Arts :: Books
You’ve Got "E-Male" by Sam Baltrusis
contributing writerThursday Mar 19, 2009 When it comes to the competitive guy-on-guy romance novel industry, South End-based partners Scott D. Pomfret and Scott Whittier - known for their contemporary, gay Romentics pulp fiction series - insist that sex sells.
"Since we started our line in 2003, the sort of man-man romance e-book world has exploded," Pomfret says with his partner Whittier sitting next to him. "There’s definitely an audience out there and [it] doesn’t seem to be dying."
With their latest Manhunt-meets-Match.com gay romance novel E-Male hitting shelves this week, Pomfret and Whittier point out that while their novels are typically geared to a gay male audience, they’re finding that women, especially housewives from the Midwest, are smitten with the Scott & Scott sobriquet.
"We weren’t surprised that we had women readers, but we were surprised by how many there were," the 33-year-old Whittier says. "Women like romances of any type. They keep explaining it to me and I still don’t necessarily get it. Instead of having one hot guy, you have two and they’re both sensitive and they’re really sweet to each other. But then again, straight guys love to watch lesbian porn."
The 40-year-old Pomfret shoots back, "These women are filthy. They like the sex scenes to be explicit and are not turned off by them. We had a book called Surf ’N’ Turf which was a bit more gay slapstick-y and the reaction from many of these women was to bring it back to the hot, crazy, sexy, dirty romance."
E-Male follows protagonist Kory Miles, the mastermind behind a popular Manhunt-esque dating site who moonlights as a waiter at the fictitious "Whine n Dine." He teams up with jaded travel agency owner Zac Djorvzac who tags along with Miles on a wild trip from the city to the suburbs to a tropical circuit party.
Pomfret and Whittier say they were mildly inspired by real-life Boston locales for the fictional haunts like the "Whine ’N Dine" featured in the book.
"We live in the South End and I wish there was a fun, campy place with good food," Whittier muses. "If you could take the gritty friendliness of Anchovies and marry it with the wine offerings of say, The Butcher Shop," and sprinkle in some much-needed camp, the result would be the "Whine ’N Dine."
Partnered since 2001, the duo laughs in unison when asked if writing E-Male has spiced up their own sex lives. "If you’ve just had an orgasm together, it’s almost impossible to write a sex scene," Pomfret quips.
"Sex scenes are actually hard to write. And they’re even harder to write when it’s same-sex, sex scenes just because of the English language. Antecedents and pronouns kill me," Whittier adds. "It’s droll and monotonous to begin with, and then you have to come up with different ways to say ’penis.’ The repeating of the names is my No. 1 pet peeve because you just want to say ’he, him and his’ but then it’s difficult to tell who you’re talking about."
In fact, Whittier had an editor write back pointing out that in one explicit, guy-on-guy scene a character was "reaching around and grabbing his own ass." Whittier says with a laugh, "I lost it at that point."
Pomfret, who works as a trial attorney with the Securities and Exchange Commission during the day, says E-Male is a much-needed departure after his recent solo project, Since My Last Confession: A Gay Catholic Memoir. The satirical Catholic gem generated national ink, but ultimately turned sour back in September 2008. In fact, the publicity surrounding his memoir fueled the friars of Saint Anthony Shrine in Downtown Crossing to remove the writer from a volunteer position he held since 2000 while temporarily terminating the GLBT Spirituality Group that was the subject of his book.
"Looking back, I’m not sure it was necessarily worth it, and it certainly wasn’t what I was aiming for," Pomfret says about the publicity surrounding Since My Last Confession. "It would be a much happier story if all of sudden Saint Anthony was taking the lead and pushing forward instead of kicking me out."
As a practicing Catholic in a long-term committed gay relationship with a hardcore atheist, Pomfret says he wasn’t surprised by the outcome, but was hoping for more. "They have since attempted to do a GLBT event and it apparently fizzled because nobody signed up," he says. "I guess that’s the fallout. There was a lameness to the whole thing and I was hoping for more personal courage, but apparently that’s in short supply in the priesthood."
With E-Male, Whittier believes consumers are hungry to escape from the harsh day-to-day realities brought on by the economic downturn. "People are looking for affordable entertainment. Everyone keeps saying, ’Can you believe movies are making more money now?’ Of course I can believe it. Tickets are only $10, which may be expensive, but it’s not like they’re going out for a $50 dinner. People are looking for affordable ways to escape because they’re not physically able to escape. That’s why E-Male is perfect, because not only are they [the characters] escaping online but they go on this fabulous fantasy vacation to a circuit party."
Pomfret chimes in, "A fantasy vacation that no one can afford anymore."
E-Male, a Palari Pride imprint is available at Calamus Books, 92 B South Street in the Leather District and Now Voyager, 357 Commercial St. in Provincetown or online at Romentics.com. For more information on the Romentics or Palari Publishing, visit PalariBooks.com.
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