What did happen, in some ways, is not that exciting. Or that unusual. No videos or sex tapes were released online. Tyler was, if not advertising being gay, was not completely in the closet either. That said, it’s hard to say how comfortable anyone would be with public exposure of their private lives and this young man sounded shy.

There’s little other than speculation as to what drove this young man to finally end it. There’s certainly a lot of stress at that time of your life whether you’re gay, straight, or any shades in between. I had a friend end his life when I was in college. He was a happy-go-lucky sort of guy and when my friend came to tell me that he’d killed himself, I immediately responded with, “That’s not funny.”

Because he wasn’t a person that you’d expect would even have thoughts like that. Me, with my black hair and Cure t-shirts, sure. I won’t deny my own struggles with depression, but maybe my ability to be open (and whiny) about it was what ultimately kept me from going that far.

I, and maybe we, would prefer it if there were something bigger to point to in Tyler’s case. Obvious bullying where there are bruises and scads of “Go kill yourself,” messages are easy to point to. Some of what motivated Tyler was even his inner struggle with a roommate that he perceived was nice. Maybe someone he even liked, who so casually and callously treated him with such disrespect. Then the shared disgust with what probably felt like the world.

And, of course, the roommate. He with his own struggles to find his place. Kind of a jerk. I don’t know too many 18-year-old boys who aren’t. Or 18-year-old anyones who aren’t hopelessly self-involved. You can almost feel the desperation to be special, to be the center of attention. Regardless of his personal feelings, which may or may not have been homophobic, his actions were at best unconscionable, and illegal.

I suppose he’s got plenty of attention now.

So what of it? In projecting myself back to that age, I can see myself in both of those struggles. Scared and sensitive, feeling unanchored, as well as the occasional mean girl who used sarcasm and gutting remarks to defend her wall. And, sometimes, for selfish amusement.

When I was nearly to the end of the story, I recognized a name — the name of the man who found Tyler Clementi’s body. I went to high school and college with him and he has since moved to New York. I didn’t know him that well as I was a freshman when he was a senior, but I recalled him from debate competitions. He was older and wiser and I was quite new to the life of high school and more than a little intimidated by the world. I hadn’t moved but our high school fed from two different junior high schools, plus people who knew how to drive, who had been in high school level debates, seemed so worldly.

Not many of my friends from junior high went on to participate in high school competitions and without my debate coach, I felt very lost and too shy to make much conversation with the older students. I remember being very wide-eyed and stuttering when spoken to. And without anything in particular to say, I’d just keep quiet and watch from a distance, wishing I could just force myself to swagger in and break the ice.

In other classes, filled with familiar faces, I was fine. Gregarious, even. But that lost, scared feeling, being too intimidated to reach out, I get that.

It sounds like he was a talented, quirky kid. The world needs those.

But what sticks with me is that the problem isn’t Dharun Ravi. It isn’t even a team of Dharun Ravis. He was just a stupid kid doing stupid things. But what empowered him to do those stupid things was the shock and stigma of Tyler Clementi being with another man. It’s hard to imagine anyone being that shocked or curious if a young or even older woman showed up in the dorm room. Hell, they may have even acted like he was a stud.

The systematic humiliation of the LGBT community by allowing laws that deny equal human rights is the root of the problem and will continue to be, no matter how many “It gets better” videos are launched. Dharun Ravi was simply the socially acceptable level of homophobic and for that reason, he feels like he did nothing wrong. Or at least not enough wrong to be going to prison.

In a world where homosexual relations are compared to sex with dogs, his behavior isn’t nearly that extreme. And that’s the problem. You can’t tell high school students to play nice and tell the LGBT students that it gets better when you know damn well that it doesn’t. Not completely. It’s just not so open or so extreme.

Maybe Tyler realized that. Maybe it was an impulsive teenager thing. Maybe it was something so unrelated that we’d all be shocked. None of that matters now.

What matters now is what we do going forward.

But it’s not.

While it could be (and certainly will be) argued that their reward scheme for popular uploaded files led to the uploading of pirated material, those files did not upload themselves. Furthermore, not every file uploaded to their site was copyrighted content, yet every file is not accessible.

Trust me, I know the pain of having to file the DMCA notices for every file that’s been uploaded. I’m not saying any of this from a place of ignorance. I’m saying all of this from a place of careful caution.

There is more than one way to skin a cat. Congress does not have to pass a law to get SOPA/PIPA’s principles across. Court precedence has a huge impact on the rule of law and by idly standing by while a site is pulled down by the government–how different is that from the possibility of violating free speech with SOPA, really?

