I was lucky enough to be able to be included at the very end of this month-long Please, Sir blog tour (full list of the tour participants and their posts or blogs below). I received Please, Sir a couple of weeks ago and have been working my way through it. It is an outstanding anthology focused on stories from the submissive perspective of male-dominant and female-submissive parings. I was expecting, like most anthologies, to have a mixed bag of stories, some that turned me on, others that were well-written but less interesting, but that was not the case.

The book starts with a bang with the editor Rachel Kramer Bussel’s Introduction titled Risk and Reward, setting the theme for the entire book. The now over-quoted beginning:

If you ask me, submission is an art form. It requires dedication, focus, commitment and desireæand there’s no single way of doing it. It’s about unlocking something within yourself so you can reach beyond your normal limits, exposing your body and soul in order to go somewhere you cannot get to alone.

I had a lover who always told me that the key to life is “High risk, high reward.” The same is true about kink, and this is evident throughout the stories in Please, Sir, which explores female submission and male dominance from the sub’s point of view. When these characters take risks, they are rewarded…even when those rewards look like “punishment.” They are rewarded in all kinds of ways, from being bound to being praised to being choked, spanked or put on display. They are rewarded by being tested again and again.

You can read the entire introduction here.

I found this theme to be evident in every story, and myself relating to the stories in one way or another, especially coming from a primarilly male-dominant/female-submissive relationship. Each story was well-written and engaging, painting a picture of the world and power in which the couple operated. I was connected with and turned on by every story in the book, regardless of how close or different the characters were from my own experiences, which doesn’t happen often.

Before reading this book I had bought Yes, Sir, another of Rachel Kramer Bussel’s books on the same subject matter, but had not yet gotten around to reading it, and after the amazing experience I have had reading through the exceptional stories in this book I will be pushing it to the top of my reading pile. I am also going to give this to my partner Onyx to read, or perhaps read a story or two aloud to him that I particularly enjoy. There are so many, though, I’m not sure I would know how to choose.

The book showcases a variety of ways to play with power and exchange power between a couple, from casual interactions to long-term committed partners, first-times to experienced players, and a range of topics. Breath Play, bondage, fear, anticipation, teasing, rough sex, and so much more. The writers articulate the varied experiences of the submissive partner in different, interesting, and relateable ways that, I believe, anyone with an interest in female submission would enjoy.

Check out the wonderful trailer, below, featuring bits of two of the stories and lots of sexy images and the rest of the blog posts on the tour. Finishing up the tour tomorrow is the sexy and wonderful Curvaceous Dee.

Name: Please, Sir

Editor: Rachel Kramer Bussel

Publisher: Cleis Press

Published: 2010

Page Count: 206

Story Count: 22

Rating: 4 Lotuses (out of 5) – Good & Recommended

Please, Sir virtual book tour dates for May 2010
May 1 Baser Instincts
May 2 Man Eater Book
May 3 Hard and Fast
May 4 Erobintica
May 5 Dangerous Lilly
May 6 Sugarbutch Chronicles
May 7 The Sex Carnival
May 8 My Kinky World
May 9 Lusty Literati
May 10 Prurient Interests
May 11 Sarah Sloane
May 12 Hello Saraid
May 13 Desk Full of Dildos (That Toy Chick)
May 14 Julian Arancia (Flavius Iulianus)
May 15 Kristina Wright
May 16 Exploring Intimacy
May 17 Erotica Electronica
May 18 Our Goings On
May 19 SpastikFantastik
May 20 Alpine Subdreams
May 21 Orlando Sex & Relationships Examiner
May 22 Beth Wylde
May 23 Heather Lin
May 24 Pieces of Jade
May 25 Heartbreak Nympho
May 26 Yolanda Shoshana
May 27 ¡Qué sinvergüenza!
May 28 Leather Yenta (Lolita Wolf)
May 29 Marilyn’s Room (Marilyn Jaye Lewis)
May 30 Wanton Lotus Reviews
May 31 Curvaceous Dee

I started reading the Best Lesbian Erotica series in 2002 with Best Lesbian Erotica 03. It actually used to be my staple christmas gift from my best friend for quite a few years, since the next year’s edition comes out in early December. Somehow I missed the last few years, from 2007 on, though I plan to change that soon, so when I had the chance to grab Best Lesbian Erotica 08 I knew I had to get it to further my collection.

