Published: 2017
Format Acquired: Paperback
Genre: Fiction, LGBT
Order at Anvil Publishing: Don't Tell Anyone or go to any National Bookstore branch.
If sex remains taboo in the Philippines, gay and lesbian sex is still even more unspoken. “How do you do it?” is still the most common question queer Pinoys get. Even after that question is answered, there is still the popular notion that only heterosexual sex is ‘the real thing,’ and anything else is just a deviation or an attempt to replicate the male-female dynamic of human contact.
This book makes up for this history of invalidation. An unprecedented dirty dozen, Sison’s and Casocot’s stories are direct and unflinching. They make no qualms or apologies about the nature of sex between two men or between two women. They explore courtship and contact between same-gender partners with humor, hesitation and obsession, and eventually take the reader with them as they reel from heartbreak.
Whether you consider straight sex ‘the real thing,’ or are among the LGBTQ community that is hungry for a true account of Filipino gay and lesbian loving, one thing this collection and its characters do, over and over without exhaustion, is to keep on trying.
Right off the bat, this book is amazing, I have never read anything like this obviously because this is the first LGBT literature I have read. Really, this is amazing.
I have no qualms reading smut because duh, fangirl since 2009. I have long been exposed to smut. Literary smut that is. You know, stories that depict sex as something beautiful almost. Sex is where two people come together, either to fall in love or not. Both authors have tackled writing LGBT sex as beautiful as heterosexual sex.
I have been reading gay smut stories since I have been exposed to the world of fan fiction. If I'm not reading books, I'm reading fan fiction. But, gay fan fiction is different from literature. Literature is more raw. It digs through your heart and mind. After that, it fills you up with so much emotion that you kind of overflow.
This book is no nonsense, straight up gay and lesbian erotica. This book should be handled with caution yet with an open mind. I mean, come on. the LGBT community have sex just like heterosexuals, albeit it looks different. But yes, they can have sex. They can achieve climax as well. Damn right, they are the sexiest people I have ever come across with. Not only do they have sexy bodies to begin with, but their minds are sexy as hell. This book is literally in your face. Like, really you will devour this in one sitting. Or maybe sitting on top of someone, I don't know. Hah. Innuendo right there.
Reading this book didn't change my sexual orientation as a heterosexual. Reading this book made me understand the struggles and hardships of the LGBT community when they fall in and out of love. They suffer so much just like we do. Reading this book makes me want to study about gender and all the difference that there is about it. Just so I could understand that there's more to it than just being called a man or a woman.
This is just a beautiful piece of literature that I hope some day a lot of people would get to read more #LGBTLit. I hope this isn't the last from either of these authors. I hope more people follow suit as well. This book is funny, sexy, witty, sad, and just downright amazing. Just buy it now.
Reading this book didn't change my sexual orientation as a heterosexual. Reading this book made me understand the struggles and hardships of the LGBT community when they fall in and out of love. They suffer so much just like we do. Reading this book makes me want to study about gender and all the difference that there is about it. Just so I could understand that there's more to it than just being called a man or a woman.
This is just a beautiful piece of literature that I hope some day a lot of people would get to read more #LGBTLit. I hope this isn't the last from either of these authors. I hope more people follow suit as well. This book is funny, sexy, witty, sad, and just downright amazing. Just buy it now.
Shakira Sison has won two Palanca Awards in the essay category. As a columnist for Rappler, she has also been honored with a St. Scholastica's College Hildegarde Award and a Lasallian Scholarium Award. She was a fellow for Poetry in English in the University of the Philippines' National Writer's Workshop in 1999. Shakira holds a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from the University of the Philippines Los Banos and works in finance in New York City.
Ian Rosales Casocot is a novelist, and teacher film, literature, and creative writing in Siliman University in Dumaguete City. He has won the Palanca Award several times and has also won the NVM Gonzales Prize, a PBBY Salanga Writer's Prize and the Fullybooked/Neil Gaiman Philippine Graphic/Fiction Prize for his fiction. He is currently the coordinator of the Edilberto and Edith Tiempo Creative Writing Center.