Erotic literature group

Every book club has its own rules of engagement. I was briefly in one where everyone was single and never even bothered to buy a copy of the book they were supposed to have read. So I joined a "women only" one, thinking that, rather like single-sex schools, there would be no distraction from the task at hand. Husbands and boyfriends had to leave the premises and male authors got a rough ride, but it worked well otherwise. That was then, in those pre-lapsarian days before 50 Shades of Grey kick-started our obsession with literary erotica. Where the sexual tension used to reside below surface, between members of a traditional reading group, this dynamic has shifted so that the sexual frisson comes from within the pages of the book itself. There is also the emergence of hybrid book clubs-cum-cabarets where performance, sexual titillation and literature combine.

Erotic literature comprises fictional and factual stories and accounts of human sexual relationships which have the power to or are intended to arouse the reader sexually. A common feature of the genre is sexual fantasies on such themes as prostitution , orgies , homosexuality , sadomasochism , and many other taboo subjects and fetishes , which may or may not be expressed in explicit language. Despite cultural taboos on such material, circulation of erotic literature was not seen as a major problem before the invention of printing, as the costs of producing individual manuscripts limited distribution to a very small group of readers.

I check myself out in the mirror, but the girl staring back at me in an embellished bodycon dress with smoky eyes and a massive blow-dry looks like a complete stranger. I never usually wear make up, this isn't my face and it's definitely not an outfit I'd pick out for myself. But that's the desired effect, I don't want to be Kate tonight.