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Review

Although the athlete characters may seem hot to each other in the anthology Hot Jocks: Gay Erotic Stories, edited by Richard Labonté, a majority of the stories are rather run of the mill. In fact some seem like they all could have been written by the same author, so similar are they. The descriptions of the jocks predictably vary little, most being handsome, well-endowed and seemingly straight, and the depictions of the sex acts are often as perfunctory as they are really sexy. There are a few entries that do stand out, however, and these are well worth the reading. The stories are divided by types of sport, beginning with one about a coach, and then covering the spectrum from football and baseball to tennis, running, bowling, wrestling, the martial arts, bodybuilding, hockey, and even including cheerleading. The story about the latter, “Campus See-curity,” is one of the best, being humorous and “cheeky” in more ways than one. In general the entries in the second half of the book are the most successful, beginning with “Home White, Road Gray,” one of the two baseball stories. In it two players on opposing teams prove to be far more united in their private lives. Other worthwhile tales include “The Platonic Ideal,” about swimmers who willingly engage in a domination/submission scenario, and the very aptly titled “Bowling for Boners.”

 -- Roy Liebman