Beyond My Control: Forbidden Fantasies in an Uncensored Age
By Nancy Friday
The book holds true to its subtitle in every sense of the world. Beyond My Control is indeed about control to some extent, and raises interesting discussion about some of the very colourful and tailored desires of a number of individuals.
Nancy Friday separates her chapters by controversial subject after controversial subject: domination, masturbation, incest, exhibitionism/voyeurism, S&M, threesomes, and living out fantasies. The categories are ballsy at the very least.
Friday takes the opportunity to discuss these fantasies in her book, as told by regular people, and analyze the concepts behind the things that make us tick. It is almost revolutionary to discuss some of these ideas seriously. Often we forget that fantasies are just hidden desires, sometimes unachievable or illegal to act on in real life, yet we feel scared that they are destined to surface as sexual acts.
All sexual people may, in confidence, admit to fantasies that they themselves would never like to see realized. For example women who enjoy rape fantasies or straight males who fantasize about anal sex but find the practice of it contrary to their real world relationship or orientation.
This book reads differently than most traditional erotica. The pieces are short, sometimes only one or two pages, prefaced by a brief explanation about the person and why they feel this fantasy excites them. This book explores a variety of age ranges, sexual experiences (from sexual abuse survivors to sex workers), races, religions, gender orientations, and sexual orientations. Anyone can relate to at least one of the characters, which cannot often be said about most erotica that tends to target a specific audience.
This book definitely delivers on great written erotica while making the logic and motivations behind it more personal and analytical in a sense. Nancy Friday keeps a good balance handling controversial subject matter while making an effort to keep a sense of dignity and respect for the people brave enough to volunteer their secrets to the pages of the book.
It is definitely an interesting read, worth overcoming the initial squeamishness you may have over such subject matter. Remember when reading: in a mental fantasy all consent is guaranteed, no one is hurt in the daydreaming that takes place, and everyone leaves happy, usually with an orgasm.

Sex by The Book: Gay Men’s Tales of Lit and Lust
By Kevin Bentley
This one is an interesting book in the realm of gay erotic fiction, and is not like the bulk of gay male erotica which promotes a harder/faster approach with little room for build up or character development. No, Sex by the Book is definitely a different kind of erotica.
The stories are quite a bit longer: average erotica tops out at four to seven pages, while the 19 stories in this book are around seven to thirteen pages. We get to know the characters a bit more in depth, which has an interesting effect on the actual sex depicted.
Several stories contain the spontaneous testosterone driven kind of sex one is accustomed to reading about, while others involve sex that is less than attractive, less that exciting and often awkward or painful or resulting in an emotionally damaging situation for the protagonist.
As an exploration this book does well to include a variety of characters with different life experiences and ideas about intimacy and sexuality. While this is an interesting view into the minds and lives of the characters and the dimensions of sexual experience, as far as erotica is constructed traditionally, this book would possibly do better as an exploration into gay male sexuality.
Sex by the Book would serve as a soft core introduction to erotica. However if you’re looking for a traditional hard-and–fast, sixty second erotica, then your efforts would be best spent looking elsewhere.