Here’s what you should understand when you come asking me for advice on kinky books to read:
I haven’t read it.
Really. Whatever it is, I probably haven’t read more than three pages. Unless it is the Kushiel series or something written by Stephen Elliot. Or a scattered handful of Jay Wiseman books. So if you have been getting the impression that I know something about kinky erotica, consider this the unveiling.
I don’t read kinky books.
There are several reasons for this.
The first is that I didn’t learn about kink by reading instructional books; I learned about kink by going to Conversio Virium, seeing educational presentations, and learning through experience. I’m not knocking this learning style one way or the other. My exposure was simply a twist of advantage and geography.
And I still tend to not learn by reading; I always prefer to learn by watching, doing, fucking up, and trying again.
The second reason is that I am chronically resistant to instructional, self-help, or disseminated psychology books. I suspect this is a hold-over from my upbringing in a do-it-yourself, anti-therapy attitude. So I didn’t read the books that “explain” kink. I have a copy of Bound To Be Free…somewhere. I never got around to reading it. While it might have helped me at some point in my life, right now it simply doesn’t seem relevant.
As you may have noticed, I am perpetually self-analyzing. I usually see reading as a break from self-analysis. Books are my vacation.
The third reason is that I don’t read erotic fiction as literary fiction. So I have not read The Story of O. I have not read Tipping the Velvet. I have not read the Marketplace series. I have not read Venus in Furs. I don’t like to pay for it, I would never carry it around with me, and I’ve seen no compelling evidence, from the few pages of each of these texts that I’ve skimmed through, that I cannot find material just as good or better, for free, online.
I spend my money on kinky photography books. They are prettier to look at and deliver much more long-term satisfaction.
I used to think I owed it to the kinky community and myself to read these books, because they were so obviously an integral part of kink culture. Eventually I decided that this was a bad reason to read books, unless a day came that I was genuinely interested in their historical impact. That interest has not yet surfaced. Perhaps someday it will.
In the end, I prefer literary fiction. I don’t put my energy into long erotic fiction, because it is never, ever as fulfilling as reading good standard fiction. I prefer dense, classic epics; I read a lot of Hugo, Dumas, Austen, Rushdie, Marquez, Allende, Clavell. I went and bought a few new books recently: Eco, Borges, Kundera. And when I want a popcorn book, I reach for the sci-fi: Bradbury, Stephenson, Heinlein, Asimov.
The erotic fiction just doesn’t do it for me. The day someone writes a kinky erotic epic with the scale and scope of The Ground Beneath Her Feet, I will die happy. I simply don’t see that day coming.
So I’ve been asked many, many times for my advice on kinky books. I will keep recommending
Elliot, because I respect his writing and appreciate the balance of erotic/non-erotic narrative in his work. But other than that, I’m at a loss. I’m not the right person to ask.
If you want to talk non-kinky books, I’d love to. Literature is one of the very few fields in which I genuinely identify as a geek.
But lest you think I know the specific reference behind the Story-of-O ring, let me set that record straight. I have absorbed the reference through cultural exposure. I have never read the book.
14 Comments
“I don’t put my energy into long erotic fiction, because it is never, ever as fulfilling as reading good standard fiction.”
I can’t agree with you here, because I don’t think these things are two different entities. To me there’s not some vast divide between “long erotic fiction” and “literary fiction”. Trying to trace “erotic/non-erotic balance” in writing depends on the premise that the great writers of the world have nothing to say to us about eros.
I think books like Rushdie’s _The Moor’s Last Sigh_, Nabokov’s _Lolita_, Angela Carter’s _The Bloody Chamber_, Coetzee’s _Waiting for the Barbarians_, Saramago’s _All the Names_, almost everything by Toni Morrison, and a couple thousand other books are filled with passion, pain, torture, slavery, freedom, wanting. Oh, and dark, perverse dreams, too.
But I definitely agree with you that a lot of the kinky “must-reads” are blah. If you’ve survived this long without Story of O, I think you can easily continue that way. ;)
24 four years ago I was in a dusty, miserable book store on Queen Street, Toronto. It was not well lit, a great many of the books were stacked in six foot piles above the floor, and the proprietor/clerk was quite surly. I can no longer remember what was said, only that it left me feeling…non-plussed.
There I found a copy of Juliette. As it happened, it did not occur to me to look inside the jacket and see the date of publication…later I found it had been published in the 1950s. Some years after, with a professor friend from university, I was able to determine that it was an unabridged version of Juliette. Apparently a copy in English and unabridged is virtually unfindable. I’ve been offered $1,500 for the copy.
