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. ;)

How do I start a review of a book which speaks to me in such personal and intimate ways, beyond being about sex? How do I begin to describe the ways this book has clicked with me? I guess by answering those questions.

The brilliance of the book is that it delves into theory while still having an element of smut in it, mixing the two together in a true Carol Queen-esque way, because in some ways it’s impossible to seperate the smut from the theory and the theory from the smut. The first book I read of Carol Queen’s was Real Live Nude Girl back nearly four years ago when I was still living in Oregon.

I fell in love with her then, realizing how similar we were, wanting to become like her, to explore my own sexuality and look at it through the lens of theory. She was my inspiration for nearly all that I do now, and all I’m working toward including San Francisco and The Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality.

I found Leather Daddy and the Femme by Carol Queen to be not only wonderful hot get-your-genitals-stirring smut but also an interesting look at gender identities and identity politics. It starts off with the meeting of Miranda/Randy and Jack, then follows their relationship as it progresses, adding in a third partner, Demetrius, and playing with others as well. It is a wonderful queer genderfucking depiction of a gay leather daddy and his boy/femme and the creation of a family.

I found that the identities and relationships within The Leather Daddy and the Femme were some of the closest depictions to what I consider perfect. This wouldn’t be true for everyone, of course, not everyone would have such a personal reaction to the book, dreaming of being in an open and poly-committed relationship or having two different but equal genders that are easy to step into. I found myself identifying in some way with all of the characters and realizing that my dream situation is one very similar to what Jack, Miranda, and Demetrius have, with slight modifications of course.

In some ways the situation in the book is similar to my own, it emphasizes that queerness isn’t restricted to same sex relationships, that there are more ways for males and females to interact sexually and romantically than within a heterosexual model. Something I’ve thought was true for years, but that is difficult for me to describe.

The biggest thing that Leather Daddy and the Femme did for me, I think, was make me think about my own identity, my own desire for a chosen family (as opposed to born family), my desire for multiple lovers, for queer sex, for my own embracing of my multigendered self. It opened me up to looking at my own gender and sexual identity paths, how I got here and where I want to go from here. Oh, and it also made me wet.

I could probably go on for pages about exactly how it touched me, about what part of which characters I would like to inhabit, what I have thought of due to the book, how it has changed my perceptions and desires… but those things are all for posts previous and to come. Instead, I’d love if you have read it for you to give your reaction to the book in the comments.