Jay Bell

Gay romance novelist Jay Bell (b. 1977) won the 25th annual Lambda Literary Award in Gay Romance for his novel Kamikaze Boys (Kindle and other e-book formats). His German-born husband Andeas is an artist and industrial designer who provides the cover art for Jay’s novels (example below), and at present the couple resides in Germany.

Most gay romance novels are little more than same-sex soap opera scripts (the great majority of them written by women*), but Mr. Bell has the literary chops to deliver full-fleshed characters in plots that engage the reader. Most of us can relate to many of the situations in Bell’s books, and the first three of his “Four Seasons” quartet of novels take a set of characters through more than a thousand pages of adventurous, bumpy romance.



*It's always a dead giveaway. No man would describe the color of his shirt as "champagne."

Bell’s fans are eagerly awaiting the final installment of this quartet of gay romance novels. Something Like Summer, Something Like Autumn and Something Like Winter are soon to be followed by Something Like Spring (estimated publication date early 2014).

From Jay Bell’s AMAZON page:

Jay Bell never gave much thought to Germany until he met a handsome foreign exchange student. At that moment, beer and pretzels became the most important thing in the world. After moving to Germany and getting married, Jay found himself desperate to communicate the feelings of alienation, adventure, and love that surrounded this decision, and has been putting pen to paper ever since.

Jay met his partner at a Lawrence, Kansas, bar’s “gay night.” Three months later, Andreas’ student visa expired, so he returned to Germany. Jay wrote him a “Dear John” letter expressing his chagrin that their affair was over, but Andreas misunderstood, thinking that Jay meant “over for the summer.” At the onset of the fall semester, Andreas reappeared, having decided to pursue his masters degree in industrial design at the University of Kansas (KU). Such misunderstandings are the foundation of Jay’s novels, with the volume turned up. Way up.

Once Andreas completed his degree, the couple moved to Germany. At first the plan was to live there for three years, but that eventually turned into more than ten. Their return to the U.S. is delayed until immigration legislation is passed that will allow full recognition of their same-sex marriage. Unable to work in a country where he didn’t have fluency in German, Jay began to write. When no publisher expressed interest in Something Like Summer, Jay decided to self-publish (jaybellbooks.com), and legions of fans have enjoyed the output of his writings. Sales have been so successful that Jay can support himself from royalties alone, and he states that e-book format sales far outstrip receipts from print editions.

Jay relates that writing down a story is the easy part – dreaming up the characters and plots is far more difficult and time consuming. He says the people who buy his books are a “breathtaking mix of teenagers, middle-aged people and senior citizens from all walks of life and every hue of sexuality.”

“Luckily,” Bell says, “I’m extremely immature, so my inner adult rarely gets in the way.” He continues, “I’ve always been the sort of person who goes to desperate lengths in the name of love. My characters, like me, might be aware of the mistakes they are about to make, but they also weigh the odds and decide it might be worth it to get what they want. Whether that’s creepy or charming depends on what the intended target thinks. It’s probably for the best that I’m safely married now.”

Something Like Autumn cover art by Jay's husband Andreas:

The film version of Something Like Summer is scheduled for a 2014 release from Blue Seraph Productions, with Carlos Pedraza and J. T. Tepnapa, the creative team behind the gay indie hit, Judas Kiss, writing and directing. The film has still to be cast and Bell says, “I’d honestly prefer they find young talent that’s relatively unknown.” Bell says when he sees a picture of the fashion model, Bruno Santos (below), he thinks, “Hey! You remind me a little of that Tim guy in my head!” Bell says he hand-picked Kevin R. Free to narrate the audio version of Something Like Summer because Kevin’s voice had the youth and humor he felt was needed to bring Ben to life.

Bruno Santos, reminiscent of Tim:

Source: Jay Bell interview by Dick Smart
Complete interview:
http://www.lambdaliterary.org/interviews/06/24/jay-bell-something-like-love/

Hubert Lyautey

Serving in Morocco during the early days of WWI, Frenchman Hubert Lyautey (1854-1934) was recalled to Paris during the last month of 1916 to become War Minister under Aristide Briand’s government. He soon became convinced that the planned offensive by French, British and Russian troops against the German Western Front would be a massive mistake. Powerless to stop the disastrous campaign, he resigned his office just three months into the job, returning to Morocco, where he was able to pursue his interest in handsome young men, especially those under his own command.

