With the last chapter of his book “The Servant” coming out today, it has been a wild ride so far. The story has definitely caught your attention and has constantly been the most clicked on story during the last weeks with more than 2500 unique clicks! So it was only logical to present the author of the story to all of you guys and let you get to know him a bit better!
We socially distanced easily from one another as there was no other choice anyway, especially with us being some 3000 km away from each other and did the online interview. Samer is usually a quite busy guy, but the recent situation has made all of us calm down a bit, isolate, and really think about ourselves; maybe even rediscover some feelings or traits that we didn’t think we even had in us. For example, I have discovered that I am a good cook, but I still prefer to order takeout and waste my time on Twitter.
So, without further ado, here is the interview with Samer Bo!
THE INTERVIEW
Hi Samer, first of all thank you for doing this interview for islamiccock.com!
Let’s focus on the obvious, you’re from Egypt and it’s a country not known for allowing the LGBT+ community and its members to live their lives openly. How does this affect you and how is life in Egypt currently?
Thank you for doing this interview with me. Living in Egypt is a struggle for anyone in the LGBT+ community. We are always at risk of being arrested by the police, fired from our jobs or attacked for no other reason than being who we are.
The positive side of things is that there are a few groups and organisations that are trying to build a community that stick together and help each other. So for me, the solution is to stick with this community and find allies to surround myself with.
How, from your experience, would you say that the LGBT+ deals with dating and sex? What is the usual or safest way to find partners in Egypt?
The community suffer from a lot of cases of abuse, people who are pretending to be LGBT+ to steal or even in some cases policemen who pretend to be part of the LGBT+ to out and arrest us. If I am meeting someone new, I am taking a huge risk either online or face to face.
I personally take all the precautions possible like meeting in a public place first, let a friend knows where I am and make sure they who they say they are as quicky as possible. I think the safest way is to meet partners through mutual friends, even if they are online friends. This way you know they are also part of the community.
So, the obvious question in these times of hardship is about the situation with COVID. Egypt is, as well as other countries, hit by this virus. Has it personally affected you? How is the situation developing?
It has affected me personally financially due to an impact on my work as a diving instructor or a personal trainer. I was able to find temporary work until these times come to an end. Also, being in lockdown, social distancing and curfew, I have stopped doing a lot of the things I enjoy.
I mainly miss working out at the gym, going to parties and hooking up with guys! I am sure this has been the longest time I ever had without six in the last 10 years.
On a positive note, I have some extra time to do more writing, I have a couple of new books in the making that I am trying to publish very soon.
We have all read your book “The Servant” and the reactions were very good. It is a hot story, but it also feels like it has some realness to it. You say that your stories are based on your personal experiences as well as on stories you’ve heard from others. Could you tell the readers a bit more on the background of this particular story?
The Servant is based on the true story of a friend of mine. We met a few years after this story happened. He shared his story with me and I loved it so much and convinced him to let me write it.
The names and some of the details have changed to ensure no one can identify him or anyone in the story but other than that everything else is probably the same as it happened. It is one of the stories that I did not have to do more than write what actually happened.
Is there another story that is available at your Amazon store that is very personal to you and in what way?
A few of the stories are about my personal experiences but have been changed slightly to protect my personal identity as well as others. Horny Gymnasts is based on my first gay experiences. Also, My encounters in Egypt has a few of my actual personal experiences.
So can you lead us through your thought process while you’re writing? Do you develop the story first and then write it, or do you let your writing process lead the way towards the ending?
Most of the stories were developed in my head first before writing it down, especially that they were based on true experiences so I knew the ending all along. Sometimes, I even write the outline of all the chapters before I even start writing each chapter in details.
Sometimes I start writing and just see what do I think would happen next. But in these cases, I usually end up rewriting a lot of the earlier chapters to make sure there is consistency in the characters and a good flow of the story.
After I finish any of my stories, I usually ask a friend to proofread it for me and provide me with his feedback. Based on their feedback, I sometimes rewrite some parts of the story, add or delete parts based on the feedback. The book published is never the first draft, there is usually a few drafts before I reach a point where I am happy to publish.
Usually, writers always say that to write a good story you shouldn’t think about pleasing the reader; that it is more about being honest with them. Do you follow this idea, or are you keeping the audience in your mind while writing?
I would agree, I don’t write to please anyone but myself. I write what I enjoy. If I am not enjoying the process, then I would not write it. I was asked to write follow-ups for some of my books and I know they would buy it.
However, I was not able to find a good plot that I would enjoy writing about. So for me, I think my audience would appreciate my writing much more if I have enjoyed writing it.
The stories that you write are very sexual and extremely arousing. Are you basing the sexual parts on your personal affinities and experiences or are you allowing the creative juices to just lead the way?
In some of the stories, the sexual and erotic parts are exactly as they happened to me or to my friends who told me their stories. I have a habit with my close friends to ask about the details of their sexual encounters, as much as it is arousing to me, it helps me in writing more authentic experiences.
There were other stories that my creativity led to the details of the sexual parts to make them more arousing or sometimes even extreme.
We live in a world where everything is offensive if you want it to be. From time to time, I get messages from people enraged and shocked by the fact that the website is connecting the religion with sexuality. I always give my best to explain that the religion is a thing of culture in this context, as men from Muslim countries are usually much more secretive about their same-sex affairs; and mentioning Islam is just putting things from this aspect in a perspective through just one word. What are your thoughts about sexualizing certain cultures? And you can be honest! (laughs)
I try not to listen or read any negative messages or comments. I love to get criticism of my work, but other than that I just ignore. People are becoming much more and more sensitive, hypocrites and bullies, so I don’t like wasting my time with anyone who is trying to bring someone else down.I think it is just a sexual fantasy, and it is similar to any other sexual fantasy or kink.
Any consenting adults have the right to do whatever they like and nobody have the right to judge others. I am not religious, and have my opinions on them, but I won’t judge anyone on what they believe or like to do in a mosque or a church. So I don’t anyone to tell me what I should not do in my own bedroom.
I also agree with you that Islamic like Jewish is a cultural identity and I don’t think anyone has ownership of it and can decide if you should or should not use it in this context.
So what are your plans for the future? Do you plan to stay in Egypt? Are you going to continue writing? Is writing and selling your stories earning you enough money to live off of it?
I am a very spontaneous kind of person and don’t really plan much. If I get an opportunity to travel somewhere tomorrow and it sounds interesting, I will be on the first plane.
I can assure you that I have no plans to stop writing. It is one of the things that I really enjoy doing. Writing and selling stories on Amazon is not as rewarding and not enough to live off it at all. It is also very inconsistent so I only use it as extra money to buy myself something special.
I am trying to widen my work and write more than just erotic stories. I have already written one non-erotic story “Son of the President” and I would like to write another one.
One of my new stories in the making is a detective/crime story with erotic parts in it. I think I am in the final draft, so I’m hoping to publish it in May 2020.
I hope that all your plans and dreams come true! We love your stories and we love you even more now when we’ve gotten to know you a bit better! I’m sure we will be hearing much more about you in the future and I’m looking forward to it already! Thanks so much for being a part of this interview!
It was my pleasure, and I love you too for having such an open and welcoming space.
This interview was conducted online on April 17th 2020.
You can browse through other of Samer Bo’s stories by clicking here.