Best Bondage Erotica 2012 Erotic Book Review
“Best Bondage Erotica 2012” is a new erotic anthology edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel and published by Cleis Press. This erotic book has 209 pages and includes 21 different short stories. It’s a softcover book with black and white pages, and it follows the same format as all other Cleis Press erotic anthologies. The cover and backside, as they feature a woman obviously pushing a semi-nude man down, are not the most discreet. If you want to read this in public, you’ll want to make sure you lay the cover down on something so no one can see the book itself.
The theme of this book, as you can guess, is “bondage”. All of the erotica in this book is focused around bondage. As usually happens, most of the erotica also happens to be focused around the idea of power play. Usually there is a more-dominant person and less-dominant person in each one of these sexual encounters as that usually sets the stage for who will give and who will receive the bondage. The majority of the stories in this anthology are male/female pairings, but there are some male/male and female/female as well.
I was surprised by the general content of this erotic anthology – as was Rachel Kramer Bussel. In her introduction, she states that the majority of the erotic sent in to her had been female-dominant/male-submissive erotica, and that’s what the majority of the erotic anthology contains. A lot of times, it’s the exact opposite, so it was a nice change from the usual, and I personally enjoyed it. If you were expecting a bunch of male-dominant stories, though, this may not be quite what you’re expecting.
I can honestly say that this boko contained one of the hottest stories I’ve read in awhile. Even if I had hated this book, I would have considered this book worth purchasing JUST for this story – it was that unique and that hot. Why? It was well-written, very unique, and it was between two male characters which is almost never heard of.
It was “Laced” by Elizabeth Silver. In it, a male (it doesn’t really talk about his orientation, but I took him as straight) bartender has to dress up as a goth guy for work. After my begruding and whining, his roommate agrees to help him get his eyeliner, corset, and collar to get his full outfit complete. What the male doesn’t forsee is quite how the effects of the corset are going to effect him. I LOVE this story.
Aside from that story, the book had quite a few other erotic stories, and I was surprised. Normally, I usually end up disliking or being slightly bored by “Best Of” collections, but this collection had enough variety in the plots and characters that each story was unique and an enjoyable read. I really did enjoy the vast amounts of female-dominant stories as well, and I’m sure that did have a bit of an effect on my enjoyment of the anthology.
If you want a good book of erotica that focuses on bondage, kink, and power play, Best Bondage Erotica 2012 definitely delivers. All of the authors took their own spin on the theme, and I’m pleased at seeing a lot of female-dominant orientated stories. With another Best Bondage Erotica anthology being one of my first introductions to the amazing-ness that is Cleis Press, I’m happy to report that this erotic book is keeping up the good tradition. Thanks to Cleis Press for Best Bondage Erotica 2012 to review.
The Erotic Reading Review is a regular column written by Kayla. This column brings you reviews over erotica, instructional, and other types of sex-related books.
