I don’t have the patience to read a gay erotic romance, so I’m not sure how far Peter’s anatomically outrageous smut lies from such a genre. If I take out a lot of explicit description and replace it with euphemisms, will these otherwise romantic HEA stories be something of interest to a wider reading populace?
Here’s my concern – Peter’s stories are all centered around the phallus, whether huge or tiny (and rarely anything in between). American society has such a phobia of the penis. Hollywood can easily show a nude woman, front and back, but they get an X-rating if they show an erect penis. If the penis is soft, it’s still NC-17, as if this magnificent organ were far more shameful than war and murder.
So my fear, of course, is that I have to leave the penis in there, or the whole story falls apart. So much of the plot is driven by the loneliness or shame that men feel when their privates don’t conform to the norm. Can I successfully write Big Dick Romance, or will I have to leave Peter’s works in their current gut-pounding gay pulp genre? Should I write as a woman? It’s not that I need to make a lot of money; I just want to feel like I have a true readership who is excited for my next romance.
Peter Schutes 