Basically, the government just decided that site should be shut down and it was. Rather than having ISPs ignore it, they made it go away. All files that may or may not have been copyrighted material are offline with no discrimination. File sharers made the site popular, but businesses were using it. People sharing photos and videos with their families. People using it to back up old files. They had no warning, nor are they guilty of anything, but their files are inaccessible either way.

Another thing that bothers me is that this is just another form of corporate welfare. Hear me out here. My tax dollars are going for the prosecution of these people who ran a hosting company, basically. And was it because they were hosting a weapon of mass destruction? No. They were hosting files that violated copyright. Okay, not good, but does that come out of my pocket as a citizen? Sure, it can come out of my pocket as a content creator, but I don’t expect the government to file my DMCAs for me. However, Megaupload executives are being seized at great expense to us for the profit of movie and music companies. It’s their pocketbooks that are supposedly suffering (though they can only estimate what their damages would really be.) Why is that a national issue? Oh, right. Lobbyists.

Did they know files violating copyright are up? Sure they do. Youtube knows this, too. But no one is required to respond unless a DMCA notice is sent. Then the response is to take the file down. Sure, they get uploaded again, but guess who’s doing that? The pirates.

And guess who’s just going to move their target site? The pirates.

And guess what problem isn’t resolved? Pirating.
And guess what problem is resolved? The government’s ability to take down sites for fairly nebulous reasons.

Pirates are annoying. I get that. But this is not going to stop them. It’s not even going to stun them. The only real way to do so is to give up your freedom on the internet. Maybe I could’ve made a couple hundred more dollars this year. Maybe a couple of thousand. I don’t know. I have no way to know how many people shared my files or in what way or if they would’ve ever even bought my book to start with.

Hell, I don’t know if they got a book free from an internet site and bought the rest of the catalog because they liked it. I have no way of calculating or understanding any of that.

But I can tell you that I would give a lot more money than what I would’ve gotten to keep the internet free.

Especially if it ever comes to that conservative Supreme Court ever getting to weigh in on what smut or pornography is.

Think about it.

But, as I try and communicate more and be more personal and not just this unknown entity producing books, I started to feel dishonest. Plus, being someone who doesn’t really love sharing personal woes, it left me with little to talk about.

The next couple of manuscripts I’m working on are not just the romance and sex but also are thrillers and political. So I don’t think my punditry would’ve remained in the closet long either way. So I come out now as a liberal. Progressive. Card-carrying member of the ACLU.

Okay, there are no cards. I lied about that part. But I do make yearly donations.

Now, I don’t mind debating my beliefs. I enjoy political discussions, particularly over dinner with a bottle of wine to lubricate the conversation, so long as everyone can agree to disagree and go home as friends. What I get, on occasion, is, “This is America, love it or leave it.”

Here’s the thing. I live in a nice house that I like. If the roof springs a leak, I don’t enjoy the deluge or move out. I try to fix the leak.

That’s the point of all of this. Everyone has their own idea of how to fix the leak, or even different ideas on what would be an attractive addition to the house. Since we all share the house, we have to work out a compromise. It isn’t always pretty. In fact, sometimes it’s downright ugly and no one’s happy with it (o hai Citizens United!) But it’s still ours and even if it embarrasses me or makes me feel downright ill (indefinite detention anyone?) it’s still a nice house and worth repairing.

I could always plan a lunch that doesn’t require heating, but that assumes that I can plan ahead, which  isn’t part of my admittedly meager skillset.

Now, if I were reading this (which I would never, because who cares what that Clancy person gets up there) I’d be wondering why after a blog that appears to be all promo all the time suddenly there’s a whitegirlproblem post. Well, I’m going to try to actually blog. As vapid as this post looks, this is a growth moment for me.

Sort of.

Or something.

I don’t have anything to promote at the moment (oh I always could, I suppose…) I’m just attempting to act like a normal person. How’s that working out for me?

The WASPs actually made the top 20 Amazon gay romance list at one point. It’s one of those books that seems to be love it or hate it. I’m happy to report that Lisa of Joyfully Reviewed loved it!

Enjoy an uncompromising look at the idle and not so idle rich in the book, The WASPs. Funny, irreverent Blake and his bestie the suave, enigmatic Tyrone let us peek into their sometimes less than idyllic lives. Still water does run deep for them when the past collides with the present and secrets are unearthed. By stories end we discover there’s so much more to both men than the frothy lives presented when this book began. The WASPs gets more complicated and fascinating with each chapter. A surprising treat.

Read the entire review

Already sold? Get your own copy

• Dreamspinner Press
• Amazon
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Bah, I suck at self promotion. Besides, Thursday said all of this better, so I’m going to quote her.

