Even the Dead are in Love Today...

Today is the final day for the By My Valentine Blog Tour. I thank everyone who stopped by and commented and wish you luck with the book winning contests... and I hope my usual readers were a bit entertained in the process. Whether any of you wish to hear it or not, Happy St. Valentine's Day.

Love comes in all varieties, from passionately physical to kindred friendships. While I mostly covered the more physical types over the past few days, today is somewhat different. Two years ago, I wrote a blog post on love which still rings true even today. And I think it's a good time to look back on a few of the things I said back then:

Everyone wants to be loved. Some people go to extremes to have it. During moments of desperation, we forsake our own happiness... our individuality... for a pair of arms to wrap around us and feel momentarily comforted. We forget the negative aspects of bad relationships in the hope that there is a silver lining to the dark, gloomy cloud.

We forget what love is.

Love isn't about gifts of roses and chocolate. It isn't candlelit dinners for two. It isn't a house with 2.5 children and a white picket fence. Love is comfort. It's not needing to explain yourself a million times or striving for that little reassuring word or action. It's unconditional support and nurturing. It can't be wrapped with a bow. It can't be asked for.

No matter who you are, or where you're from, remember these words today. They're important. They're words to live by. In delving into the paranormal for these nearly 15 years, love is a common string. Unrequited love. Waiting for a lover to return. Dying in the name of love. So many stories of devotion and heartache, great joy and the deepest sadness. Love is a powerful force, no matter the form, and it begs to be acknowledged.

But let's end this on a lighter note. For those of you adults out there, I saved the best photo for last. So if you care to see an artist's rendering of male-on-male, ghost-and-living action, be sure to click here!

The Tour Continues With Spectral Sexuality...

Welcome back to another day for the Be My Valentine Blog Tour! Tomorrow's that wonderful (or dreaded) day all about love and stuff. But here, I've decided to once more focus on the act, rather than the emotional attachment involved. Specifically, sex and the afterlife.

A lot of people wonder if there is lust still after death and I've read just about every opinion on the matter that you can imagine. Some from psychics and "experts" saying adamantly that no, there is nothing of the sort in the spirit world. We "transcend" these "bodily desires" in some form of enlightened nirvana, according to the vocal majority. But I find that very difficult to believe. There are ghosts of murderers and victims of crimes still holding on to their grief and emotions in almost every ghost story you find. Ghosts don't seem to be leaving ANYTHING behind, especially feelings and emotions. Is it really so realistic to think that sex drive is fully attached to the physical body?

And then, we have the obvious examples that sex and death can overlap: incubi and succubi. Both of these spirits are said too attack women and men, respectively, and though the incubus is often male and succubus is often female, there are some possibilities of overlap with same-sex relations. As I mentioned in Queer Hauntings, a possible incubus in Zanzibar--known as Popobawa--is male and seems to have an affinity toward male victims (as depicted in the picture below). Then there are other cases of people reporting rapes involving ghosts and spirits, and even some apparitions with very sexual behaviors. From pinching lesbian ghosts to spectral male trouser enthusiasts to a Midwest haunt where the ghost seems to sport an erection, it doesn't seem very likely that the afterlife lacks the pursuit of physical pleasure.

And on that lurid not, let's bring on a bit more interesting eye candy:

Touring It Up to My Bloody Valentine's...

Welcome everyone from the Be My Valentine Blog Tour and Liquid Silver Books, as well as my other regular (and perhaps bewildered) readers. Some of you may be wondering why a nonfiction writer is partaking in a blog tour dedicated to mainly romance authors and books of that vein. Well, for one I have many friends who write fiction (especially m/m romance) and I do indulge in a wide variety of reading. Secondly... well, being an author of a book dealing with LGBT-related paranormal phenomena, it seems most people aren't quite sure what to classify my work as. A book like Queer Hauntings has never before been written, so I seem to be caught in limbo hovering somewhere between New Age and Gay Fiction.

And in some cases, truth really does meet fiction. Author Jeanne Barrack and I became friends not long after she wrote The Sweet Flag about a gay ghost hunter and civil war spirit. For her, it was a surprise to find a real-life gay paranormal investigator (though I hate too admit I bare no physical resemblance to her character) after creating a fictional person with so many similarities. Had she known about me before then, I'm sure she would have picked my brain for her research. And there are a few other romance books chronicling the queerer side of the paranormal. Author Ally Blue writes a series involving Bay City Paranormal Investigations, a fictional paranormal troop headed by a gay paranormal investigator, Sam Raintree. And that's not even including the many other romance writers who tell tales of ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and other supernatural beings with a gay slant.

While we often think of this as a "time of love" with the approaching holiday, it is also a time of lust. And generally-speaking, the two can easily become intertwined. And now, to appease that lustful side of many of you, here are a few of the more interesting images I've run across (click the photos to enlarge, they will open in a new window):