From time to time I find myself frustrated with the mediocrity of Internet porn. I find that when the video I’m watching still hasn’t finished, but I have, I get overcome with embarrassment.
I’m not embarrassed because I’m watching porn. I’m embarrassed because of what I’m actually watching.
I’ll notice the male star is kind of creepy looking and doesn’t have enough body hair for my tastes. The lighting is unflattering. That woman’s gaze is a little too intense, and frankly the jiggle of that man’s scrotum as he thrusts is disconcerting.
Often I feel there isn’t any tangible connection between the actors, any attempt at realistic dialogue is futile. Some women may consider this blasphemy, but I can’t even watch James Deen with the audio on.
Of course this is a sweeping generalization of porn. There are gems out there, and some porn can be beautiful and artistic. Yet the average Pornhub.com video often leaves me wanting something more than the “get ‘er done” orgasm.
I want sensuality. I don’t want camera angles and someone else’s half-assed moan. I want to imagine a character writhing in pleasure, to picture the setting and yet not be constrained by it. I want to believe in, and feel a character’s experiences.
For sensuality and kink I turn to erotica. A well-written piece of erotic literature guides the reader through a specific fantasy. It introduces certain characters, describes certain sensations, but by and large it is the reader’s imagination that fills in all the blanks. It takes a lot of skill on the writer’s part to facilitate another person’s imagination and to create a convincing erotic fantasy, but when done well, it is the ultimate erotic experience. Well, besides sex itself.
So without further ado, here are a few of my favourite erotic novels and anthologies.
A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice) – The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty
Yes, the woman who brought you Interview with a Vampire is also the author of an erotic fairy tale trilogy. The basic premise is that Sleeping Beauty is awoken from her hundred-year slumber with a kiss, then thoroughly deflowered. She becomes the Prince’s sex slave and is brought to his mother’s court where erotic adventures ensue. It’s Charles Perrault with a BDSM kink. At the risk of sounding like SNL’s Stefon, it has everything: a Hall of Punishments, dildo fittings, lots of leather, and love. There’s pleasure and pain on every page. The other books in this trilogy are Beauty’s Punishment and Beauty’s Release.
Anaïs Nin – Delta of Venus
This collection of erotic short stories may have been written in the 1940s, but there is nothing tame or antiquated about Nin’s work. Her beautifully crafted prose draws the reader immediately into an atmosphere that feels mysterious, sensual, and nostalgic all at the same time. Nin is the only writer I’ve encountered who can make necrophilia at all palatable, or even innocent and sexy, and she does in the short story “Pierre.” Though by far my favourite story of Nin’s is “The Veiled Woman,” in which George, a handsome free spirit, is procured for a woman who can only make love to strangers. Another great collection of Nin’s erotica is Little Birds.
Susie Bright – X: An Erotic Treasury
Susie Bright is a fabulous sex-positive feminist and host of In Bed with Susie Bright the longest running sexuality podcast. X: An Erotic Treasury is the latest book she’s edited. It’s a compilation of 40 erotic short stories that range from very kinky to relatively vanilla. My favourite in this anthology is “Yes” by Donna George Storey. The couple featured in this story are fairly regular people with common kinks, but what makes this story so titillating is the couple’s sexual connection and intuition. It’s chemistry that is just so hard to find in free Internet porn. Heads up, you can find this anthology on Google Books, but the hardcover edition has a beautiful cloth cover.
Violet Blue – Any of her Best Women’s Erotica anthologies
Violet Blue is a sex-columnist extraordinaire, and the author of over a dozen sex-ed books including Ultimate Guide: Cunnilingus and Adventurous Couple’s Guide: Sex Toys. Blue has been editing the Best Women’s Erotica anthologies since 2006. She has the Oprah Winfrey and Dan Savage seal of approval, need I say more? One of the most vivid erotic short stories I’ve ever read comes from Best Women’s Erotica 2007. It’s called “Chill” and centers around one woman’s experience at a sex spa that specializes in realizing even the most extreme fetishes. This woman’s fetish happens to include dropping her temperature to as low as possible, until she becomes almost corpselike. It’s slightly creepy, but fascinating.
Literotica.com
This website is a source of free, amateur erotic stories. Essentially, this is the pornhub.com of erotica. I had my doubts at first, but a friend of mine swears by it. I like the fact that it’s a forum for artistic expression, where people are encouraged to get their super freak on. For some reason or another, many of the top rated stories focus on incest fetish, particularly between mother and adult son, and between siblings.
Finding a story that fits your taste on this site may take a little bit of digging, but there are some very strong contributors who write about a range of topics, not just incest. Happy hunting!