Thanksgiving is a time for togetherness, for in-laws and cousins packing into the living room and watching the game so loudly that you fear you’ll lose your mind. Between the hours of cooking, the inevitable family tensions, and the old sweatpants you spend the whole afternoon wearing after gorging on turkey, it’s easy to be be left wanting nothing more than to escape into a sexier world. So why not spend this Thanksgiving with Clancy Nacht’s A Model Boyfriend?

One of its pivotal scenes takes place at Thanksgiving, a holiday the heroine, Andy, is ill-prepared to celebrate. Despite not knowing how to cook or even owning a turkey pan, she’s determined to make the holiday special for Brandon, her gorgeous love interest. Brandon surprises her–and the reader–by being the best Thanksgiving date a woman could wish for. I won’t spoil it, but needless to say there are sexy results.

• Read an excerpt
• Buy for your Kindle
• Buy from Loose Id

Angelina of TwoLips Reviews gave me 4 lippys (I think they’re lips but I think of them as lippys) for my short story “A Certain Pressure in the Pipes!”

She says:

A Certain Pressure in the Pipes is vintage Clancy Nacht. Her m/m stories always feature humor, intelligence, surprising bits of poetry, and enough raw man-sex to leave you flushed. The characters offer the promise of complexity and their situation offers the promise of multiple layers of plot, but the 40 short pages they’re given doesn’t allow either the characters or the plot to develop. While it lacks the emotional punch of Black Gold, or even the aching longing of The WASPs, A Certain Pressure in the Pipes is good for what it is: a short, funny, erotic interlude.

This was among the first pieces I published and it’s with Noble Romance–a great place not afraid to take chances on new authors. I learned a lot publishing there. They’re great!

Read an excerpt

See the book trailer

Purchase “A Certain Pressure in the Pipes” at Amazon, Noble Romance, or wherever fine smut is sold.

I’m pretty thrilled that our May/December romance is doing so well. It’s a theme that we’ve written a few times, though this is the only one we’ve submitted so far.

Gah. It’s almost a year since Thursday Euclid and I released “Black Gold.”

That was her first published novel and my first with Loose Id. Now we have a couple more under our belts and we’re learning more as we go.

Nothing profound to say, just glad you’re all here. I guess Halloween is sort of my Thanksgiving where I sit back and give thanks for all of the candy and fake blood.

Anyway… another of life’s little treasures is a long review. Even if it’s searing, even if you disagree, it’s nice that someone gave your work that much thought.

The Romance Review’s Valentina Heart had some wonderful things to say:

The age difference is something I love in books. It makes the whole situation more interesting and the conflicts are more often intriguing than not. In this story, it was really written well and not once through the pages did I think how the two aren’t really fitting for each other.

Both characters were really likeable and original in their own way, but it was the son, Kyle, who brought in that bit of spark. His energy and behavior, while irresponsible, was very refreshing in the sea of ‘goodies’ and I for one really liked him.

The story didn’t drag at any point and I read it from the beginning to the end with genuine interest. There are no complications or plot fillers, just a simple story about two men who don’t fit a certain mold and who struggle through their own thoughts as much as they do through other’s condemnation.

And something to make note of:

My two remarks, and the reasons why this is a four star read for me and not a five, are about the sweetness and repetition. I like characters who are realistic, and I like my books that way too. When they cry too much or break down constantly, it’s off putting. I agree it is often sweet and romantic even, but here, it was a tad too much. As for repetition, certain conversations repeated themselves and could have easily been cut out of the story. There is only a certain number of times one wants to read about the same thing, and I wish it was written differently here.

So we’ll keep an eye on that and you should have read all of Valentina Heart’s review at The Romance Reviews website.

If you like what you’ve read, “I’ll Be Your Man” is available at Loose Id and Amazon.

(or anywhere fine smut is sold.)

“Bayou” is a short story I wrote for “Women in Lust,” an anthology for Cleis Press edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel. It’s pretty much straight up smut, so read when you’re in the mood.

As for m/m, Thursday and I have been writing up a storm. We have a couple of things that we need to prepare to submit, so it’ll be a bit before anything sees the light of day. But! Something wicked kinky this way comes.

It’ll come as no surprise that I enjoy the May/December dynamic. After all, I wrote a book (actually a couple, but this is the only one we’ve sent to publish.) I’m so excited that other people enjoy it, it too. It means a lot that someone felt like we got the dynamic right, because that’s really what our goal was.

From the review:

I loved, loved, LOVED this book! One of the great things about the Nacht/Euclid writing team is the fast paced storyline and the dialog between the two characters. Because of this, I really get the feeling that their heroes really come to like and then love each other. As the book progresses their emotional bond deepens and by the end of the book, I was totally captivated by Richard and Paul’s love for one another.

Read the rest of the review at Night Owl Erotica