The Penguin Book of Erotic Stories by Women

420 Pages·2013·38.56 MB·English

by  Jones Richard Glyn

THE PENGUIN BOOK OF
EROTIC STORIES
WOMEN
BY
'"* w-
31TED BY RICHARD GLYN JONES AND A. SUS.

PENGUIN BOOKS
THE PENGUIN BOOK OF EROTIC STORIES BY
WOMEN
RichardGlynJones trainedandworkedasapsychologistbeforeentering
theworldofpublishing. Inthelate1960shewasaneditorofthecontro-
versial magazine New Worlds, which at one pointwas banned by W. H.
SmithandcausedquestionstobeaskedintheHouseofCommons.Heran
his own small press for tenyears,wherehepublished Christine Keeler's
bestsellingScandal!, aswell asJorgeLuis Borges's TheBook ofFantasy. He
currentlyworksasawriterandeditor,andhascompiledmorethantwenty
anthologies,includingKillerCouples,astudyoifolieadeuxinmurderers,and,
withA. SusanWilliams, ThePenguinBook, ofModernFantasyby Women. His
mostrecentanthologyis Cybersex.
A. Susan Williams is a senior researcher at the Institute ofEducation,
University of London. She has published extensively on literature and
history,withaparticularfocusonwomen'slivesandwork Currentpub-
licationsinclude ThePenguinBook ofClassicFantasyby Women,and shehas
recentlyfinishedwritingabookonthetopicofWomenandChildbirthinthe
TwentiethCentury.