One reason why I’ve loved the Best Lesbian Erotica (BLE) series for so many years is because the stories are always fresh and unique, exposing me to something new in each one. The stories always have a wide variety of scenes and sexualities between them, always focusing on more than just the sex and more than strap-on sex. When I started reading the series six years ago I was relatively inexperienced, though I had already read a lot of erotica, and BLE exposed me to many different facets of sexuality and better written erotica than what I was reading online.

The theme of Best Lesbian Erotica 08 is transgression. Tristan Taormino describes it in her foreword as not just the transgression that occurs when one comes out as queer and tells their own story, but a transgression beyond what is “normal,” expected, and acceptable. Each story keeps you on your toes, delivering “erotic surprises” (according to the back of the book) and taking you to new heights of depravity and delicious transgression.

In one of my favorite stories in the book, “The Bridge” by Isa Coffey, what starts out as a butch/femme fling in a car turns into a veritable orgy through small extreme but mostly believable leaps. The story itself is written in a jagged almost disjointed manner which made me feel like I was experiencing the situation as it was happening, a vivid but jarring re-telling of something which seems more like fact than fiction.

Another of my favorite stories, “Domme’s Games” by Rachel Kramer Bussel, two femmes meet for dinner on a date set up by their friends, but that quickly transforms into a D/s fantasy game performed by a professional Dominatrix and a first-time submissive who can’t believe what she’s doing in public. Through a series of non-sexual yet sexually charged commands the pair gets through dinner and heads back to the Domme’s place, but before they go inside the submissive femme must strip and get herself off in the car.

There are over a dozen more stories each with their own delightful twists and erotic turns which very often kept me on my toes. While many of the transgressions in the book are not necessarily shocking, though some are unexpected, they are wildly enjoyable erotic romps into the fantasy life of a stranger.

As Taormino says at the end of her foreward: “Ultimately, what ties all these stories together is the desire to push something perhaps a little too far, to give the middle finger to ‘polite society.’ These writers have given us vibrant characters who defy roles and expectations and challenge traditions and norms. These characters don’t just go against the grain–they rub their leather-clad thighs, cum-soaked fingers, drenched pussies and saliva-coated cocks right up against the grain, leaving a mark so you know they were there” (ix-x).

You can find Best Lesbian Erotica 08 along with other Books and Erotica and sex toys of every flavor on SexToy.Com.

Much thanks to SexToy.Com for letting me review Best Lesbian Erotica 08!

Title: Best Lesbian Erotica 08

Publisher: Cleis Press

Editor: Tristan Taormino

Page Count: 240

Rating: 3 Lotuses (out of 5) – Good & Recommended

PoMoSexuals: Challenging Assumptions About Gender and Sexuality is an anthology of essays edited by Carol Queen and Lawrence Schimel that is essentially a smack in the face to traditional and even some non-traditional ideas of gender and sexuality. It refutes any idea of any sort of binary along either of those lines.

Through reading the essays the reader gets multiple examples of people who don’t fit into the neat little boxes that both queer and het society tries to push them into. Because there are so many, one right after the other, each building on the next and each becoming more strange, more queer, more PoMo than the last, there is no way to deny that these people are not just flukes.

For me, I found some soulmates in this book. I found people struggling with the same ideas I do and asking the same questions I’ve been asking for years: where do I fit in if I’m sort of this and sort of that and everything and nothing? How do I navigate these gender and sexuality galaxies if I can’t pin myself down and comprehend where everything in me is coming from?

The essays in some cases are roads of self-discovery, showing just a glimpse of what one goes through when one box is not an option, and what is possible when you embrace not fitting in. Other essays were dissecting specific ideas or impulses that the authors had which were somehow out of their comfort zone, such as a gay man wanting to fuck a woman, how males and females can interact outside of a heterosexual paradigm, how a female can be a woman stuck in a man’s body, and various other pomo genders and sexualities.

If you’ve ever not fit into the boxes the world gives us, which is just about everyone in my experience, I would say you need to read this book. Even if you don’t identify directly with those in the stories it will blow your mind and make you reorganize your thinking about the way that gender and sexuality work. It will help you recognize that you are not alone, there are others like you who can’t fit into the boxes.

Even if you know that already, because I certainly did know that there were others who feel like I do going into it, you will still get a sense of camaraderie of validation that while you are unique in your own gender and sexuality expression there may be others who are just as or more fucked up than you are. And I mean fucked up in a good way, of course. ;)