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September 24, 2015 · 11:41 am

It’s Day 4 of the BANE blog tour! That means Chapter 4 of REFUGE, a free STRAIN-universe short!

Today is the fourth day of the BANE blog tour, and we’re bringing you Chapter 4 of REFUGE.

REFUGE is a sweet beginning to an trans romance set close to 30 years after BANE. There’s a chance it may be the basis for a continuation of the STRAIN universe, but we’ll have to see what the muse decides about that.

Yesterday, Kal and Billie started to get to know each other, but Billie’s desire to find a home outside the Clean Zone where she won’t be an outcast conflicts with her fear of Kal’s people in the Wapato Island Refuge and the horrible things she’s been told about them and their settlement all her life. Today they start to pick through the truths and the lies, to decide if Billie can ever feel safe there.

You can find the installments for today at the following stops:

Prism Book Alliance (Chapter Four, Part 1)
Love Bytes Reviews (Chapter Four, Part 2)
Butterfly-o-Meter (Chapter Four, Part 3)

Be sure to check back tomorrow for the final chapter! If you need to catch up on REFUGE, you can find the previous installments here:

CHAPTER ONE:
My Fiction Nook (Part 1)
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words (Part 2)

CHAPTER TWO:
3 Chicks After Dark (Part 1)
Book Reviews and More by Kathy (Part 2)
The Jeep Diva (Part 3)

CHAPTER THREE:
Fangirl Moments and My Two Cents (Part 1)
GGR Reviews (Chapter 3, Part 2)
Sinfully Sexy Book Reviews (Chapter 3, Part 3–please ignore the text labeling it Chapter 2, Part 3.)

Remember that you can comment at each stop to enter to win some Riptide store credit!

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Filed under Announcements, Contests, News for Released Titles

Tagged as amelia c. gormley, bane, blog tour, dark themes, free reads, giveaway, LGBTQ, mm romance, post-apocalyptic, refuge, riptide publishing, Strain, trans romance, trigger warning

July 21, 2012 · 12:43 pm

Book covers and the objectification of gay men

The other day, my friend Leta Blake and I were discussing a few things we don’t like about the current state of the m/m romance/erotica publishing industry. One of which was the covers with all the manly-man ripped torso beefcake.

Then today my husband comes in the room and we’re talking about the book and he’s teasing me that my cover is OMGSOPORNY! And I was like, “Nonononono, wait, wait. You need to see what OTHER covers in this genre look like.” So I went over to Rainbow Book Reviews and showed him some of those ripped-torso covers, and as I did so, I realized something.

The men on those covers aren’t just ripped. They’re almost universally beheaded.

Not every cover is this way, of course, but enough are that it shows a deeply, deeply disturbing mindset in the genre.

One of the biggest complaints feminists very rightfully have toward advertising is the frequent portrayal of dismembered women. Armless or headless, only the torso, the part showing the sexy bits, is used. It’s believed to be another form of violence against women, or at least a means of portraying women that objectifies and dehumanizes them so that violence against them becomes more acceptable.

The majority of consumers in the m/m romance/erotica genre are women. What does it say about us, that we’re doing the same thing to gay men? Though we, women, are the consumers in this genre, are we looking at the physical representation of the characters with the internalized male gaze?

Suddenly, I’m very glad my book has the cover it does, and that I self-published rather that going through a publishing house for m/m romance and erotica, where I might not have had control over the cover art.