My copies of
Fast Girls: Erotica for Women arrived today and my lovely Twitter Amazon.com reviewers have already got theirs whizzing away via USPS. Follow
@raquelita for free book giveaways every time one is out, in this case, write fastgirlsantho at gmail.com with your US mailing address and Amazon.com profile - you must review it within a month of receipt. Or just buy it, I promise it's worth it. Offer good til all my copies are gone. How could it not be with such a superstar lineup? I'm so honored that Tristan Taormino let me reprint a favorite of hers, "Winter, Summer," especially because she published my first ever erotica story "Monica and Me" in
Best Lesbian Erotica 2001.
Fast Girls is the first of four women's erotica anthologies I've edited for Cleis Press (coming up:
Orgasmic, Smooth and
Passion).
Proof the book exists:
Fast Girls: Erotica for Women is edited by
Rachel Kramer Bussel.
Pre-order
Fast Girls: Erotica for Women from:
Amazon.comBn.comBordersPowell'sIndieBoundCleis PressTable of Contents
Introduction: Fast Is a (Sexy) State of Mind (see below)
Temptation Kayla Perrin
Waxing Eloquent Donna George Storey
Five-Minute Porn Star Jacqueline Applebee
Winter, Summer Tristan Taormino
Playing the Market Angela Caperton
Panther Suzanne V. Slate
Communal Saskia Walker
Fireworks Lolita Lopez
Flash! Andrea Dale
Waiting for Beethoven Susie Hara
Confessions of a Kinky Shopaholic Jennifer Peters
Let’s Dance D. L. King
That Girl Cherry Bomb
Oz Isabelle Gray
Married Life Charlotte Stein
Princess Elizabeth Coldwell
Chasing Danger Kristina Wright
Whore Complex Rachel Kramer Bussel
Lessons, Slow and Painful Tess Danesi
Speed Bumps Tenille Brown
Introduction: Fast Is a (Sexy) State of Mind
I like the fast girls best/they do whatever they wanna do. —Sarge, “Fast Girls”
I named this book after a song called “Fast Girls” by an indie pop/rock band called Sarge*. That song is a feisty, punk-rock ode to a hot girl who is captivating in all kinds of ways.
I’m sure you know a girl like that. Or a woman. Or a lady. Or a butch. Or a femme. Or…you get the idea. She’s the kind of babe who takes no prisoners, who owns her life and her sexuality and not only doesn’t apologize for them, makes sure you notice her and what she’s all about.
Two definitions of “fast,” according to Merriam-Webster are “wild” or “sexually promiscuous,” and while that is the seed of what I was angling for here, I didn’t just want to read about slut after slut after slut. I wanted to read about women who in some way defy the conventional norms-whatever those are in this day and age. That doesn’t mean being shocking for shock’s sake, but following their passion, seeking out what it is that they need to be truly pleasured.
What I love about these fast girls is that even as they are bold, daring and dynamic, they have a thing or two to learn about sex and themselves.
Consider Susie Hara’s fifty-one-year-old protagonist in “Waiting for Beethoven” as she gets it on with a younger man. In current pop culture terms, she’s the cougar, the aggressive older woman seeking her sexy prey. But she is actually nervous and uncertain, as well as aroused. “And now there was no point in telling him she wasn’t going to come when she could already feel a wave of pleasure rolling inside her, kind of a pre-coming feeling, but different than usual; she couldn’t really tell what was her clit and what were the walls inside her and what was contracting and what was releasing and then she realized she must be coming because her body had taken over and been taken over in this luscious finger symphony so she just gave in,” writes Hara, in a description of female orgasm that I think will be familiar to many.
In this book, fast is as much a state of mind as a state of motion. It’s not about trying to slut it up to impress anyone, but about finding what works for you. I was intrigued to find that playing with prostitution, or whoring, came up as a theme in many submissions, as did threesomes with one woman and two men. It makes sense that fast would be associated with women who mix cash and sex, as happens in Angela Caperton’s “Playing the Market,” where the new economy mixes with the world’s oldest profession. In my “Whore Complex,” whoredom is more a state of mind, a go-to fantasy that leaps from the bounds of dirty talk to real life with some unusual consequences. There’s also exhibitionism, such as in Jacqueline Applebee’s “Five-Minute Porn Star,” and submission--there’s a lot of very hot female submission and BDSM play in this book.
These girls are fast when they want to be…and slow at other times. They want to crack their lovers’ secret codes, find out what makes them tick, as happens in Charlotte Stein’s “Married Life.” I like this story because the wife is not just passively accepting her humdrum sex life, but she doesn’t want to have an affair or get a divorce. She wants her husband, the man she loves, but she wants him openly, honestly, freely and when they both give a little of themselves and bravely bare their souls, they find true happiness.
These girls don’t give it up for just anyone. Even the ones who get around have a reason for choosing their lovers, and it’s those reasons, those images, that resonate with me. Here’s Tristan Taormino in “Winter, Summer,” rhapsodizing about the woman she’s about to seduce (or perhaps, who’s about to seduce her is more accurate):
She’s the boy I have dreamed about and jerked off to too many times to count. The one who won’t leave my fantasies, who cruises me in my bedroom, who seduced me months ago in another lifetime with her voice, who plays pool and drinks beer, who grabs my ass in crowded bars just to fuck with my boundaries and catch me off guard, who makes my brain get wet and my pussy explode.Exactly. Though there are women on the prowl here, women who go after younger men, women who pounce, women who pursue, there are others who are excited about being the object of another’s affection, lust and desire. For them, being fast means courting the man or woman (or more than one person) they are searching for.
These fast girls speak to me on many levels. I admire them, respect them, marvel at them, raise my eyebrows at them, want them. But most of all, I’m excited that they’ve broken free of whatever messages we all receive about how a woman is “supposed” to act and instead they are bent on acting however they damn well please. And that’s my personal definition of a fast, not to mention foxy, girl.
Rachel Kramer Bussel
New York City
* To hear more of Sarge,
click here.
Labels: anthologies, anthology, Cleis Press, erotica, Fast Girls, Rachel Kramer Bussel, sexuality, smut, Tristan Taormino, women's erotica
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