Top Ten Erotica

Often, while writing this list, I found myself questioning whether a certain book was erotica or not. That is always the case with trying to define a genre, but with erotica in particular, people have quite specific expectations. Do books need to be about more than sex to be erotica? Must the sex be integral? Do the books need to have sexual arousal as an explicit intention? But you can tie yourself up in knots with such questions. In the end this is became a list of really good books that have some kind of sexual theme. They were not all written with the intent to sexually arouse the reader. But some of them were.

One problem big with making value judgements of erotica is that books can transcend failings of plot and character if they push your own particular hot buttons. My own bedside bookshelf contains a number of volumes that are more like guilty pleasures than books I’d recommend. They are not good books, but there are reasons why they work for me.

I’ve tried to keep the influence of my own preferences to a minimum. Mostly. And I like to think that there is plenty of variety here – that the chosen books are so brilliantly written that they will bring you reading enjoyment even if the themes aren’t always your personal toy bag.

10. The Cutting Room by Louise Welsh

First, here’s a book that is a perfect example of a book that makes this list and yet isn’t an erotica book. Sometimes the most erotic books aren’t erotica. This is a crime novel. A brilliant, brilliant crime novel. With a plot about disturbing pornographic photographs and a gay antique dealer hero who has the hottest seediest sex imaginable. The book also meets a major requirement for a great crime book with a devastatingly brilliant ending.

9. Try by Dennis Cooper

(Describing Dennis Cooper is not really a suitable job for 10am on a Sunday morning.)

Disturbing. Dark. Sordid. Maybe a bit like Burroughs, maybe not. Sexual, maybe, more than sexy. But sometimes sexy. Spanning every kind of sexuality imaginable, most of which are pretty repulsive. Inflicting sexual damage with no kind of remorse. This doesn’t really sound much like an erotic book, does it? That’s probably true. I can’t imagine many people masturbate to Dennis Cooper. Maybe I’m wrong. Either way I can’t imagine this list without him.

8. Crash by JG Ballard

There are lots of books about specific fetishes. And with most of these books you know from the title whether they’ll do it for you or not. But great erotica takes you out of your comfort zone. Great erotica takes your breath away by taking something you would never have thought could be eroticised and showing you different.

Do you think there is anything sexy about car crashes, engine oil and mutilation? Try this book.

7. Lord Wraxhaull’s Fancy by Anna Leif Saxby

Sometimes you don’t just want an erotic novel, you want a campy hoary load of sexy historical nonsense set in the 18th century tropics. Great writing, gripping plot and a titular strutting, lacy cuffed, bad-boy anti-hero who is an expert in holding the poor tormented heroine right…, on…, the…, edge…, of…, orgasm…, until she promises him her world. Camp as Christmas and twice as fun. This is the kind of book about which one can use the phrase ‘rip roaring’ and for that alone we should be truly thankful.

And did I mention the edging? This book has edging.

I also happen to know that some of the finest erotic fiction writers in the world today regularly get together for tea and to swap fantasies about what they’d like Lord Wraxhall to do to them.

6. My Girlfriend Comes to the City and Beats Me Up by Stephen Elliott

If you do not find femdom/malesub dynamics erotic (I say this because such people apparently do exist however hard it might to imagine what their inner lives might be like) then you might not find this book particularly erotic. You will, however still find it profoundly beautiful. Linked stories. Probably memoir. Disturbing and heartbreaking and real. Prose so brittle it should be able to hold stuff this strong but it does – it flies on a bumble bee’s impossible wings.

A boy who lives a life full of pain becomes a man who lives a life full of pain and (somehow, mostly, eventually) finds a way to make that pain work for him on his own terms.

5. Cherry by Charlotte Cooper

Charlotte Cooper is a brilliant writer and activist. Her only novel is a story of a young woman’s sexual awakening and journey into London’s lesbian underground. Funny how that could be a description of many a bad, bad porn book, but is also a description of this really good one. Cooper’s wondrous tale of an urban baby-dyke’s sexual adventures is notorious for being seized by Canadian customs – but that is one of the least notable things about it, really.