I’ve resisted giving the name of the author. Perhaps you know it already. Eileen, you would like Juliette. It would appeal to your bloodlust, as nothing on line and no book written in the last two centuries ever will. I pale as I read it. I believe it is the most substantive and relevant philosophical treatise that has ever been written; I am convinced Nietzche was fully versed in it.
It is also banned everywhere. And for good reason. It does not meet with the requirements of social discourse. It is not civil. People who believe themselves to be civilized cannot abide a world in which it exists. It cannot abide the man who wrote it. It could not when the man was alive, when he could not be executed or imprisoned for cause. A cause was invented, and the cause has become the excuse.
I know, I talk in riddles.
But I’ve read DeSade, you see. And I know what they think of him.
I have meant to post some material for some time. I’ll get about doing that.
Sera-
Here’s the nuance, perhaps. (Because I get what you’re saying, and I agree with you in some ways.) I’ve read many books that are as you describe, full of such things. But I don’t read them to turn myself on, and I don’t think they’re written with a primary goal of being erotic, where by erotic I mean deliberately designed to produce arousal. That is the divide I see; the intention behind the work. I think there’s a trickiness here in the definition of “erotic” which I’m not sure how to reconcile.
And by god, I definitely didn’t mean to imply that the great writers of the world have nothing to say to us about eros. In fact, I would venture that they’ve had far more to teach me than any other source.
Thanks for the recommendations, by the way. I have not read The Moor’s Last Sigh yet.
Alexis-
I’ve heard of it, although no one’s ever waxed quite so lyrical on the subject. And I’ve tried to find it, but as you say, it’s nearly impossible.
Damn. I’ll have to renew my search.
I don’t read much of that stuff either.
Learning though experience is much more fun…. or so I hear.
The Story of O and Tipping the Velvet are both incredibly crap for the exact same reason; irritatingly passive narrators who suck the spark out of whatever sexual experience they’re miserably failing to define.
I kind of liked Tipping the Velvet but not in a sexy way. I do agree that the spark is kind of sucked out. Anyway did you already look at this site (I think I sent it to you) http://www.morganafemmecouture.com/mfc07/specials.htm. I know you have various assorted issues with dressing up, but I thought you would appreciate the beauty of these especially since you and I both love Ms. Dita Von Teese.
Personally, I loved Story of O–but I never set out to read any fiction as a means of sexual gratification, even if that was the author’s intent to start with. So that might have made a difference. I liked the narration; I thought the “voice” was very well-preserved in translation. I’ve read it all the way through maybe three or four times precisely because there are themes of desire that I can identify with, but I don’t necessarily feel obliged to be aroused or to be thinking about sex. Somehow a bound book fifty years old does that for me in a way that reading the same type of stuff on the Internet doesn’t.
I’ve read de Sade, Venus in Furs, and a few other things, but mostly for the historical relevance. De Sade has so much ranting about philosophy in his books that I can’t help but see them as (graphically sexual) academic texts.
Do you like Ursula Le Guin? I’m reading a collection of her short stories right now and had forgotten how amazing she is.
I see what you mean too, and I think that going by the reader’s intent makes a lot of sense. Certainly when people are asking you for kinky book advice, they probably want fantasy-fodder. ;) A couple of your posts have been making me want to get back in the reading habit, so thank you!
I was tempted to post it here…but you do occasionally lock your posts.
(First, hello! I’ve been lurking for awhile and enjoying reading what you have to say.)
Thanks very much for the rec on that photography book. Not so long ago I was complaining to my partner that all the books on bondage that I’d seen focused on binding the female body, with one or two token men if you’re lucky. And as a toppy switch partnered to a man–well, I may not mind looking at women, but that doesn’t give me much of a sense of what looks good or works practically with a man’s body.
Alexis-
You were tempted to post the text here, but thought I might lock it down in reaction? I’m a little confused. And I’m unlikely to lock a post after I’ve published it.
Clarify? If you have the text digitally I’d love to read it. (Obviously)
My earliest lessons on D/s came from thinking about the Batman/Robin hierarchy.
And oddly, my Top recently asked me to write about earning leather–what I’ve read on it, what has resonated with me. What I found was, I’ve read next to nothing. The idea of earning one’s leathers is implied and whispered, hardly codified. It exists within our general collective consciousness, but no one can actually tell me what it is.
…you read my thing yet? I think you’d like it, still.
Kylociraptor,
Have I mentioned to you yet that I *love* that name for you?
I have a similar understanding of the tradition of earning leathers. You might look in the leather archives? Probably not the right name for them, so that’s not incredibly helpful. Hmm.
As I mentioned on my pornography post, yes! I did read and very much enjoy your story. I think I’ll email you, since I don’t know if you’re seeing my responses.
Post a Comment