Dear Tell All: I just read your column on locating good erotica at local bookstores (March 13, 2009). I realize most of it is dreck, but there is one good exception that I know of, and you won't even have to stand in the erotica section to find it! I actually located this series in the fiction paperback section of the east-side Borders.
It's an S&Mtrilogyby Anne Rice, under the pen name of A.N. Roquelaure, that is loosely (very loosely) based on the story of Sleeping Beauty. The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, Beauty's Punishment and Beauty's Release are shocking and intensely sexual, especially so considering the author's eventualhard turntoward a Christian lifestyle. The writing, however, is straightforward and minimally cheesy. If you read the trilogy, you will find yourself fighting through the first book because it goes against every societal norm, but then you'll really get into it by book two, once it's less of a shockto your sensibilities.It's a story about a society built upon sexual slavery, and it challenged every belief I've ever had about sex.
You don't have to like getting spanked to be eventually turned on by these books. I wish they could be recommended to the person who wrote in seeking erotica to spice up his marriage. I think his wife would get a kick out of them.
Avid Reader
Dear Tell All: Boy, did you blow it.
There is some classic erotica out there, and classics are classics for a reason. Erotica aimed at women - and you should definitely search that out if you are trying to arouse a woman - is harder to find, but often much better written than the stuff guys find appealing.
Anas Ninwrote many erotic stories, but her collection Delta of Venus got me through many lonely nights long before the Internet was invented.
Isabel Allende's Aphrodite, a collection of short stories about food, also has a heavily erotic theme, especially when read aloud.
These are just two that I can cite without even going to my bookcase. If you can't think of any good erotica that could be purchased at a "respectable" bookstore, you either don't read much (of anything) or need better advisers for your column.
Hot Stuff
Thanks for the tip, Avid Reader. I can't believe I missed A.N. Roquelaure's books on my porno excursion to Borders. I probably deserve to be spanked. Repeatedly.
As for you, Hot Stuff, I question whether those books by Anas Nin and Isabel Allende did indeed provide a satisfying release, because you seem to be in a very cranky mood. If you think you're going to turn me on by heaping abuse on me...well, you're kind of right.
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