Obsessed: A Flesh and the Word Collection of Gay Erotic Memoirs - Softcover

"I revel in the physicality of my response to good writing," notes Michael Lowenthal. He knew that he'd done his job as an editor, he continues, when a reader wrote that he had passed out on a public bus while reading a story in one of Lowenthal's collections. The 20 erotic memoirs in Obsessed strive for that level of intensity (although they aim for arousal, not discomfort), and each of them is bound to hit the mark with someone. The objects of the authors' obsessions are wide-ranging: Brian Bouldrey, for example, has a thing for his lover's ex-boyfriends, while Jeremy Michaels recounts his two-year relationship with a "straight" teenager who gradually becomes intent on seducing him. Charles Flowers's erotic fixation on Oscar de la Hoya makes him take up boxing lessons; he contemplates "the heat of two men moving in need, thrusting and sparring, arms locked in embrace--how in that haze of muscle and sweat, everything else drops away, the two bodies the only reality." Some of the essays do veer into potentially controversial areas, as writers explore their fascination for certain ethnic "sorts," but they manage to avoid falling into easy stereotypes, examining their emotional and sexual conditions--as do all the contributors--with thoughtfulness and candor.

Michael Lowenthal is the author of a novel, The Same Embrace (Plume), and is editor of Gay Men at the Millennium (Tarcher/Putnam) and the Flesh and the Word series. His stories and essays have appeared in numerous anthologies, including Men on Men 5, Best American Gay Fiction, and Queer 13. He lives in Boston.