smut and nothing but

January 4, 2009 4:39 PM

Please recommend erotica for women with dry, tart tastes.

I want to be a smart bitch who likes trashy books, but romance and erotica takes itself so seriously. Either it's straightforward and purple, or it's embarrassingly goofy and unfunny. I'd like to know what kind of smut is best for a person who enjoys Terry Pratchett, Dorothy Parker, P.G. Wodehouse and Susanna Clarke.

Text only but no limits on the format of the text. The Goods could be straight, gay or lesbian romance, vanilla or reluctant N/C. I am particularly interested in historical fiction, if it's historical enough -- I attempted a Kathleen Woodiwiss novel recently and found it godawful. (Also hated the sex scenes and relationships in Gary Jennings and Jean Auel books, although they weren't otherwise bad.) I also read slash or other fanfic sometimes if I'm recommended it by trusted readers.

posted by anonymous to writing & language (18 comments total)

Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but personally, the only romance novels I'll read are Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series. The relationship between Jamie and Claire is (in my opinion) wonderful and Gabaldon does a good job of mixing sex with humor and realism. The historical fiction component of the books is great, too -- all about the 1745 Jacobite Rising in Scotland (and other events thereafter). Only thing is, they're historical fiction before they're romance, so you actually have to, like, *read* between the bedroom scenes. A la Jane Auel, but better stories, I think.

(And the last one is supposedly going to be released in Fall 09... God I can't wait)
posted by olinerd at 5:07 PM on January 4

Literotica has a wide selection of free stuff to suit most tastes.

Or so I've heard.
posted by Effigy2000 at 5:52 PM on January 4

I don't know if the smut content is high enough, but I found the Marriage Test to be an good read. The herione is trying to win herself a husband and get out of a nunnery kitchen and uses her cooking skills to do it. If you're turned on by food, it's doubly good.
posted by saffry at 6:12 PM on January 4

Seconding Outlander.
posted by pised at 6:44 PM on January 4

I want to be a smart bitch who likes trashy books

Aw, somebody knows a certain website... :)

First, I think there's a significant difference between erotica, smut, and romance novels. I can recommend romance novels to you, but erotica, I don't really read. I do see a lot of romance readers recommending Emma Holly (who writes erotica for Black Lace in addition to her romances for a different publisher; Menage is a very popular erotic novel of hers).

In my ignorance, I'd define erotica as a story with a cohesive plot, the main point of which is to titillate the reader.

Smut, in my opinion, is writing meant to titillate, period. No plot required. I'd bet that some of the stuff on Literotica might fall into this category.

Romance novels -- stories about people falling in love, with a happy-ever-after guaranteed. Period. No sex necessarily included. Multiple subgenres, with characters ranging from knights to vampires to Wall Street bankers. Sex scenes may titillate, but unless we're talking "erotic romance," which is its own particular subgenre, the sex scenes generally are written more with the aim of advancing the romance rather than turning on the reader. There is a difference.

I can recommend to you a good many romances, since I've been reading them since I was a wee thirteen year old whose library didn't stock enough historical fiction (non-romance) to keep me occupied. You should know that Woodiwiss is old-school, from the time when "bodice rippers" were popular. That time is two decades gone, and contemporary historical romance bears very little resemblance to the sort of books she wrote. Chiefly, the female characters have acquired agency, and the male characters have acquired an ability to control their tempers and behave like decent human beings.

For dry, witty humor and a care for historical detail, I recommend Loretta Chase. Mr. Impossible (set in Egypt); Lord of Scoundrels (Paris and London); Miss Wonderful (English countryside). Her more recent Your Scandalous Ways was well-reviewed, but I didn't find it so great.

From here, I hesitate, because you say you dislike romance that takes itself seriously, and I'm not sure what you mean by that. The following historical romance novels are brilliantly written, but they're dark, complex, and concern magnificently fucked-up characters.

To Have and To Hold - Patricia Gaffney.
Black Silk, Bliss, and Dance -- all three by Judith Ivory. Bliss in particular is brilliant, about a Parisian ether drinker and a naive, grasping American girl, in turn of the 20th century southern France.
The Shadow and the Star - Laura Kinsale
The Edge of Impropriety - Pam Rosenthal (who also writes erotica as Molly Weatherfield; haven't tried her stuff under that name).

