Seductions: Tales of Erotic Persuasion

by Lonnie Barbach

Overview

Now a pivotal figure in the field of literary erotica, Lonnie Barbach was first known for her pioneering books about sex and relationships. Seductions is a sumptuous anthology in which she explores the ways that erotic art can kindle romance, ignite desire, and bring two people together in the most pleasurable and satisfying ways imaginable. The twenty stories showcased here cover the full spectrum of sexual experience and identity as they reveal seduction in all its varied and exotic forms. Seductions is written for a wide-ranging audience--young and old, male and female, heterosexual and gay, married and single. It will take readers beyond the limits of their erotic imagination to a realm that is both tantalizing and provocative.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101213070
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/01/2000
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	568 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Dr. Lonnie Barbach received her M.A. and Ph.D. in clinical social psychology from the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California. She is now on the clinical faculty of the University of California Medical School in San Francisco and also has a private practice. Among her several bestselling books on sex and relationships are For Yourself, Pleasures, Going the Distance, The Pause, Seductions, The Erotic Edge, and Erotic Interludes, her book with her partner, David Geisinger, Ph.D. They live in Mill Valley, California, with their daughter, Tess.

Editorial Reviews

The Barnes & Noble Review
Compilations of short erotic fiction are notoriously uneven; even so-called best of volumes inevitably have a few stinkers in the batch. Though Seductions, the new collection edited by Lonnie Barbach, who has written a handful of books on enhancing one's sex life and has edited a few other collections of erotica, isn't immune to this problem, it's still a cut above most similar books. What really separates Seductions from the pack, though, is that it's not geared toward one specific audience: The stories come from men and women, gay and straight, and overall will probably be best enjoyed by couples reading together. They all address the art of seduction in some way, but besides this common theme, Seductions comprises an extremely diverse array of tales.

Barbach writes in her introduction,

When I think about the most erotic moments of a sexual experience, I am drawn to the delicious and unpredictable buildup, the dance of seduction. A sexual experience often lodges in the memory most vividly because of the events that lead up to the actual physical lovemaking: the invitation to sensually provocative play, the anticipation of an experience charged with pleasure and delight.... I have gathered a collection of stories that emphasize these openings, stories that set the stage for the encounters that follow.

Her intentions are well served by the stories she selected, which fall into five different sections. The first, "The Dance of Seduction," contains tales in which the seduction is an elaborately crafted affair in which the seducerisan artist working in the medium of sexual enticement. The second, "The Unknown," presents uncertainty as the force that drives erotic tension. "Escape," the third section, is made up of stories about people seducing or allowing themselves to be seduced as a means of removing themselves from some unpleasant reality. In the fourth section, the surrounding environment (a deserted surfing beach, a small Italian village, the sight of a terrible natural disaster) provides the sexual charge in the situation. The final section, "The Dark Side," includes unsettling tales of seductions gone bad or carried out with bad intentions (these are some of the steamiest in the book).

Breaking the selections down into these categories seems superfluous, but the stories themselves are, aside from a few dismissible exceptions, excellent. Some are as graphic as a Penthouse letter, others as literary as a short story you might find in The New Yorker; many are both, and all are good for one thing or another. So get together with someone you love or curl up solo — Seductions contains some of the sexiest escapist reading you'll find.

—barnesandnoble.com

A sheaf of sex aids by 20 unknown writers, mostly for women but also for men and in particular for couples. Want to spend a night with your wife's best friend? Well, in Edward Buskirk's "The Other Woman," you can have your cake and eat it too, especially if that "other woman" who has slipped into your pitch-black bedroom is your wife disguised as her best friend. Or might it really be the best friend? James will never know, but the reader has some mild titillation watching the poor man go all the way and walk off guiltless. Barbach (The Erotic Edge: Erotica for Couples, 1994) avoids literal pornography (well, that depends) in these pinch-my-bottom little bed romps, while drawing the reader into story after story. Her intros to her five types of seduction fall into the deathslump of phrases like "attractive personality attributes in a potential partner" — which is artfully seductive writing only for sociologists, though the writers here are no better ("his manhood grew, straining against the confinement"). The five types, meantime, weave through dance, the unknown, escape, the environment, and the dark side. Barbach's writers often publish their erotica pseudonymously, and one can see why, with each story as elegantly sexy as salt-water taffy. One could do worse with one's mate than read this, but taking a shower together will get you there faster, and maybe with better prose. . .

Kirkus Reviews