Synopsis: Another amazing collection of erotic stories, edited by
the fabulous Violet Blue.
Our Review:
Violet’s newest and it’s hot hot hot! In fact, I had to take it
home cause I kept blushing while reading it at work, and okay,
it’s easy to make me blush but this was for good reason. Yum.
Like Sweet Life, this is also a book for straight couples,
although not all the stories feature exclusively boy/girl sex
(Richard’s Secret features some boy/boy sex too, in addition to
the usual girl/girl in hetero erotica). The unifying theme of the
anthology is that taboo sex gets people off hard. The taboo
changes from story to story and ranges from 'milder' to 'seriously
bent'. In some stories it’s as innocuous as public sex -- like in
Tyler’s "You Can’t Always Get What You Want", a story that really
captures the urgency-must-fuck-right-now feeling, and which is a
really great read and intro to the collection. Sometimes the taboo
is that the two people shouldn’t be having sex -- one of my fave
stories was Dante Davidson’s "After Hours". He sums up the theme
of the book nicely in this one paragraph:
"You’re not supposed to have playing-doctor fantasies when you’re a doctor.
You’re not supposed to want to peel your nurse’s uniform off her nubile body
and subject her to the same intensely detailed examinations you give your
high-paying clients. But sometimes the very things that you’re not supposed
to want are the things you want most. Luckily, I’d found a match for my
fantasies in Nurse Jocelyn, who craved a thorough examination with the same
ferocity that I yearned to part her splendid thighs and give her one." (pp.
42-43)
I adore this quote and want to hang it up somewhere prominent in my life.
It’s such a nice encapsulation of the charge around taboo sex.
Some of the stories feature traditionally 'edgier' themes (I hate that
concept sometimes -- who decides what’s edgy anyways?) -- including
cross-dressing, scenes that include sex with strangers, exhibitionism,
public spankings, humiliation, glory holes, schoolgirls and teachers, etc.
You name a common sexual taboo, and it’s in here. The beauty of the book is
that it’s kinky and accessible, and will work on many different levels for
many different people. The fact that I really love it and so will our newer
erotica readers who haven’t read very much erotica before also will --
that’s how you know it’s a great book. I also like that the anthology
doesn’t separate out the kinkier ones, or group them all together, which
sometimes anthologies do. It’s normalizing to have different kinds of taboos
rubbing up against each other. While we could all name sex acts that
dominant American culture considers taboo, the charge we each get off taboo
sex is both personal and specific (because what we each find hot is
different) but also somewhat universal -- it doesn’t matter if the kink
described isn’t the particular way I’m bent, but the breaking of taboos is
powerful and heady stuff. I think that’s why I enjoyed reading a much much
higher percentage of stories in this anthology than usual.
Just a quick note: The story "Richard’s Secret" uses the word gimp, which in
America is a derogatory term for a disabled person, but in Britain is slang
for sex slave. I don’t know the etymology of the sexual definition, so I
don’t know the context. Regardless, the term may disturb some people. Also,
this anthology does contain kink and might freak out the most "I want simple
fucking" crowd -- we should just let people know that it’s hot and raunchy
and filled with taboos. And that it’s one of the hard-to-please book buyer’s
favorites!" (review provided by the kind folks at
Good Vibrations) |
