Come As You Are

A taxonomy of intimacy from a veteran of the Bay Area queer scene.

- By E. Alex Jung

Brontez Purnell

100 BOYFRIENDS BY BRONTEZ PURNELL. MCD X FSG ORIGINALS.

FUCK BOYFRIENDS. Forget borrowed sweaters and airport pickups. The men in Brontez Purnell’s book 100 Boyfriends exist on a subterranean layer of the slightly disreputable—fuck buddies, side pieces, daddies, hookers, johns. 100 Boyfriends is a taxonomy of the wild and tender relationships native to the terroir of gay culture— the kind seeded in bathrooms, on street corners, and in gym showers long before Lin-Manuel Miranda ever said “Love is love is love is love …” In Purnell’s short story “Mountain Boys,” the narrator calls attention to the book’s title: “I called them ‘boyfriends,’ though this was not always the case. But they were all like pieces of bubblegum you chew hours after the flavor leaves and that you accidentally swallow, and then (supposedly) sit in your guts for seven years.”