, Copperas Cove, where Jonathon Scott, recently divorced, leaves Pittsburgh to start a new life and finds himself entangled in the bigoted dramas of 1950s Mississippi; or a WWII action/adventure like The Partisans, where two men on an important mission in France stumble upon a bright new future; or a tale of romance like A Song in the Park, where two men at odds with their past cross paths and start facing life’s challenges together. Good stories have characters and characters have personalities, personalities that are very much a part of the whole and make for a more intriguing book. Often the character’s personality can be a story within a story, or it can be the story itself, as in books such as Catcher in the Rye, or my first novel Five Married Men.
Why the element of same sex attraction?
For me it’s a fascination with the vast diversity of human nature. It’s a part of the human race that, for various reasons, many don’t understand. Many of us have been indoctrinated to belief there is something wrong with being attracted to a member of our own sex, which includes the majority of those who are. These are the men who keep secrets, who often feel guilty, who somehow believe there is something wrong with them. Though you may not feel attracted to members of your own sex, you know someone who does. It may be your brother or sister, your neighbor or a colleague at work, your cousin or best friend; it may even be your husband or wife. And chances are you don’t know their secret exists.
Considered a blessing or a curse, or both, the degree of same sex attraction varies from one man to the next; from a mild curiosity that leaves him feeling either guilty or warm inside, to a full blown and exclusive attraction to one’s own sex. Though the same holds true for both men and women, my focus and my novels are about men (and the women in their lives). And for some reason, same sex attractions seem more prevalent in men, though it is also considered by many as more unnatural and less acceptable.
So why would an author that wants to write a compelling mainstream tale include characters with a same sex attraction? Maybe I believe human sexuality in itself is compelling. Maybe, through my novels, I would like to help broaden human understanding. Maybe a part of me wants to say it’s okay.
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What is so beautiful about each of these images is knowing that as I look at them I intuitively get what they are feeling from their view.
In ‘Intimate Pairs’, as in ‘Two by Two’ ‘Men in Pairs’, and ‘Men Together’ so too ‘Masculine Pairs’ and ‘A Pair Equals a Whole’ such joy among men, one sees and so senses with awakened emotions the touch of another’s skin and their uniquely male energy. Looking with pleasure you see yourself so comfortably and naturally there. Is that not truly captivating. What rapture to be but approached in this embrace to be enjoyed.
Ecstasy and intimacy is this love of man.
The more I have looked into my own feelings and motivations have I discovered how deeply woven into my very psyche is this feeling, this ever present longing and enveloping love of man, how beautiful you are.
How wonderful these shared feelings are for consenting males. That it is labelled bi-sexual or gay or homo or gag or whatever, it is what being truly attracted to another male feels like for me, I am attracted so sweetly and without reservation.
It is that we are the same, that we attract to each others maleness, the appreciation for all we are as loving sensual males, it is so wonderfully fulfilling.
In how many ways can one express it.
The feeling so distinctly different to the attraction felt towards females, they are too so beautiful, but the feeling so very different, not foreign but somehow not so intimately comfortable.
Looking back through my fifty plus years, understanding more and clearly how I always felt so, uneasy like something just ever so slightly out of alignment, but trying so hard to make it right. Whereas with men there has been throughout my life that deep trust and comfort. How I long to hold your hand.
It is that deep awareness ‘he knows what works’. One looks eyes wide open to see such beauty.
What a wonderful feeling. And knowing there are so many others like you and me, that we click in this uniquely sensual male to male way.
It makes one want to stand naked on a hilltop and call out to the world, I feel beautiful, I feel alive, I feel your beauty, I am yours, I understand you, I want you, touch me, taste me, delight me, as I will touch, taste, delight you.
Do I pour out my heart, do you hear my cry, am not so close to you, will you lay with me, can you sense my kiss.
J xo