THE PENGUIN BOOK OF
EROTIC STORIES
WOMEN
BY
EDITED BY RICHARD GLYN JONES
AND A. SUSAN WILLIAMS
PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS
PublishedbythePenguinGroup
PenguinBooksLtd,27WrightsLane,LondonW8 5TZ,England
PenguinBooksUSAInc.,375HudsonStreet,NewYork,NewYork10014,USA
PenguinBooksAustraliaLtd,Ringwood,Victoria,Australia
PenguinBooksCanadaLtd,10AlcornAvenue,Toronto,Ontario,CanadaM4V 3B2
PenguinBooks(NZ)Ltd,182-190WairauRoad,Auckland10,NewZealand
PenguinBooksLtd,RegisteredOffices:Harmondsworth,Middlesex,England
FirstpublishedbyViking1995
PublishedinPenguinBooks1996
13579108642
Thisselectioncopyright©RichardGlynnJonesandA.SusanWilliams,1995
Introductioncopyright©A.SusanWilliams,1995
Introductiontothestoriescopyright©RichardGlynnJones,1995
Allrightsreserved
Theacknowledgementsonpp.398-400constituteanextensionofthiscopyrightpage
Themoralrightoftheeditorshasbeenasserted
PrintedinEnglandbyClaysLtd,StIvespic
ExceptintheUnitedStatesofAmerica,thisbookissoldsubject
totheconditionthatitshallnot,bywayoftradeorotherwise,belent,
re-sold,hiredout,orotherwisecirculatedwithoutthepublisher's
priorconsentinanyformofbindingorcoverotherthanthatin
whichitispublishedandwithoutasimilarconditionincludingthis
conditionbeingimposedonthesubsequentpurchaser
CONTENTS
IntroductionbyA. SusanWilliams vii
LaMarquisedeMannouryd'Ectot, Violette(France, 1882) 1
KateChopin, TheStorm(USA, 1900) 19
KatherineMansfield, LevesAmores(New Zealand, 1907) 24
Anna-ElisabethWeirauch, Forbidden'Love(Germany, 1919) 26
Colette, Mitsou(France, 1919) 41
Gertrude Stein, Didn'tNellyandLillyLove You(USA, 1922) 46
May Sinclair, The VillaDesiree (UK, 1926) 76
Radclyffe Hall, MissOgilvyFindsHerself(UK, 1926) 87
EdithWharton, MyLittle Girl(USA, 1935) 104
SimonedeBeauvoir, Marcelle(France, 1942) 107
ClaireRabe, SicilyEnough (USA, 1963) 142
A
LailaBaalabaki, SpaceshipofTendernesstotheMoon
(Lebanon, c. 1964) 182
SivHolm, I,a Woman(Denmark, 1965) 188
CarolEmshwiller, Sexand/orMrMorrison(USA, 1967) 199
AlifaRifaat, My Worldofthe Unknown(Egypt, r. 1971) 207
Angela Carter, FleshandtheMirror(UK, c. 1972) 221
A
Joanna Russ, nOld-fashionedGirl(USA, 1974) 229
Verena Stefan, StateofEmergency (Switzerland, 1975) 234
BessieHead, The CollectorofTreasures(Botswana, 1977) 261
NicoleWard Jouve, BlackandWhite(France, 1977) 280
Contents
KathyAcker, New York Cityin 1979(USA, 1981) 291
A
Yuan Ch'iung Ch'iung, hover'sEar(Taiwan, 1985) 307
Amy Yamada, KneelDownandLickMy Feet(Japan, 1988) 309
Isabel Allende, OurSecret(Peru, 1989) 323
ElizabethCook, BilletsDoux(UK, 1989) 327
Iva Pekarkova, TruckStop (Czechoslovakia, 1989) 333
Evelyn Lau, FetishNight(Canada, 1993) 343
SvetlanaBoym, Romancesofthe EraofStagnation(Russia, 1993) 347
L. A. Hall, HarmonisingPolarities(UK, 1995) 362
Candas JaneDorsey, Wishes(Canada, 1995) 378
Ann Oakley, WheretheBeeSucks(UK, 1995) 384
Acknowledgements 398
Theintroductionsto theindividualstoriesareby RichardGlynJones.
INTRODUCTION
This anthology contains stories with an erotic theme that have been
written by women from all over the world — from countries as far
apart as Japan, France, Botswana, Peru and Russia. Since the time
span covers more than a hundred years, from the 1880s to
the present day, it is a rich and diverse collection, reflecting
very different historical moments and cultural frameworks. Iva
Pekarkova, a Czech woman who is making her name as an author
following the collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe, has drawn
on a different set of experiences from Anna-Elisabeth Weirauch,
who lived and wrote in Weimar Germany. Equally, Alifa Rifaat,
living in late twentieth-century Egypt,1 is engaging with moral and
sexual values that are quite unlike those facing Kathy Acker, living
intheverysecular USA ofthe sameperiod.
Within this broad range, we have imposed our own constraints.
All the stories are self-contained and complete in themselves, even
when they have been extracted from longer works. Many are by
authors who are well known in their own countries and abroad,
like Gertrude Stein ofthe USA and Simone de Beauvoir ofFrance;
other stories are the work ofexciting new writers, like Evelyn Lau
of Canada. The material has been arranged in chronological order,
so as to illustrate the unfolding story ofwomen's erotic fiction over
thelasthundredyears.
An introduction to a collection of erotic fiction is bound to
consider the meaning of 'erotic'. The word derives from ipconKos,
which was used in ancient Greece to mean 'of or caused by love;
given to love, fond'; it was closely connected to 'Eros', the name of
the Greek god oflove and desire.2 All these meanings are contained
todaywithin the Englishword 'erotic': The OxfordEnglish Dictionary
defines it as an adjective 'pertaining to the sexual passion; treating
oflove; amatory'. So far, sogood.
A closer look at 'erotic', however, reveals that its meaning is not
so straightforward. We do not knowto whatextent the Greekword
Introduction
was used to describe sexual passion felt by women. Athens in the
fifth century bc has been praised as the cradle ofdemo-cracy (ruled
by the people), but it would be more accurate to describe it as an
andro-cracy (ruled by men, at least those in the more powerful
strata of society). The majority of the population - women and
slaves - were excluded from civic life. They produced virtually
none of the ancient Greek literature that we read today,3 so it is
impossible to know what they thought about anything, let alone
erotic desire. In any case, love and sex involving women was
regarded by Athenian society as much inferior to male homosexual
relations. 'FortheGreek man,' explainsthehistorianEvaCanterella,
'the homosexual relationship was a privileged outlet for exchange
of experience, and he found in it an answer to his greatest needs.
To relegate women to a purely biological role was perfectly
natural.'4
Some feminist scholars have objected to the term 'erotic': Sarah
Hoagland argues that it belongs too much to 'homopatriarchal
greco-Christian tradition'.5 However, there are few words in the
English language that do not reflect in some way the centuries of
violence and exploitation that have marked the history of the
English-speaking world. It would be an impossible task to abandon
all these words; it seems more reasonable to use them in a way that
is understood by most people and conveys the intended meaning.
Accordingly, all the stories in this anthology are underpinned by
the sexual passion and love identified in The OxfordEnglish Diction-
ary's, definition of'erotic'—butfromawoman'spointofview.
Until very recently, writing by women and for women has been
markedly absent from collections and books oferotic fiction. In the
whole of Terence J. Deakin's Catalogi Eibrorum Eroticorum (1964),6
which purports to list all the major bibliographies oferotica and a
large number of secondary materials, only one woman's name
appears.7 This does notmean thatmosterotic arthas been produced
by men; it simply means that the erotica that is available and
writtenabouthasbeenproducedbymen. Somewomenauthorshave
concealed the erotic elements of their fiction by embedding them
deeplywithinthetext. GertrudeStein'sstory, 'Didn'tNellyandLilly
Love You', is representative of her 'explicit treatment of lesbian
subject-matter disguised by stylistic devices'.8 Other writers have
managed to disclaim responsibility for their erotic art through a