Best Women’s Erotica 2007 is here!!!
I’m so excited to see this anthology hit the stores; the online stores anyway — it’s still so fresh out of the oven than the contributors and I don’t even have copies yet! I’m thrilled about this book — I culled over 300 submissions for the very best in never-before-published women’s erotica, and this book was the absolute best of the best. My Best Women’s Erotica 2006 won for best erotica book of the year, and I’m sure this one will pull the same accolades. BWE07 looks great, thanks to a gorgeous cover by erotic photographer Samantha Wolov.
Read the book’s introduction, which will give you a taste and summary of each story (and more) after the jump.
At the same time, I see that Annalee Newitz and Charlie Anders book She’s Such A Geek: Women Write About Science, Technology, and Other Nerdy Stuff is finally available as well. I can’t wait to read it, as it promises to be chock full of exciting first-person essays by female geeks of all stripes and occupations. A much-needed and interesting book, for sure.
There’s already a She’s Such A Geek blog for the book, and full disclosure: I’m one of the lucky contributors. Yay!
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Introduction
Lust, Conquer, See
I often think of editing erotic anthologies like curating an art show in a gallery. For a powerful show, you have to cull dozens (or in this case, hundreds) of selections for the strongest pieces. Considering the source is essential, and a good curator will pick a handful of talented big names and a roster of startling new discoveries. The overall theme is the guiding light in boiling the selections down to the top contenders, and then each piece needs to be considered in context of the whole; and then there’s hanging them all together to see if the whole thing works.
Of course, with erotica, there are a lot of similarities with the curator analogy — except, in the case of this year’s Best Women’s Erotica 2007, try to imagine that each piece somehow manages to subsume you, pushing itself into the deepest core of some part of your sexual trigger. And sets it off. At least, that’s what putting this show together for you has been like for me.
These stories are most certainly works of art in their own right, but like a fantastic painting or a jaw-dropping drawing or a visceral photograph, each of these pieces started out as just a story I was reading, and managed to overtake my senses, my imagination — and yes, my pussy. This collection did something to me while I was putting it together. The stories here provoked me. They took me over, and bits of them found me in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep, they visited me during the day when I was trying to walk to the local cafe; they left me feeling like I wanted more. Was I hungry? Was I thirsty? Was I obsessed with the little details about slick fingers inside panties, a rough fuck by a tattooed boy who loves to spank while he probes, or women paying for outrageous sexual fetishes that most can’t even dare to speak of? I wasn’t sure. But I wanted more.
For instance, in To Serge With Love by Reen Guierre, a young woman’s relationship with a British author goes form cybersex to phone sex to an outrageous first-time meeting in person, complete with an unusual (and inspiring) sex toy trick that leaves him literally breathless. Inked by Jordana Winters follows a fascination many of us have for tattooed boys to an incendiary conclusion. Chill by Kathleen Braeden is one of the edgiest, most outrageous fetish sex stories I’ve had the honor of reading over and over, and arouses equally as much as it holds your attention rapt in disbelief that such a taboo could be so… hot.
This Flesh Has Changed Meaning by Jennifer Cross takes the rushed yet tender fuck between two new mothers to dizzy heights; Hands by Jean Casse gives us the most delectable butch who seduces a straight girl only to find that her lust for hands leads her further than she’d ever thought she’d go — namely onto her new lover’s boyfriend’s fist. Rita Rollins’ Cowboy shows what happens when a lap dancer indulges her fantasies with a client in a most unconventional way, making boundaries into sex toys for the rest of us. Rhythm Like A Heartbeat by Sophie Mouette makes boundaries and dancing into a whole other delicious sex toy when a woman decides her curvy hips should move in time with her heart — and her pussy — with thigh-clenching results.
Jane Black’s Pivot would be one of this show’s trick of the light; begin and you might think it’s just another hot power exchange fantasy, but then the angle shifts for our female protagonist, and so does the sexual control. Fluid Humiliation by Kayla Kuffs might just be the Mapplethorpe in our collection, as a woman agrees to ever-surprising level of enema humiliation play — and yes, it’s just as surprising (even to her) as it is a turn-on. Becky by Kay Jaybee is the most playful selection and the joy of the collection, even if that joy is the tongue-in-cheek stripes of a cane properly applied in the most unusual office in the history of cubicle farms. Don’t let Irma Wimple’s Electric Razor make you think that we women are all about appliances and power tools — except when we are in the most devious ways.
Just Words by Donna George Storey appeals to the snarkiest in all of us when a woman decides to play along half-heartedly with her lover’s phone sex games, until the words (as they are wont to do) control her hands, her control, and her orgasms. Thea Hutchinson’s Galatea Broached combines lush imagery, male observation and female sexual awakening into a stunning vista of pure voyeuristic adventure; Call Me by Kristina Wright turns two women’s personal ad adventures upside down into a sweet, sticky mess that might make you think mistakes are exactly what you hope happens from now on. Meanwhile, Scarlett French’s Play Spaces is one snapshot of a night spent in several rooms at a sex club, with each new room as thrilling and arousing for the newcomer protagonist as the first.
Voice of An Angel by Teresa Noelle Roberts is the baroque centerpiece of this erotic exhibition, in which a costume designer discovers that an opera singer’s voice penetrates more than her ears — and culminating in a riveting oral scenario. One woman’s overwhelming urge to conquer male skin with her voracious vulva make Puffy Lips by Susie Hara an image you’ll want to revisit. Alison Tyler’s Worth It is a powerful portrait of a woman on the verge of marriage when her desire for taboo anal sex pushes her into the realm of deciding to make the biggest decision of her life — or not. And if you’ve ever been consumed with the desire to fuck so hard it burns through each others’ skin and makes you into something not quite human, then you’ll be unable to walk away from Rachel Kramer Bussel’s Animals unchanged.
There is quite a show for you here, and I promise you’ll want more.
Violet Blue, 2006
