Introduction
Every February, I have a crisis of erotic
conscience. This is the month in which I must
cull the best of my favorite erotic stories from
the past year. I make cruel decisions among
dozens of perfectly excellent candidates I've
savored the past year. I sit there, reading the
pages again and again, asking myself, "Is this
the story that no one will be able to resist?"
In the middle of this year's meltdown, I got a
phone call from a saucy men's magazine. It's one
of those newer "laddie" mags you hear so much
about, where girl celebrities in their underwear
taunt readers but never quite take it all off.
As a child raised on Playboy's centerfold
formula, I am mystified. But laddie magazines
don't offer that kind of third act. They
specialize in an endless loop of second-base
titillation.
The reporter began his interview with me by
asking how young men can employ erotic lit as
foreplay, to lubricate their female dates and
get them to acquiesce to intercourse. "Isn't it
easier to just pop in an X-rated DVD?" he asked.
I imagined my hand inserting a disk into a
woman's vagina and then programming her to my
will.
... read full excerpt from: The Best American Erotica 2005 ebook
