All Comments on 'The Syrian Rent-Boy'

. . . but it is non-erotic and just an aggressive sex fest. Why do you think that gays don't need emotion and foreplay. Then there's the word 'love' that never appears in your writing but matters a lot to people like me.

You'll probably delete this comment as you can't handle valid criticism but I've saved it and will publish it on the forums if you delete.

"Never" is a pretty sweeping word and "Anonymous" in this case means "coward." By all means repost your comment to the forum so we can see better who you are. I write a wide variety of stories for a wide variety of readers. If you think none of my stories show emotion, you haven't read many of my stories. If you don't think the protagonist of this particular story is feeling or showing emotion than I think you are a bit dim. But to each his/her own--including taking the cowardly approach of signing off as Anonymous.

I've read many of this author's stories and I agree - he can write, but he doesn't know what love is.

The last "Anonymous" commenter zapped the story with a 1-bomb. If he/she doesn't think that a sufficient number of my stories deliver his/her concept of love and he/she thinks that element has to be included in any story he/she doesn't zap with a 1-bomb (even after giving me credit for being a good story writer), why is he/she reading my stories? (Or claiming too, since there are probably more stories in my collection dealing with romantic love and emotions than there are total numbers of stories in the listing of most every other GM author posting on Literotica). Go read the ones that meet your stated needs. I don't write for just one audience. However, this pretty obviously is just a concerted attack on me as an author--by Anonymous. That's sort of revealing of the quality and braveness of such attacks. Just a concerted effort I think to drive my stories off Literotica. One wonders why/what the attackers' payoff is for that. (But it's not going to happen.)

I've read your stories, and as a straight woman, I have to say, you are without a doubt prolific, imaginative, and your finger is on the pulse. Fuck all the literary asshole geniuses who troll Literotica, looking for "holes" to plug. Fuck them up their asses. Dry. I think you are just smashing. Oh, and I gave you 5 stars, btw.

Signed, Andrea a.k.a. Anonymous

What I have learned about the love that men display to one another it is a doing word, a giving word, an action word. It is the meat rather than the spice, the embodiment of respect given and taken. One does not merely suck the juice but bury one's teeth into the bone. The poetry one expects from love is seldom lasting, a rainbow requiring the perfect situation in order to exist. Jane Austin said that poetry often palled the lover's appetite away after too soon being sated. This writer has written from many perspectives, not just one and while his work may be too much for someone of your sensibilities, visit Shakespeare and you'll find that that genteel storyteller had teenagers in a suicide pact, a man extract a pound of flesh and another who killed the wife he loved desperately for the misplaced adoration of a man who incited him to be rid of his rival. Who would say that he did not know love?

Romance is largely a fiction and love is an overused word. The idea of Romance comes from the Medieval and was something minstrels sang about and maidens went weak kneed over on a cold night in the old castle. It's now everywhere and highly commercialised. Romance can sell anything, chocolate hearts and flowers, movies and Harlequin books, as well as underwear, cruises and cars. The list is endless. It's the modern day advertising wonder.

Whether or not it means anything but better sales is a personal thing unique to each person/relationship.

And love is individual also. In this story the reporter loves the young man enough to actually risk his life to save him from both the bad guys and the good guys. No chocolate hearts or flowers, no sweet words, but in the end the loved one is alive and safe and protected.

So yes, I think it's a love story, and a meaningful one - not an empty commercialised Disney style one. As anyone who prefers "substance" over "form" would realise.

And yes, it's even got romance in the classical sense, where a man faces great danger to be with/rescue his love. That sure beats a box of chocolates.

Millions and millions of artists, writers, dancers and all kinds of people have spent time over the ages trying to define love. Hallmark has made billions doing it just b/c there isn't one definition of love. So, I'm not sure who this person is who says the author doesn't know what love is, but clearly they won't ever put forth their definition if they won't even sign their name to a comment. At least the author signs his work and gives his characters different answers to that question, b/c if every person had the same defn of love, all the stories the author wrote and every other piece of art in the world attempting to define that emotion, would be damn boring.

I've never given a * even to poorly written work b/c to me, someone who is brave enough to write and share it with others deserves more credit than that. Knocking down a score bc it doesn't fit some idea you have for what should be written is ignorant and most likely done by someone who is jealous that they don't have the balls to write something of their own. Of course they'd have to have the balls to sign something first and given the fact they can't sign a comment with a made up screenname, most likely never will. It doesn't say, 'vote on your take of the author's defnition of love' last I checked. ((rolling eyes)) so I am sure his low vote doesn't upset you. Keep doing what you do.

Personally, I like a story that is different and makes me think. This Anon commenter is probably friends with all those ones that go into the m/m (or some other) category to read and then write how sick the authors are for writing. It's stupid.

On the story itself, I was impressed with the whole premise. I thought it was great. I like that you come up with ideas that are different. Different places and people and you tend to make it feel real. The only thing I would have liked would have been for you to further develop their relationship. Even if it were more detailed accounts of their 'meetings' and discussions they had like you did with Hal and him. I felt like we had more development of the interations with Hal than with the boy who was the more important character. I'd have liked to hear how he got the boy to go along with his plan. Was the boy told of the risk even if Sargon wasn't? I'd have liked to hear the boy's story about his time with the general.

I'd also have liked to hear what made him fall for the boy? Did he plan to try to take him from the country when he went back to Canada or just have fun while he was there? Afterall, there were feelings there supposedly on both sides. Did the kid have to continue to be a rentboy to support himself? And did he worry the CIA would keep an eye on him? Did he do any article b/c like he said, he had to give an excuse for having taken the people out. Without the gassing of the town, they'd know he wasn't meeting a woman at the apt. So, those are the parts I'd have liked to see further developed.

Overall, good story. I'll give it a **

haha --I couldn't resist.