The Erotic Book Club’s 2nd Birthday
With little knowledge of the erotic fiction genre – but already seduced by titillating intrigue – it seemed significant to begin my learnings with the Erotic Book Club’s second birthday. A sense of celebration in the preamble rituals of Birth, perhaps?
The Bethnal Green-based book banging club usually meet every month to discuss a chosen text. In the past classic and contemporary filth has been selected, including Nabokov’s Lolita and Belle De Jour’s Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl.
Last month however, attendees were encouraged to come prepared with a slice of our own masterfully created pieces of one-handed reading fan fiction (their phrase, not mine).
Hosts, and newly engaged couple, Robin and Fanny were quick to fill glasses and make newcomers feel welcome at the bookshop-cum-club HQ. Instantly I was reassured the evocative title hadn’t attracted any outright perves or letches.
It was apparent that some of us needed the red wine and champagne blush to hide behind before delivering our compositions, so to begin with Robin guided us gently, like pale skinned virgins into the hidden back lobes of his filthy cerebrum, and poetically expressed a series of widely yearned for scenarios in which to fuck Lois Griffin.
Here came the realisation that this was not a club dedicated to the battered euphemisms and frippery froth of Mills & Boon. But there was little time for post-coital cigarette or breather, as quick to follow came an illicit tryst between Ferris Bueller and Cameron to get us stirring.
Also up on the steamy bill was a stolen, forbidden night between Smurfette and Handy, a Baywatch fanatic’s wet dream, an evocative piece of continental literature slash alternative theatre inspired by Belle De Jour, and, unforgettably, a hunting escapade between Darcy and Bingley; blatantly what Austen was really thinking.
During this time ample amounts of wine had been consumed, which paved the way for the increased giggling and general school girl behaviour. And then we pondered why this was the case. What’s the reason for dick/tit/clit-lit to generate such comedy?
“The supplanting of recognisable characters into compromising situations coupled with the parodying of erotic literature conventions,” someone managed to slur.
In another attempt to discuss something that, if needs be, I could have relayed to my mother, gender came into the equation. The evenings’ female authors often focussed on same-sex relations, but there was not one male-dreamt up threesome or schoolgirl/cheerleader/sister lesbian in sight. Wow.
Is the modern-day sexually-liberated female now coveting a ménage à trios? Or is this a projected desire to embody a more dominant or, better still, equal partner in sexual relations?
Very hard to say. But the friendly, welcoming atmosphere – combined with a rejection of the more typical hush-hush approach to this subject matter – is enough to entice me back next month.
Choose for yourself what gets discussed; Jean Genet’s Our Lady of the Flowers, Midori’s Master Han’s Daughter or David Foenkinos’ The Erotic Potential of My Wife. Cast your vote via the website.
Lucinda Southern
What do you think?