Mhaire Fraser:
Susie Bright is well known as the erotic goddess of our time. She has made a name for herself advocating for the sensual and slightly pornographic as pleasurable. In the collection of stories that she has edited entitled The best American Erotica 1999, it is hard to see why. Most of the stories are designed to shock in some way, without exploring the erotic. Kink seems to be the order of the day. In a good many of them there are bizarre twists and turns that leave the reader a little confused and unsure of what exactly is supposed to have been the erotic portion, including a story about an alien nebbish guy who gives great head, and a hilarious takeoff on the music scene in L.A.
Thankfully, this is not true of the entire collection. There are a few stories that are designed for the erogenous, and it is not restricted to a particular taste. These are generally well written and sharply crafted orienting to the hetero, homo and bi sexual tastes, with and without toys. The statement that Ms. Bright makes in the introduction is a good one, that even if all the women in the world crafted themselves to look like the ideal, there would still be varied sexual preferences. This can be extended to the rest of the population as well. However, if this is the best that America has to offer according to Ms. Bright, my suggestion is to look elsewhere in the world, or check out the 2000 collection to see if it is any better. Look for Anais Nin, too.
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