David Amsden reviews two new collections of sex writing: Best Sex Writing 2005 and The World's Best Sex Writing 2005. According to Amsden, the books suggest the best sex writing is about the worst sex, creating a new genre he calls "anti-erotica." As it turns out, writing about sex is complex.
I hope the editors take this as a compliment, not a complaint, because both have put together fresh collections that are far more complex and compelling than their saucy covers let on. "Analyze any human emotion," wrote Freud, "no matter how far it may be removed from the sphere of sex, and you are sure to discover somewhere the primal impulse, to which life owes its perpetuation." This is the dictum being explored at the heart of these collections, both of which take a vaguely academic approach to sex, presenting it, as Susan Sontag may have put it, as a cultural metaphor. "These stories are daring, exciting, harsh, and relevant," writes Violet Blue, the excellently monikered editor of "Best Sex," in her introduction. "They open a revealing window into the human condition, and into our sexuality as a culture." Mitzi Szereto, the editor of "World's Best," echoes this outlook, positioning her anthology as "an engaging critical commentary on the sexual culture of our times -- on where we are today, and if we should even be here."
susannah_breslin
I'm lost
June 2005
JAN 06, 2006 01:56 PM