This is a very good, very hot book in which gay women have hot sex and are real people. Yes, once thought to be an impossible feat, but here achieved with aplomb.

4. Carrie’s Story by Molly Weatherfield

(Not the continuing adventures of Carrie Bradshaw as one hapless Amazon reviewer claims to have imagined.)

My tolerance level for novels about submissive women having their secret desires unveiled by a demanding and charismatic man (usually with unlimited financial resources) is very low indeed. Which is a great shame as I like reading erotica and this dull derivative rubbish is what about 90% of erotic fiction seems to be about. And the authors of most of those books have clearly not read this one or they would throw down their pens in shame.

If you want to read a book about a woman submitting to male authority and all its trappings, without any of the irritating flim-flam about this in some ways being some kind of natural order of things, or the notion that all women want this really, or any of that rubbish, then get this one. It is also the best one. If you were thinking of reading The Story of O or anything with the word ‘Gor’ in the title, don’t, read this.

3. Bad Behaviour by Mary Gaitskill

The shorthand way to explain Gaitskill to you would be to say that she wrote the short story on which the movie Secretary was based. But really, that would be like me explaining garlic to you by saying it was the flavour on which garlic bread was based.

This is a book of short stories, mostly about women who seek out abusive men and men who don’t really understand what is being asked of them but take advantage of the situation anyway. The sex is usually twisted and often incidental, or planned but never executed. Yet the book still bowls you over with an erotic punch that is sometimes hard to understand. And this is why I like this book. This book is like a lover who is way smarter than you are: inspiring, dizzying, intimidating, hard to do justice to in a book review.

2. Mr Benson by John Preston

Least. Erotic. Title. Ever. And forgiven on page one.

It is so damn hard to put this book at number two, even though I know my number one choice is correct and perfect, but this book, damn, this book. It just hurts to see it at number two. This book should never be number two. This book is my imaginary paper boyfriend. And when they legalise civil partnerships between humans and books I’m going up the aisle with Mr Benson.

Ingénue twink, Jamie, goes to leather bar to find a master. Finds Mr Benson. Finds the best goddamn master in the world. Mr Benson takes him in hand and shows him the world. Jamie explains that this is a love story. It even has a happy ending. A classic, a trailblazer, a book of books. You want to talk about classics of erotica? Philosophy in the Boudoir is not in the list, Mr Benson is. At number fucking two.

1. Macho Sluts by Pat Califia

Most. Erotic. Title. Ever. And lived up to on page one.

This book was controversial on its release because at the time it seemed unbelievable that lesbianism and hardcore gay leathersex should nestle between the same pages. Califia at the time of the books publication was a butch dyke (now he’s a transman) and it was simply unthinkable that a lesbian should be writing extremely hot porn about men with men – among other things.

Nowadays being a woman, identifying as queer and getting off hard on male/male erotica seems pretty unremarkable. But here’s the book that bucked a trend and made everything possible. And is also incredibly beautifully hot.

In heaven the goodie bags contain a pint of Green and Black’s choc mint ice cream, a photograph of David Boreanaz naked, a DVD of the Battlestar Galactica episode Exodus part II and this book.

Honourable mentions:

I decided to only include one Black Lace book (they are my own publishers after all) but I could have filled a whole list with them. Favourites include: Asking for Trouble by Kristina Lloyd, Circus Excite by Nikki Magennis, A Gentleman’s Wager by Madelynne Ellis and – I shouldn’t but – yeah, books by me.

Also your time will not be wasted by: Exposed by Alison Tyler, The Monk by Matthew Lewis, The Story of O by Pauline Reague, Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z Brite, The Almond by Nedjma, Vampire Vow by Michael Schiefelbein, Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov, 100 Strokes of the Brush Before Bed by Melissa P, Lost Girls by Alan Moore, The Back Passage by James Lear, Nine and a Half Weeks by Elizabeth McNeil and The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter.

And that is practically all I know about dirty books