concept: 5 stars
as a humanities graduate student who is, himself, ABD, this seems to have been pretty much written for me, lol. I also particularly liked the choice to have Robbie (the titular straight guy), rather than Patrick, as the narrator, and I thought the humorous conceit of Robbie’s speculation about Patrick’s potential seduction techniques worked well; I also thought Robbie’s progression was pretty well-paced (especially considering the shortness of the narrative).
critical theory jokes: 3 stars
there were not enough of them, too few theorists were named, and some of them were poorly thought-out. it also struck me as extremely implausible that Robbie could work on aesthetics as such (even from a political/historical angle) and have his evident distaste for theory — or identify himself seriously as a “social scientist”. still, I appreciated the effort — I just wish more effort had gone into it. more academia please.
writing: 3.5 stars
no glaring typos, but stylistically it felt a little clumsy at times. decent but not a standout. the dialogue was pretty good.
sex scenes: 3.5 stars
parts of the writing of the sex scenes were spot-on — “I tossed the shorts in a random direction” — and parts of it felt off, especially some of the vocabulary choices (both the vulgar, or coyly non-vulgar like “love-fluid”, and the non-vulgar — “Patrick was dandling my balls”, for example; who tf says “dandling”, let alone in this context?).
overall: average 3.75
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