Too Darn Hot : Writing About Sex Since (Global City Book)

Rating:
Summary: Intelligent as well as sexy, it's erotica for real readers
Review: Most anthologies of erotica require a willing suspension of disbelief. They're filled with silly soft- or hard-porn works, fantastic scenarios, happy endings. This anthology is for the thinking reader and it shows how difficult it is to write about sex -- and how well some of our greatest writers have managed to describe the emotions and situations that have moved and affected us all -- physically as well as psychically. There is humor, longing, contemplations of the meanings of pornography, and blow-by-blow descriptions that will get you, yes, Too Darn Hot.

Rating:
Summary: A priceless time capsule of American sexual culture!
Review: TOO DARN HOT reads like a latter twentieth century time capsule of American sexual culture, packed with tales, poems, essays, criticism, and ravings by everyone from Alice Walker and Dorothy Allison to Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs. Outrageously candid, deliciously witty, and often devastating, this smattering of carnal attitudes, insights, politics, and nostalgia travels down almost every avenue of sexuality. The oppressed, celibate, abused, confused, angry, holy, ecstatic, ambiguous, and salacious all have a voice here. Perhaps the only opinions left out -- though not missed -- are those of online cyborgasm junkies.

WhatÕs most striking about this collection is how stories that would make for eyebrow-raising evening news headlines are transformed into beautiful testimonials of the inexplicable yearnings lurking within each of us. In Philip ApplemanÕs ÒA Priest Forever,Ó a priest trying to explain to the parish board his fondling of 68 Òangelic,Ó very underage boys evokes images of sweet, wistful desire, rather than repugnant abuse. And when a mother caught masturbating caves in to her inquisitive daughterÕs repeated requests that she share the riches of her humming vibrator -- ÒBuzz my cunny, Mommy!Ó -- we can hardly fault her for embracing the experience as a ÒJust this once, HoneyÓ rite of passage between mother and daughter.

The editors of this anthology had the right idea in beginning each of its four sections -- Desire, Society, Body, and Ritual -- with a clip dating back to KinseyÕs era. Opening pieces such as a book review of The Kinsey Report and Hugh HefnerÕs ridiculous editorial from the first issue of Playboy (Ò...we arenÕt a Ôfamily magazineÕ. If youÕre somebodyÕs sister, wife, or mother-in-law and picked us up by mistake, please pass us along to the man in your life and get back to your Ladies Home Companion.Ó) jar us right back to that pre-Elvis mentality. Often the juxtaposition of the more current piece that immediately follows is precious. You canÕt help but snicker ! as pre-war marriage counseling pioneers Drs. Hannah and Abraham Stone preach their Leave It to Beaverisms of marital success, only to be succeeded by the detailed Joy of Sex snippet on how to lick, stroke, and straddle a male partner like a pro.

TOO DARN HOT is at its best when treating sex as the life-affirming, hilarious, raucous blast (no pun) it was intended to be. ChrystosÕ poem ÒI Bought a New RedÓ giddily recounts a feverish date between two women hell-bent on upstaging everyone from the restaurantÕs onlooking Òblazer dykes,Ó doomed to a humdrum night of Ògirl scout sex,Ó to the roommate who labels them disgusting for doing it on the stairs while guffawing and shredding their clothing to bits. Even more priceless is Philip RothÕs diatribe of an adolescent whacking off compulsively and ever-so-inventively -- into a milk bottle he keeps hidden in the basement, into a cored apple at a family picnic, onto a piece of liver he bought at a butcher shop onto his way to bar mitzvah class.

In their introduction, the editors stress that this book, with its carefully culled cross-section of sexual behavior, is more meant to illuminate, rather than titillate. And for every irresistible piece on the joys of a really good romp, there are two on the psychological pain of sex gone awry. The excerpt from Eve EnslerÕs play ÒThe Vagina MonologuesÓ beautifully depicts the repressive shame a woman harbors about her genitalia for more than 40 years, ever since a high school lover was so disgusted by her lusty flood of an ejaculation. When asked what her vagina would wear if it could dress itself, she answers, ÒIt would wear a big sign -- CLOSED DUE TO FLOODING.Ó