A Gay Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

Reading this classic gay erotic tale takes me back to some of the first gay literature I ever read. It is interesting and engages readers on a number of levels: 1) the writing is more colorful, or veiled, in the language it uses compared to erotic stories of today; 2) it exposes (reminds) the self- hate or closeted necessity that made many men live sometimes lonely, sometimes secret lives. Those elements are, of course, all secondary to the main story. Overall, this book is a fun tale of many men gathering for a festival of carnality. It's not the best of this genre, but if you are interested in classic, erotic gay fiction from the late 1960's, or just curious-- it's worth the read.

this was a tremendously fun book! campy and outrageous, it knows exactly what it is and doesn't try to pretend it's anything but a book about, essentially, a gay sex olympics. and if the words "gay sex olympics" don't pique your interest, then i don't know what will. lots of really good erotic scenes, and also hints of romance that don't veer into the ridiculous like in some erotica novellas. the only thing that really annoyed me, as a classicist, was the fact that greek and roman things were mixed up a bit (togas, forums - a better title for this book would be "many, many gay things happened on the way to the amphitheater") but honestly? are we reading this for factoids about ancient Greece? no. no, we are not.

Excellent example of gay erotica from the 1960s. Entrepreneur Todd has the superb idea of taking over a village in Mexico to host a rerun of the original Olympics with paid sex workers playing the nude athletes and lots of bacchanalian entertainments. For the reader, there's lots of graphic sex, some actual plot, and a sweet ending as certain characters couple up. I won't say which -- but unfortunately that will be spoiled for you if you read the foreword. Hats off to Bert Shrader, whoever he is or was!

I think this might be my favorite out of the three novellas I've read so far from this imprint. Basically, this guy decides to set up a 'gaycation' spot in this town in Mexico and make it look like the Olympics in ancient Greece. Despite the entire set-up of this book being a sex vacation, I think it actually had the least sex in it. I mean don't get me wrong, there was A LOT of sex, but there were also a few chapters with no sex whatsoever. *gasp* I know that sounds ridiculous by today's standards, but by the standards of the late 60s / early 70s I'm coming to understand that it actually pretty out of the norm. Also, something that sets this apart is that it gets a truly adorable fluffy happy ending. It was a lot of fun to read.

I am so honored to be the first to review this on both Goodreads and Amazon! First and foremost, this is a re-publish of a book written in the late 1960's, so adjust your mental picture to the society of that time. I normally skip over or skim forwards. In this case, it's very important and fascinating to read to get an idea of the culture that you're about to enter. Don't go into this expecting what we now consider romance. This is primarily erotica, and while there are connections made, it is not at the forefront of the story until the end. This author created a gay vacation where each man could let go and completely be himself without fear of negative consequences. The time period was so repressive that the men almost didn't know what to do with that freedom. There was no fear of diseases (and apparently, no need for lube- I'm not sure if that even existed for a sexual purpose), so everyone went wild. The author touches on (and busts through) several controversial issues such as the stigma that bottoms had to be more effeminate and the tops had to be masculine, romantic love between two men, and racism/slavery (briefly). This book would have been considered absolutely scandalous. I loved the characters that we met and I was amazed by their confidence. I can't say that there was a ton of character growth, but that wasn't really the purpose of the story. I don't want to delve too deeply into anything else for fear of spoilers, but I just have to say that I respect this author so much, and the publisher for bringing these types of stories back to light in a time that they can be more widely appreciated.