Recently, Playboy radio sent me a press release…
on October 17th, 2006 at 6:00 pmNaming the ten best erotic memoirs ever. Like its recent list of best erotic novels, it’s a blend of the old and new, spanning a couple of centuries of erotic literature, i.e.:
1) The Sexual Life of Catherine M, by Catherine Millet (2001)
2) The Surrender, by Toni Bentley (2004)
3) The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, by Giacomo Casanova (1826)
4) 100 Strokes of the Brush Before Bed, by Melissa P. (2003)
5) Nine and a Half Weeks, by Elizabeth McNeill (1978)
6) Emmanuelle, by Emmanuelle Arsan (1967)
7) My Life & Loves, by Frank Harris (1923)
Kinski Uncut: The Autobiography of Klaus Kinski, by Klaus Kinski (1996)
9) Ecstasy and Me: My Life as a Woman, by Hedy Lamarr (1966)
10) Motley Crue: The Dirt-Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band, by Tommy Lee, Mick Mars, Vince Neil and Nikki Six (2001)
According to Playboy Radio, the list “features narratives composed from the personal experiences of actors and musicians as well as ingenues and art critics, all of whom bring new meaning to the term kiss and tell.”
If the books are listed in priority order, then I’m not keen on the first two choices. Millet’s book had a certain shock value to it, but was ultimately boring in its conveyance. But I think both, over time, will achieve the kind of “nostalgia of its time” the way NIne and a Half Weeks and Emmanuelle have. One can’t look at those books without remembering their place in time — Emmanuelle in the newly sex-revolutionized 1960s, Nine and a Half Weeks at the height of the disco-pulsing, alternative sex-emerging 1970s.
The sex memoir is, however, under-developed. It has yet to embrace the best elements of memoir writing. It has yet to achieve the overall literary legitimacy it deserves. I suppose the book that’s come to closest is Steve Elliott’s roman a clef My Girlfriend Comes to the City And Beats Me Up. But being a roman a clef, it can’t truly qualify.
Maybe the recently published memoirs I’ve discovered while book browsing will achieve the stretch I feel the sex memoir needs. Namely:
Princess Spider: True Experiences of a Dominatrix
Swooning Beauty: A Memoir of Pleasure
Female Submission: The Journals of Madelaine
I’m pinning the best of my hopes on the last books I’ve listed, but you never know where a gem’s waiting to be found. I look forward to digging for it. And if you’d like to see Playboy Radio’s list, here’s the link. Enjoy.
