From Mills and Boon and Harlequin to the Fifty Shades books; women have consumed erotica consistently. But the common misconception about the genre is assuming the word “erotic” simply means smut or filth or straight-up pornography. In reality, erotic is a blanket term for anything that turns us on sexually, and the beauty of turn-ons is that they’re different for everyone. Same goes for the world of erotic fiction.
Here’s a list of recommended books that tickles your fantasy and excites your imagination.
1. The Ultimate Guide to Sexual Fantasy: How to Turn Your Fantasies Into Reality by Violet Blue
This book is almost a blueprint for readers to use sensual fantasies to change past habits, learn new maneuvers, and put imagination back into their sex lives. Wit and enthusiasm being the key points; sex educator Violet Blue takes people on a tour of the wide world of sexual fantasies. She offers masterly advice for dirty talk, playing with toys, roleplay and dress-up, making amateur porn, and exploring fetishes, sex scenes, phone sex, and much more. All inclusive with tons of games, sources, and lots of fun, The Ultimate Guide to Sexual Fantasy is the ideal book for brave readers who want to securely turn their passionate fantasies into reality.
2. My Secret Garden: Women’s Sexual Fantasies by Nancy Friday
When it first published in 1973, My Secret Garden kindled a firestorm of opinions across the nation; from outrage to excited support. The women who dreaded their erotic fantasies called it obscene. While those women who read it acknowledged in its pages the secret content of their own sexuality. This book collected individual interviews with a lot of women from assorted backgrounds and presents a bracingly candid account of women’s intimate sexual fantasy lives. In its time, this book destroyed taboos and initiated a dialogue about the landscape of feminine desire in a way that was novel.
3. The Sleeping Beauty Trilogy
Before E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey and Sylvia Day’s Bared to You, Anne Rice (as A.N. Roquelaure), began the first part of the series in 1983. This series is now considered a pioneer of erotic literature. This trilogy, containing The New York Times bestseller The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, Beauty’s Punishment, and Beauty’s Release is evidence to Anne Rice’s powerful gift. The energized eroticism and magical style of Rice’s writing connected old and new readers alike.
4. Legends of Lust: Erotic Myths from Around the World by Autumn Bardot
This book surprises the readers with the arousing mystery of the ancient world. Not unlike uncovering a sensuous diamond in the rough, Legends of Lust unveils the burning intensities that lay dormant behind your beloved mythological stories. This is a mature, première collection of fourteen steamy, sensual short stories by Autumn Bardot is an eruption of sexy, dirty, and romantic retellings. This will take your love of tales to a whole new level.
5. The Scarlett Letters: My Secret Year of Men in an L.A. Dungeon by Jenny Nordbak
Jenny Nordbak takes us to on a journey a place that few have seen, but millions have fantasized about. She shares how she transformed herself from a USC grad with low confidence into an elite expert dominatrix who finds her own opinion, influence and empathy for others. Jenny led a double life for two years on an unconventional quest to understand her hidden fantasies. Working as a construction manager in the day; at night she became Mistress Scarlett. She worked at LA’s longest-running dungeon, catering to the dark fetishes of a list of clients that covered everyone from accountants to movie stars.
6. Who’s Been Sleeping in Your Head: The Secret World of Sexual Fantasies by Brett Kahr
World-renowned psychotherapist and researcher Brett Kahr reveals the astonishing truths behind secrecy, shame, and taboo in the largest study ever undertaken on sexual fantasy. This groundbreaking book is based on surveys of 23,000 men and women from eighteen to ninety years of age. The comprehensive account of what our fantasies tell us about ourselves, this book overthrows traditional wisdom about sexuality today.
7. Avalon Trilogy by Indigo Bloome
The first book, Destined To Play, is a strongly charged erotic journey, perfect for anyone who enjoyed 50 Shades of Grey. When 37-year-old psychologist, Alexandra Blake, leaves her sheltered suburban living to give a sequence of lectures, she meets up with Dr Jeremy Quinn. This man opens her eyes and body to the world in ways she never thought possible. Destined To Feel, the second erotic adventure in Indigo Bloome’s Avalon trilogy tracks the steamy romance between Alexandra and Jeremy. In Destined to Fly, the third and final part of the Avalon trilogy, Alexandra proceeds to explore passionate fantasies and dangerous love.
8. Arousal: The Secret Logic of Sexual Fantasies by Michael J. Bader
The author states that most people have sexual fantasies, but only a few know their meaning. People are curious about yet disturbed by the things that arouse them. But they are usually too embarrassed to disclose their most private fantasies to their partners or therapists. In this engaging and stimulating book, the author offers a groundbreaking new theory of sexual desire This theory will free men and women and allow them to better understand their sexual inclinations.
9. Forbidden Flowers: More Women’s Sexual Fantasies by Nancy Friday
In this book, the author reveals more erotic, wild, and explicit fantasies expressed by women all over the world. The women come from all ethnic and socioeconomic environments. Like the previous book, Forbidden Flowers is a presentation of the depth, influence, and imaginative magnitude of women’s inner erotic lives. It gives female readers a look into the ordinary and oftentimes extraordinary fantasies of other women and offers to some an invigorating independence from the guilt and shame that is usually associated with sexual fantasy. To others, it provides a captivating insight into the psychology of female sexual response.
10. Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Sexual Fantasies by Nacy Friday
The author’s previous two books offered an unprecedentedly thorough and fair look at the inner fantasy lives of average women. In Women on Top, the author returns to this topic while collecting detailed sexual fantasies from over 150 contemporary women from various frameworks. This book is based on private individual interviews and letters that updates the conversation opened in her earlier works on women’s sexual fantasies. Also, it details how women’s erotic lives have changed over the past few decades and remained the same.