“I Like to Watch” Book Review
“I Like to Watch” is a book of gay, erotic stories edited by Christopher Pierce and published by Cleis Press. This book is the first-ever erotic anthology for gay voyeurs and exhibitionist. The book is a softcover, average-sized book and has 176 pages. The inner pages are black and white. There are 17 total stories included in this book, and each story is a complete story to itself.
The theme of this book is exhibitionist and voyeurism. The book focuses on this theme by having the characters witness other people having sex or by having the characters themselves be showing off for others. Mostly, it’s the characters witnessing others having sex, but there are a couple stories where the main character performs instead. For example, there are ones where the main character is single and masturbates to another guy masturbating or where it’s a couple watching another couple get it on. The sex acts in this book range from masturbating, mutual masturbation, intercourse, oral sex, and rimming.
This entire book is about male homosexuals involved in voyeurism and exhibitionis,. Most of the groups in this book are just a couple while there may be larger groups when you consider the people that are performing for the two guys. However, the focus is usually just on two people. All of the characters in this book are homosexual, and there isn’t much mention of females in this book. The book has a good variance in young, slim boys as well as guys usually classified as “bears”.
One of my favorite stories was “The Rookie” by Gregory L. Norris. This was quite a long story at about 30 pages, and it was the longest in the book, but I’m glad Christopher Pierce included it. It was my favorite. It basically is a long story about a gay male who has the hottest guy he’s ever seen move in next door. This gay male happens to have an obsession with watching guy’s masturbate, and he stakes out this guy’s window at night to masturbate. Adding in a plot twist, the neighbor is a new, rookie police officer, and the two of them find themselves becoming friends during the daytime while, at night, the guy continues to peep through the window. It’s definitely a very hot story, and I love how happy the ending was and how sexy it was a well. It’s a perfect story, and I was sad to see it end.
The book itself is pretty hot. I like the idea of voyeurism and exhibitionism, and the editor put the theme in a way that would be appealing to both straight females as well as (I would assume) homosexual males. However, I will say that some of the descriptions were a bit out of my preference such as describing to stink of sweat and lots of descriptions of rimming. However, the book itself does do a good job of displaying voyeurism and exhibitionism, and while I didn’t find most of the stories to be extremely exciting, I did find a couple that really caught my attention. If voyeurism and exhibitionism in male couples appeal to you, this book is a good choice, but I’m not sure all of the stories will appeal to women wanting to read gay male erotica. It’s “I Like to Watch” from Cleis Press.
