'Tis the season to start stripping off your clothes to keep up with rising temperatures. And while things are heating up outside, you may as well give into spring fever and get lost in some hot erotica for women. Whether you're into BDSM, fantasy, romance, memoir or any number of micro-genres (hello monster porn), there's no shortage of tales out there to turn you on.
While finding a good sex scene is easy, finding an entire novel to keep your attention can be a bit trickier. In my early years of reading erotica, I was more interested in skipping the pleasantries and diving head first into the action, but now that my tastes have matured, I look for books that can keep me glued to the page whether characters are getting it on or getting on the train for work. A rousing roll in the hay still can't be beat, (and obviously I still dog ear those truly panty-dropping moments), but my favorite erotic works are both intellectually and erotically stimulating regardless of what's happening in the plot. Here are eight works of erotica for women that you will get you hot and bothered well into the summer months.
How To Train Your Virgin by Wednesday Black
This refreshingly scintillating novel released in 2015 is the first in Badlands Unlimited's New Lovers series, featuring fresh voices in erotic fiction. Imagine Game Of Thrones with a dash of dystopian Mad Max fairy tale fantasy lined with hipster realism. OK, you probably can't, so you'll just have to let Wednesday Black's deftly woven prose do the work for you. How To Train Your Virgin is based upon one queen's competitive sexploits with her king — and a realm full of nubile creatures submitting themselves to her will. The tale drips with lust but doesn't take itself too seriously — like any masterful erotic novel should.
The Claiming Of Sleeping Beauty by Anne Rice
How's this for a twist on a chaste classic? Sleeping Beauty is awoken not by a kiss, but by an orgasm, compliments of the Prince. If that's the kind of thing that does it for you, then you'll enjoy the re-occurring theme of "erotic awakenings" that snakes throughout A.N. Roquelaure (aka Anne Rice)'s first volume in a series of sexy books about Beauty's adventures.
The Sexual Life of Catherine M by Catherine Millet
If you like your sexy lit to be less fantastic and more of this world, Catherine Millet's 2001 memoir might do the trick. Declared " the most explicit book about sex ever written by a woman" by novelist Edmund White, the work details the French art critic's conquests, including 100-plus person orgies (yes, you read that right), and her ruminations on sex, seduction, sex work, and her very accommodating open marriage.
Lost Girls by Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie
Taking beloved characters from classic literature on adult adventures requires skill, but writer Alan Moore and illustrator Melinda Gebbie know just how to make Alice (from Alice In Wonderland), Dorothy (from The Wizard of Oz) and Wendy (from Peter Pan) into swashbuckling sexual explorers. The story revolves around the three women meeting in Austria and swapping little black books. Dorothy spins a story about once getting off with three farm hands based on The Tin Man, The Cowardly Lion, The Straw Man and Toto. (OK, not the dog, but the others are for real!)
I'm With The Band by Pamela Des Barres
If, like me, your fantasies tend to be rock 'n' roll fantasies, infamous groupie Pamela Des Barres has a treasure trove of lusty kiss-and-tell tales in her 1987 memoir. Jimmy Page, Don Johnson, Waylon Jennings, and Mick Jagger all make appearances, and interspersed with her recent writing are snippets from her diaries at the time, which tease us with tidbits about the private performances she received from musicians we know and love.
Little Birds by Anaïs Nin
Little Birds is groundbreaking erotica writer Anaïs Nin's second published work in the genre. Written in the 1940's, it culls together 13 short stories of painters, musicians, sleepless wanderers, ne'er do wells and women taking control of their sensual destinies. Fans of her first erotic work, Delta of Venus, will find some of the same characters in its pages, too.
Women by Chloe Caldwell
Lena Dunham described Chloe Caldwell's award-winning, 2014 erotic work as: "a beautiful read/a perfect primer for an explosive lesbian affair/an essential truth." The semi-autobiographical story transgresses boundaries of age, sex, and friendship while laying bare the brutal truths of human entanglement, love, and lust between women.
9 1/2 Weeks by Elizabeth McNeill
The steamy 1986 adaptation of this novel starring Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke makes the 50 Shades film seem totally vanilla — and the books will do the same. Author Elizabeth McNeill (named Ingeborg Day in real life) wrote this tale based on her personal experiences in one particularly thrilling (and boundary-pushing) submissive relationship.