In Keith Stern’s “Queers in History,” he writes, “The flamboyant Lyautey made no secret of his admiration for young men. In fact, he went so far as to claim that he could not work with men unless he had sex with them first.” French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau noted that Lyautey was "an admirable, courageous man, who has always had balls between his legs – even when they weren’t his own."

Though Lyautey preferred handsome young officers as companions, he never promoted their careers unfairly and was thus able to maintain the loyalty of the soldiers under his command. They suppressed any criticisms about his sexual orientation in appreciation of his abilities as a soldier, administrator, and leader. In 1921 General Lyautey was made Marshal of France, the highest rank in the French army, and in May 1931, his image graced the cover of Time magazine, which honored him as an “empire builder” for his work in northern Africa. At the time Lyautey was considered France’s greatest colonial soldier.

A statue of Lyautrey in Casablanca, which he had helped develop into a seaport:

In “Heroes of Empire: Five Charismatic Men and the Conquest of Africa,” Edward Berenson’s chapter on Lyautey in Morocco points out that the army “was one of the best places for gay men to remain discreet; there a homosexual could spend his life in the company of young soldiers while exhibiting the virility and honor seemingly inherent in a military career.”

As a youth, the only women in Lyautey’s life were his mother and sisters, with whom he was close. To escape a young woman who wanted desperately to marry him, he fled to Indochina in 1894, stating that he was personally incompatible with the institution of marriage. While in Indochina he served as chief of staff to General Gallieni, who shared Lyautey’s sexual proclivities. When Gallieni was made military commander of Madagascar in 1897, Lyautey followed him.

Lyautey wrote admiringly of the naked male body and penned homoerotic prose about the Islamic, Greek and Ceylonese youths he encountered during his military career. He liked to dress up in Arab garb and favored Persian carpets, luxurious silks and porcelain as decorations for his offices – even his tents.

In one of his diary entries (1886), Lyautey wrote: “...this sub-lieutenant, who pleases me so much and came from ten p.m. to two a.m. to warm up my thirty-year-old self with his hot and rich sap...what a young, vigorous and generous nature! I regret his departure.”

Well, there you have it.

Nevertheless, Lyautey did finally marry at age fifty-five; however, this union with Inès de Bourgoing, the daughter of the squire of Napoleon III, produced no children. His marriage was described as a companionate union, rather than one of love or lust. Writer Douglas Porch (“The Conquest of Morocco” 1982) relates that Lyautey married primarily to have someone to manage his social calendar.

Upon his death at age 79 in 1934, Lyautey’s body was interred in his native Nancy before being moved to Rabat, at the request of the Sultan of Morocco. As evidence of the esteem in which he was held by the people of France, in 1961 Lyautey’s body was transferred to the Dôme des Invalides in Paris, near the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte. Lyautey’s elaborate tomb bears inscriptions in Arabic and French. Tellingly, the remains of Lyautey’s wife were buried in Thorey-Lyautey, in northeastern France.

Micah Porter

First reported by Cyd Zeigler (co-founder of OutSports.com) on September 19, championship track and field/cross-country coach Micah Porter (at right in black shirt) bravely came out to his team of high school athletes. Photo from OutSports.

From Zeigler’s post on OutSports.com:

Porter called his team together before practice a week ago and told them he had some news. He let them know that an article about him would be coming out that week, and that the article discussed his being gay and would talk about his partner, Brandan. The news was met with the same silence that stared back at him when he came out to his wife four years earlier. After a few seconds, one of the team leaders – who Porter says could end the season as a conference champion – stood up, shook his hand, told him it didn't matter to him, and asked what that day's practice had in store for them. The rest of the team laced up their shoes and followed suit. "It was a positive moment for me and for them as young men and for us as a young team," Porter said. "After all that worry, it was a non-issue for them."

