That Salon would claim 2004 a year of bad sex events and that Tom Wolfe’s I am Charlotte Simmons won the Bad Sex in Fiction Award in the same week I wanted to tell you about the good things happening in sex writing. Odd, that, but there you go.
I find it amazing that Tom Wolf would so poorly write a sex scene. I mean, slither slither slither slither went the tongue? I suppose I could see it as a subtle metaphor for original sin or I could sat that, yeah, a lot of college sex is that bad, but my first impression said otherwise: Is Wolfe uncomfortable about sex? I mean, it reads like squeamish writing.
The least he could do was research good sex writing, preferably outside of high-brow literary circles. He could’ve looked to the authors I’m about to list here to see how it’s really done — we do, after all, keep our ghetto clean. Even the gutters.
And you won’t find otorhinolaryngological anywhere in their writing. (Although we probably should adopt the word in jest.)
First — and I’m afraid media whore foremost — I’ve got to point to Rachel Kramer Bussel’s Naughty Spanking Stories, not
because she staged a kick-ass book launch party last month but because I’ve got a dyke story in it.It’s a delight to be in the anthology because I love writing about alt-sex practices and there’s rarely enough “major anthology” opportunity to publish it. (There’s plenty of micro-fiction opportunities to write spanking, bondage, and fetish fiction, but because short fiction writing demands a lot of me, I haven’t been able to take advantage of those micro-opportunities.) Anyway, thanks to Rachel for editing according to her passions and for Pretty Things Press for committing itself to a range of sex fiction. Naughty Spanking’s available through major book sites, Venus Book Club, and at PTP’s website.
Another spanking baby for your consideration: Brooke Stern’s Suffering the Consequences.
I’ve never been a big reader of Chimera or Nexus titles primarily because I’m vexed we don’t have more mass market paperback erotica publishers here in the U.S. I probably should go global in my view because the Brits are doing far more of it than American publishers — and better, too — and a far number of American authors are in their not-skittish-about-odd-fetishes mix.
Anyway, I’m almost half-way through Brooke’s novel and it’s a nice blend of spanking/fucking. Good, hot stuff. Readers who prefer the self-sabotaging girl who needs correction angle, complete with a May/December torrid affair, will like this novel. I don’t know how the plot will advance, but I have my suspicions. I’ll let you know when I finish it whether I was right. And I think I’ll read more Brit-published erotica in the future, too.
Ah, don’t let me forget Marilyn Jaye Lewis’s 
collection Lust: Bisexual Stories. Yes, more bi fiction! We don’t get to see bi-ficion often enough within GLBT circles and I’m glad Alyson Books latched onto Marilyn’s collection. More to come about this title in the future.
I’m really pleased that, in the course of overhauling her site, Tristan Taormino started blogging. Visit and read about the first Best Lesbian Erotica 2006 reading. There’s good behind-the-scenes writing there.
Likely to be the most overlooked book of 2004-05: Best American Sex Writing 2004. Why? Well, first its release was delayed months and when it was released, Dan Savage’s name doesn’t appear as editor. A Thunder Mouth Press editor’s does. Not a problem to me (stuff like this happens in publishing and I know the parent company did some reorgs in 2004) because I would’ve bought the book anyway. It does have a wide representation of mainstream media nonfiction sex writing in its pages, but one thing’s missing: an introduction. Funny, you don’t realize how much an introduction anchors a collection, but you sure notice it when it isn’t present.
Last, I also want to point out Steve Elliott‘s Happy Baby made the best book list at Salon and the Voice. Steve’s fiction boils with sexual motifs and he doesn’t use the word otorhinolaryngological either. Happy Baby currently sits on my hassock (near the cat, at this very moment) amid my own pile of writing. I read it at day’s end to center myself among the living. Why? I don’t know. But the novel’s out in paperback now, so look for it.
Well, that’s enough for now. Really, it’s almost overkill already! See you next week.
