Books I Recommend

This is a personal list. I’m certain there’s loads more good stuff out there that I just don’t know about.

For fantasy tinged with eroticism:

Angela Carter – The Bloody Chamber

Superb, literary re-imaginings of classic fairy tales. Poetic, clever, savage, sorrowful. There have been many imitative collections since.

Tanith Lee – the Flat Earth series: Death’s Master, Night’s Master, Delusion’s Master, Delirium’s Mistress

Reading too much of this can be a bit like bingeing on excessive amounts of chocolate, but Lee does a great job of weaving an intense, febrile, sensual world which for a while makes the real one pale.

For Erotica:

Fiona Pitt-Kethley - The Literary Companion to Sex

A good historical anthology. Filthy, yet cultural!

Pat Califia - Macho Sluts

Lesbian sadomasochism. Strong stuff, and very American. Strong storylines: the first book that convinced me you could write stories about sex instead of just describe it going on. Califia’s essay/foreword is well worth reading too.

(Ed.)Alison Tyler - Luscious: Stories of Anal Eroticism

Like most anthologies the stories vary in quality and some are (from my point of view) impenetrably American. But on the whole a really good and surprisingly varied collection.

Donna George Storey - Amorous Woman

The lyrical, melancholy 'memoir' of Lydia, an American woman living in Japan and experiencing various aspects of its sexual subculture. Absolutely fascinating for its cultural insights, as well as a hot read.

Felix Baron - Dominant

Here's an unusual thing: a contemporary BDSM novel with soul, emotion and depth written from the point of the view of the sadistic character. Essentially the story of a dominant man finding his soul mate (but don't worry, it has tons of kinky sex), this Nexus book is well above average for the genre.

Anne Rice (A.N. Roquelaure in older editions) – The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, Beauty’s Punishment, Beauty’s Release

Novels of submission, spanking and bondage in a fairytale setting that feels rather more like Disney than Grimm. Rice is of course famous for championing male-on-male action in the popular novel – kudos to her. And she scores over other S/M writers who usually have quite firm ideas about whether it should be men taking the submissive role (which bores me after a while), or women (which gets on my nerves after a while): Rice is gloriously even-handed.

Sophie Danson - Avalon Nights

An early Black Lace book (and previously printed as Knights of Pleasure) this takes the knights of King Arthur and gives each a history with a different erotic spin. It’s the first full-length erotic ‘novel’ I read and therefore influential on me. I still rate it.

Jenni Diski - Nothing Natural

A mainstream novel rather than a genre one, but it's about a woman who suffers from depression and gets into a SM relationship. Strong plot, well written, good twist in the tail, the sex is good though there isn't that much of it.

Films

 Hardcore DVDS:

 I'm dead fussy about my porn. That's why I write the stuff; no one else's will quite hit the spot for me the way I have it in mind. And there are very few full-on R18-cert porn movies that are worth recommending. The one exception I can think of is Catherine, directed by Michael Ninn. It's a bizarre gothic extravaganza and madder than a box of ferrets. Great costume, barmy hair, excellent use of music and fairly attractive men(!). Think of a New Romantic pop video which keeps turning into full-on sex action. It's not perfect of course: there's rather too much spitting for my taste and the script is, er, unimaginative. Plus you may find some of the sex a bit on the rough side if you are of a sensitive nature. I thought: WOW!

Mainstream:

"My, what an impressive weapon..." www.gerardbutler.net

I love going to the cinema. I love the ritual and the anticipation and the total immersion in the film that you just don’t get with a home screening. I love the trailers and the ice cream and those Orange adverts reminding you to switch off your phone.

Sadly there are very few mainstream films with an explicitly erotic theme that I rate. Sirens and Karma Sutra are worth a look and both have strong mythological undertones, as is the slightly cheesy Barbarella (– has anyone noticed how much the superb sets influenced the Henson children’s film Labyrinth?!).

However there are plenty of films with lovely, sexy characters in, and what you do with them in the privacy of your own imagination is bound to be better than anything dreamt up by Hollywood. My top chick-flick of all time is Troy. It’s got an amazingly good-looking male ensemble cast for a start - plus spectacle, drama, courage, sacrifice, a brainless idealistic romance (Helen & Paris), a complicated screwed-up adult romance (Achilles & Briseis), jaw-dropping fight-scenes, the heartbreaking death of a hero (Hector), Brad Pitt stark naked, Sean Bean being wry, and several thousand men running around with no trousers on. It’s a war movie that’s firmly anti-war. It’s just fabulous.

What turns me on in fictional men:

• Intelligence
• Long hair
• A strong moral conscience. I find Good Guys sexy!

What turns me off:

• Feckless or irresponsible types.
• Men who treat women with contempt (e.g James Bond; I can't watch Bond movies.).
• Necks that are thicker than the heads they support.

My top nine:

• Gerard Butler in almost anything. My all-time filmstar crush! He is one gorgeous man but I’ve got to admit he’s been in some cruddy films. Attila, for example, was a painfully bad TV miniseries of the kind where the entire Visigothic nation is represented by twenty men on horseback wearing costumes that makes Xena: Warrior Princess look like it was the subject of accurate historical research – but I’ll forgive it just about anything for Mr Butler’s performance in long hair and an open shirt. He's dark and deranged in Phantom of the Opera; dark, slim and tasty in Dracula 2001 (“I do not drink … coffee.”); cute in Reign of Fire and stupidly overmuscled in Tomb Raider 2 and 300. 
• Sayid (Naveen Andrews) in Lost.
• Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) and Faramir (David Wenham) in The Lord of the Rings. Counts as one choice because … oh, you know why.
• Ardeth Bey, a.k.a “the Arab guy” (Oded Fehr) in The Mummy.
• Hector (Eric Bana) in Troy. Yes, I know that Brad Pitt is technically better-looking but Achilles behaves like a childish brat and Hector behaves like a man. And I’m a sucker for self-sacrifice.
• Johnny Depp in almost anything, but especially Pirates of the Caribbean (camp … but cute) and The Libertine: two roles so far apart you can hardly believe it’s the same actor. Probably the most beautiful man on the planet.
• Brendan Fraser in George of the Jungle. Yes, I know it’s a silly kid’s film – but you’ve got a bloke with the most perfect body and a heart-stopping smile running round nearly naked the entire time, so who cares?
• Marcus Cole (Jason Carter), the Ranger in Babylon 5. Oh God, my geek roots are really showing now…
• The Marquis de Carabas (Patterson Joseph) in Neverwhere, an obscure UK TV series written by that man Neil Gaiman.

What turns me on in fictional women:

• Smarts
• Athletic build and smallish breasts
• The ability to kick the living crap out of her enemies.

(I admit a certain amount of personal wish fulfilment here …)

What turns me off:

• Blonde
• Dependent
• Conspicuously shallow

My Top 6:

• Anna-Maria (Michelle Rodriguez) in Lost
• Claudia Black in Pitch Black and Farscape.
• Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider and oh, anything else.
• Alice (Milla Jovovich) in Resident Evil.
• Mystique in X-Men.
• Morgan (Geena Davis) in Cut-Throat Island. Nice dress.