Full story at:
http://www.outsports.com/2013/9/19/4747454/state-champion-colorado-high-school-coach-micah-porter-comes-out

Photo by Andy Cross for the Denver Post

To say that Coach Porter, who is in his early 40s, is in a complicated situation is understatement. He came out to his team against the advice of the school’s administrators, to whom Porter had revealed his sexual orientation in 2010. At that time Porter had been instructed to steer clear of the locker room and to change into his coaching gear in a private bathroom (Porter also teaches history at the school), a situation that elicited this response from Porter:

"Every day I have to go into a bathroom to change...It's a reminder that I'm a second-class citizen in a school I've given so much to."

From your blogger: Well, OK. This is where I exit my role as reporter and switch to having to make some personal observations. Does Porter even consider that he just might have earned his “second-class” citizen status? When he took this coaching job seventeen years ago, he deceived the school by not telling his employer that he knew he was sexually attracted to men. The school was acting defensively, fully aware of its liability in keeping Porter on its staff. Less liberal students and parents might sue, so keeping Porter out of the locker room was their way of protecting themselves. IMHO Porter should be down on his knees thanking his lucky stars that he is still afforded the opportunity to teach and coach at his West Denver high school. But that’s just me.

Back to the facts.

Porter’s coaching ability and record make him a valuable asset to his school. He is a four-time state champion head coach, was once named state coach of the year, has won twelve county coach-of-the-year honors for his sport and was the county's coach of the year for all sports once. As if that weren’t enough, he has coached 33 athletes to individual state titles. Academically, the cherry on top was that he was named the high school’s Teacher of the Year in 2004. For thirteen years he had been married to another teacher at the same school; together they were the head coaches of the school's cross-country teams.

Naturally, Porter had been tormented by the fact that over the years his sexual feelings for men would not go away. Depressed, he sought help from medications prescribed by his therapists. During the months following his coming out to his wife, the couple told their son and daughter the truth, then separated and divorced. A year later, Porter came out to his school administrators, who supported his continued teaching and coaching duties at their school. The high school’s athletic director, Jerry McWhorter, says, "I've never heard a negative thing about him from anybody...He's well-respected throughout the state as a coach. He gets a lot out of his athletes...I support Micah 150%. I always have and I always will. I don't have a bad word to say about the guy. He's a great coach, he's a great teacher."

More from Zeigler’s OutSports.com post:

...shortly after the divorce, Porter began dating Brandan Rader, a psychology student at the University of Colorado at Denver. The two met when Porter came across a talk by Rader at a nearby school encouraging youth to accept their sexual orientation. Porter asked Rader to lunch, they hit it off, and they have been together since.

That was over two years ago. In that time, they've been seen together around town. A lot. Porter has introduced Rader to parents and friends. Various students live in their neighborhood; some have asked "who was that man" they saw with Porter. Between that and a high-profile divorce in the high school, there are likely few adults in the area who don't know Porter's poorly kept "secret."

The buzz has trickled down to the student body. Porter said his daughter, now a freshman at the University of Denver, was asked by a runner she was dating if her dad was gay. The school's head basketball coach told Porter he was asked by his team about Porter's sexual orientation.

"When people ask, I tell them," Porter said. "My closest friends at school know, and I tell them they can tell whomever they want. It's a major part of who I am as a person, but it's not the defining part. I'm a coach, I'm a teacher, I'm a dad, I'm Brandan's partner.”

Despite his concerns, McWhorter said he hasn't heard a word from Porter's athletes about their coach being gay. In fact, he hasn't fielded a single complaint from any staff member or parent in the couple of years Porter has been drifting out of the closet. Not a word.

As time has gone by, and more people know the worst-kept secret in Denver, Porter has loosened up. Lately he has even asked Brandan to attend track meets.

"I wake up every day excited about life and my job and my relationship with Brandan," Porter said. "We bought a house together. We're building a life together. There are parts of my life I hope to repair, but I take better care of myself, I have so much more confidence than I ever have in my life.

"For the first time in a long time, I've had people tell me I look happy. For the first time in a long time, I am."...

From your blogger Terry:
Perhaps the best lesson we can learn from coach Porter’s story is that living a lie will eventually catch up with us. Be the best you can be, face up to the truth and deal with the consequences. It’s our only chance at happiness and a worthwhile life. Let’s wish Porter and his partner the best of success.