Okay.

Hmmmm. I have always been extremely curious about Nin's writing. So, I finally decided to give it a try.

You truly have to approach this with an open and receptive mind. I believe that most of the people I know would be deeply unsettled or even shocked by it. However, well, it is undeniably hot.

Moreover, it is written in a beautifully crafted manner.

Let's perhaps call it literary smut, shall we?

And surprisingly, I find that I really like it.

There is something about the way Nin weaves her words that draws me in and keeps me engaged, despite the rather bold and unorthodox nature of the content.

It's a unique reading experience that I'm glad I decided to embark upon.

Who knows what other hidden gems I might discover in the world of literature if I continue to keep an open mind?

The people I follow on Tumblr seem to have an absolute adoration for Anais Nin. They have reblogged or posted some truly choice quotes and excerpts from her writing. This piqued my curiosity to such an extent that I decided to borrow some of her works from the library.

On a few other occasions when I've delved into erotic fiction, I've ended up laughing due to the cheesy writing and overused phrases. However, that wasn't the case when I read this book by Anais Nin. In fact, my cheeks flushed regularly as I made my way through it. At one point, I brought it into class to read during the break. What was supposed to be a quiet 10-minute reading session for me turned into a whole class discussion about erotica, with my teacher included. This happened when a male classmate read the blurb, saw Anais Nin's name, and started bombarding me with questions.

Certainly, there were some stories in the book where I thought, 'ok that's not really right'. But then I remembered that what I considered 'right' or 'wrong' wasn't the essence of the book. I believe that if you approach the book from the perspective of your own morals, Anais Nin's work will fail to convince and help you appreciate that there are all kinds of love, regardless of whether we deem it right or wrong. This book is all about exploring human sexuality, and despite the fact that some of the descriptions can be shocking or erotic, I thought Nin wrote about it in the most beautiful and engaging manner.

I was first introduced to Anais Nin by my boyfriend.

On Valentine's Day a couple of years ago, he bought me a first edition of Little Birds.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn't raunchy or esoteric as I had expected.

Instead, it was very accessible, extremely beautiful, and, of course, very sensual.

Recently, at an estate sale, I came across Delta of Venus.

I picked it up partly out of my interest in Nin's writing and partly because it was a vintage book, and I have a passion for vintage books.

Delta of Venus is indeed far sexier than Little Birds.

However, the beauty of Nin's work lies in the fact that no matter how racy she gets, it never becomes distasteful or off-putting like a lot of erotica that is simply for the sake of shock value.

Nin's erotica is sensual not just because of the sexual acts the characters engage in, but also because throughout the reading, you are constantly reminded that she was writing in the 1930s.

During that time, sex was relatively freer than in the puritanical decades before, but it was nowhere near as free as the sex we know today.

As a result, there is an inherent tension created by the restraint of the characters as they navigate the line between social decorum, taboos, and what was acceptable sexually at the time, while also attempting to understand and temper (or, more often, indulge) their lust and experimental curiosities.

Nin's erotica is not dirty or depraved at all.

Rather, it is beautifully written, filled with surprising insights and psychology.

Best of all, it is written from a woman's perspective, but not in an overly aggressive or in-your-face way.

There is truly something for everyone here, unless you prefer your erotica to be of the Hustler variety. (Yuck.)

There is none of that here. I highly recommend any of Nin's work if you are at all curious about erotica (or even if you're not... you'll like it, I promise).

Over a period of years, I have made numerous attempts to discover what aspects of Nin's writing I could truly appreciate.

Certainly, it was revolutionary during the era in which it was penned, and from a critical perspective, I suppose that holds significance.

However, it strikes me as rather absurd. I envision college girls, donning dressing gowns, sipping wine on some luxurious silk bedspread purchased from Urban Outfitters, all while attempting to imitate Dita Von Teese's style and reading Nin's works. This mental image alone is sufficient to make me develop a certain aversion towards it.

Perhaps I am being too harsh or judgmental, but this is the impression that Nin's writing has left on me.

It seems more like a fashion statement or a trendy accessory rather than a profound and meaningful piece of literature.

Nonetheless, I continue to search for that elusive quality within her words that might change my perception.

This collection truly compels you to reevaluate your preexisting conceptions of erotica. At least, that's what it did for me.

You might think you'll begin reading this with all the respectability of a librarian in your best reading glasses, but a few pages in, you might find yourself changing into something more comfortable. And yet, by the end, you might be in desperate need of the coldest shower ever. However, you're probably wrong in this assumption.

There's something here for everyone, and I mean everyone. It includes necrophiliacs, pedophiles, sadists, and those with numerous other kinks. Yuck, right? But unfortunately, you can't extricate yourself so easily. Nin transforms the reader into a voyeur, observing and thus becoming a passive participant in all sorts of 'deviant' behavior. She also plays this rather nasty trick of luring you into something that appears sexy, only to then, with a high-pitched cackle, punish you with a shocking and vile ending. Hahaha! she seems to say. Are you getting turned on? Here's a knife in your crotch! (No, I'm not even exaggerating.)

I read this collection slowly, one story per week, which I believe is the ideal way to approach Nin's work. Read any faster, and it will be like pouring an entire jar of honey down your throat – sickeningly sweet and a complete mess. I discovered that the shortest stories were the most successful as they were focused and packed a punch that I came to appreciate more as time passed. The longer ones tend to have more sexy scenes but are less effective as they meander from encounter to encounter with not much connecting them. I got the impression that she was being paid by the page in those stories – and indeed, she was!