Hope you find something you like. Come back and let me know if any of my recs work out! I'm a proselytizer when it comes to good genre fiction.
posted by artemisia at 7:01 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]

You should check out Amorous Exploits of a Young Rakehell by Guillame Apollinaire.
posted by mattbucher at 7:03 PM on January 4

"I thrill...to any book like Fanny Hill..and I suppose I always will..."

It's my current, um, nightstand book. It was written in the 1700s, and I was just thinking today how actually kind of advanced it is, in terms of the radical notion that women can actually enjoy sex. Woo!
And it is also pretty hot.
posted by exceptinsects at 7:04 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]

Oh, and if you email me, I can probably give you some slash/fanfiction recs if you tell me what sort of thing you like. ;)
posted by exceptinsects at 7:06 PM on January 4

Flowers from the Storm is the other book of Laura Kinsale's that I recommend to people (but as artemisia says of The Shadow and the Star, it's well-written with well-drawn characters, but not what I would characterize as "doesn't take itself too seriously").

Mary Balogh's Slightly Dangerous, despite the requisite dastardly villain and other romance genre conventions, is well-executed lighthearted escapism.
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 9:05 PM on January 4

Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters (about a lesbian Victorian music-hall performer turned gigolo turned social reformer) is one of the *dirtiest* books I've ever read. suffice it to say, the scene where the main character takes out and affixes to herself a large leather dildo is not the kind of thing you want to be reading on a plane while sitting next to your mother.
posted by dropkick queen at 9:54 PM on January 4 [2 favorites]

Oooh, oooh, someone should read some Nicholson Baker, and that someone is you! Fermata really did it for me, beginning with someone flirting with me by referencing the book, which piqued my interest enough to investigate it. It's not pure smut, but the parts that are smutty are awesome. His book Vox is actually shelved in erotica sometimes, but Fermata is the one I loved, and a portion of it was included in some of Susie Bright's Best American Erotica collections.
posted by redsparkler at 9:55 PM on January 4

And you might like Richard Adams' Maya, Daughter of the Nile, which is pseudo-historical fictiony, but has some very naughty bits.
posted by redsparkler at 9:56 PM on January 4

Okay, but I should tell you what The Fermata's about. There's this guy, see? Who can stop time? It's all very literary, but anyway, he can stop time and he uses this power to, among other things, look at women naked. Also, this one time, he stops time while he's on the freeway, and he records an erotic story onto a cassette, and then he puts the cassette into the tape player of the car next to him on the freeway. Then, he starts time back up again, and watches the reaction of the woman in the car, as she listens to the story. The book includes the entire erotic story, as well, and if I remember right, it's a strange tale about a woman gardening while impaling herself on a dildo and talking to her neighbors, and somewhere along the line the UPS man becomes involved, but not how you'd think. And she rides along in the UPS truck for a while. Very odd, quite good.
posted by redsparkler at 10:00 PM on January 4

The book by Richard Adams is called Maia. It is entirely fictional, has some rather naughty bits (mostly implied), and is my favorite book of all time. The naughty bits are in the first quarter of the book and the book is over 1000 pages. That aside, it is the best adventure book I have ever read.
posted by Foam Pants at 10:03 PM on January 4

Nicholson Baker's Fermata and Vox are both good.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 11:13 PM on January 4

Ha ha! I was going to say Outlander, too.
(Not exactly erotica.. but my imagination appeared to find it highly suggestive.)
posted by mu~ha~ha~ha~har at 12:34 AM on January 5

having done my master's thesis on erotica, i really have to say this:

romance /= erotica. at all. they're two totally separate genres. both may have sex scenes in them, but they're still completely different. i won't go into the whole thing now, as i really should be working.

i'll come back with specific recommendations later.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 10:44 AM on January 5

Oh, geez, duh, I got my Maya/Maia's mixed up. Eloise Jarvis Mcgraw wrote Maya, Daughter of the Nile, and it is not sexy at all. Richard Adam's Maya does have sexy bits.
posted by redsparkler at 12:43 AM on January 10