Something I Used to Do
I started writing gay porn stories in the early 1990s. They were a fun diversion in what was otherwise an unhappy time in my life. I submitted one of my stories to one of the gay skin magazines, Mandate. The story wasn’t accepted, but the editor suggested I change the ending resubmit the story. I did, and and the story got published. Jonathan Asche was born.
For the next decade I published stories in Mandate, Inches, Torso, Advocate Men, Honcho, In Touch for Men, and Playguy—all of which have long since folded. I moved on to gay anthologies, my work now labeled “gay erotica.” Fancy! I also took a stab at writing gay porn novels, publishing my first one, Mindjacker, in 2003. I published a second one, Moneyshots, in 2007.
It was around 2014 that I began to consider leaving the genre. Fewer and fewer anthologies were being published. Gay erotica was being replaced with M/M romance, and its readers were straight women, not gay men. The writing was on the wall, but I was slow to read it, self-publishing my third gay porn novel, Dyre, in 2016. Few noticed.
Writing as Jonathan Asche is now, like smoking and staying out past 10 p.m., something I used to do. These days, I focus on writing occasional posts for my silly little blog, Taste Is No Object, as well as doing re-writes on a “legit” novel, which I’m determined to finish. One day.