Title: Hot Lesbian Erotica Author: Tristan Taormino (Editor) Publisher: Cleis Press Publish Date: 2005 Pages: 223 Reviewer: SexHerald Staff

Rating:

Unlike the Forum, however, it contains an aggressively confident tone and each tale doesn’t begin with the line “I never thought anything like this would happen to me." That may be because the characters in this collection of short stories about women having the greatest orgasms ever felt seem to expect their next sexual experience to be more mouth watering than the last, which is the book’s beauty.

The collection begins with a welcoming introduction by the editor that sets the mood for the first story, a well crafted erotic piece that by its conclusion has the reader damning Dickens and Hemmingway as masculine egotistical hacks, and declaring Hot Lesbian Erotica the best writing of all time!

Erotic, thrilling, totally sexy and containing believable charged sex – the book starts with a bang, so to speak.

However, by the fourth tale of the 27 story collection, it doesn’t take much to figure the plot of the next adventure and soon the book is like having sex with your lover of 27 years – there is heat, passion and excitement but the climax is comfortably predictable once the action gets going.

The variety of settings, which is as distinctive as the writers who range from being described as a “working-class Quaker leatherdyke” to a “Appalachian-born transman” in their bios, is applauded but the tone of each story has a familiar feel as the one before and is disappointing considering the sources.

The premise is lesbians have a sexual encounter and at least one person in each story has an earth shattering orgasm. The only major difference is the scenery, which is an array of unique backgrounds including cars, lakes, farms, parties, port-a-potties, after the rodeo and in a garage where a wrench is used. But those are generally established in the first two paragraphs and from there rarely does the story unveil anything shocking.

A possible unintentional positive feature of the collection is the portrayal of the fem-butch dyke relationship seen in many situations throughout the book. Apparently accurate, the depictions help cast a useful, even if it is only surface scratching, understanding into the relationships and means of attraction between women to a heterosexual reader unfamiliar with the world of lesbianism.

A possible unintentional negative feature of the collection is that the book may lead a heterosexual reader to believe there could never be bad sex between two women. In the collection, never was the wrong thing said at the wrong time nor has a mood not ever been right nor the partner ever bad, incompetent or a turnoff. When it comes to two women, as set by the stage of Hot Lesbian Erotica’s writers, a kiss hello or an accidental brush against an innocent breast with the back of a hand can send shivers all over that lead-to-pants-down sex within minutes. While the actions are endorsed, the consistency it occurs in the book is painful and obvious, leaving the reader longing for a story about the playful art that is seduction.

In the end the only suspense of each story is whether the person about to have the orgasm will scream “oh yes!” “oh baby!” or the popular “oh yes! oh baby!” as they are being put into a sexual trance by their partners’ touches. While that may be not enough for the reader searching for more character development, it will certainly satisfy the reader looking to be aroused by detailed sucking, licking, fingering and nipple tweaking that takes place in the 27 stories.

Recommendation: it would be a great bathroom book to arouse your guests. HotLesbianErotica

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