To me, discrimination against gay men is clearly rooted in the hatred of women. Jer was brought up in a small town where being gay was really dangerous. That was a strong thread in the back-story of both Logan and Jeremy. Bigotry towards any member of a group, negatively impacts everyone in that group. Then when I witnessed it as a mother, and realized that calling the softness of a man “feminine” and then humiliating him for being “less than” a man, is plain old hatred-of-women. I grew up hearing names like sissy, and wuss (‘a feeble or effeminate person’) but I never thought of this as misogyny. They get told that any part of them that’s tender, or loving, or vulnerable is weak, shameful and female. It was such a shock to me to see how boys suffer from the gender role bullshit in so many ways. Yup, motherhood is an education in all kinds of ways. Men earn more, own more, hold the vast majority of the high status positions of the world. When I was younger and a passionate feminist, I thought that men benefited from patriarchy. Of course they both had plenty to hide, and when it all unrolled, it turned out to partly be a story about boys who are suffering from misogyny. Questions like, Why would you act like that? What are you running from? What does that feel like? Whenever I got curious enough to ask the right question, they would answer. It was like they were standing just a little behind me, patiently telling me little bits of their stories. But neither Logan nor Jeremy were content to take the blame and play the villain. The King of Snowflakes boys were sweet in so many ways, and these two looked pretty rough next to them. In book 1 of my West Coast Boys series, Jeremy was the cheating ex, and Logan was a giant competitive, shallow asshole with a surprising capacity for sexual assault. Hi all! Thanks for having me Shae! I love your questions about inspiration and process so I thought I’d tell you a bit about how my new book, King of Rain, came into being.

Today my guest is Michele Fogal, who’s here to talk about her inspiration for the second book in her West Coast Boys series: the effect misogyny has on boys and men.

King of Snowflakes by Michele Fogal