It is incredibly difficult to write about sex well. I'm not going to claim that she achieved this throughout the entire book. She definitely has her moments, though, and each reader's copy will have a dog-eared page or two, depending on what interests them. I think we continue to read Anais Nin's work because, yes, she was one of the first women to write in this way. And also because there's an unapologetic, crazy (let's face it, she was as loony as a fruitcake) honesty about her. A woman, writing openly and honestly about sex? That will never lose its appeal. As one of her characters states:

'Why do women make such a secret and mystery of it all? They think it destroys their mystery but it is not true. And here you come out and say just what you felt. It is wonderful.'

And the female character responds:

'I believe in saying it. There are enough mysteries, and these do not help our enjoyment of each other.'

So, what exactly is erotica? Does it serve to arouse sexually? Or does it educate, break taboos, open awareness, and expose secret fantasies? I think Nin's stories accomplish all of these things. Although I often found myself saying 'but... YUCK...', now that I've read the collection, I'm not at all sorry I did. I guess you could say I was seduced. Damn.

Let's get one thing straight. This is erotica. Erotica erotica erotica erotica erotica. You know that phenomenon when you say something so many times that it temporarily loses its meaning? Firstly, it's a psychological phenomenon known as semantic satiation. Secondly, that's what I'm trying to do here with the word 'erotica'. Erotica erotica erotica erotica erotica. Run through that a few more times if you haven't sufficiently stripped yourself of assumptions, contextual peripheries, and all other sorts of ideological clutter. Also, don't even think of the word 'porn'. This isn't one-two-hup-hup-hup gratification on the simplest level of human biological stimulation. This is literature.

Feeling free of all that? Good. Because the theme that I'm working through in this review is this: erotica is a genre of wasted potential. You heard me. Wasted potential. Just look at its current representative in the popular media. Not only is it a ripoff of a fanfiction of Twilight, a book that is an advocate of both poor writing and abusive relationships, it manages to compound both of those qualities to even more horrendous levels. Thanks to that book, the misconceptions regarding the more eclectic sexual activities have never been more horrible or widespread. I'm not even going to try to discuss the writing.

Now, let's return to the book at hand. Delta of Venus was published in 1977, thirty-four years before 50SoG. Had the erotica genre been taken seriously at any time since then, it could have been a game changer. Perhaps not for the quality of writing, which comes nowhere close to the masters, but not only does it cover a wide variety of sexual situations in unflinching physical detail without the slightest hint of judgment, it also touches on a huge number of issues that are present in how society treats sexual matters today.

These issues include: varieties of sexuality, sociocultural gender constraints, patriarchal oppression, proper conductance of BDSM, fetishes ranging from pedophilia to necrophilia to gerontophilia to myriad objects, scents, textures, you name it, Nin's probably mentioned it. While her writing isn't the most prettily poetic thing under the sun, what it does accomplish is show exactly what is running through the participants' minds without once fetishizing abusive or bigoted aspects of sexuality, as well as get the reader comfortable with parts of the anatomy that society for whatever reason has an attitude both puritanical and childish towards.

I know there is literature out there that deals with the more uneasy aspects of sexual issues, even some like Lolita that are widely praised by the literary community. That doesn't change the fact that the genre of erotica is largely met with titters and contempt when it isn't banned outright, and the majority of its literature is filled with connotations of unrealistic sexual dynamics, borderline abusive situations, and frankly just a lot of bad writing.

When it comes to sociocultural progress, I see no catalyst more powerful than that of literature, especially literature that survives and thrives for centuries well into present times. Out of every genre of literature, the least likely to be taught in classrooms is that of erotica. Maybe you'll get a book that involves rape, or one that hints at homosexual liaisons, or perhaps relationships deemed illicit by reason of race, class, or culture. It is highly unlikely that a book that details sexual relations both healthy and unrestricted by stereotypes will ever make its way into the classroom without being met by childish behavior by both the students and their parents.

So, next time you see someone with 50SoG, inform them that there is a much better book out there called Delta of Venus that is not only erotica, but classic erotica. They probably won't ignorantly enjoy it as much as the former, but one hopes it will get them thinking. A much better end result, in my mind.

The Delta of Venus is an anthology of erotic stories that celebrates female sexuality, and the woman is not seen as a hidden alter ego behind male personalities but as an entity of equal dignity and with the same desires. Anais Nin began writing these stories almost by chance in 1940. She needed money, and her friend Henry Miller passed on to her a commission he had received but didn't want to complete, which was a series of erotic-themed stories for a mysterious collector. This collector specifically asked to set aside all the poetic part of the sexual act and focus exclusively on raw and unadorned sex. Nin surely suffered a lot from this request and didn't hide her reluctance to this type of writing. However, in my opinion, she still achieved the intention. Taking control of the situation, she tried to shape the mere pornography required by the collector according to her style. From her pen emerged this series of stories that only years later were collected in a single book. Here, Eros is elevated to the true protagonist, and the woman is aware of fully possessing her body and what she can do with it. Sexuality is not repressed, as often happened in that era, but is expressed with multiple facets. I don't deny that some stories may seem brutal, but the cultured and refined writing of this author managed to make the words flow like a full river, so much so that it was impossible for me to close the book and stop reading. I'm aware that it's not a book for everyone, as it depends a lot on how much explicit descriptions are tolerated, with real exploits of contrasting feelings and emotions. But one could give a chance to a type of literature that unfortunately is still little explored.

It's important to note that Anais Nin's work in The Delta of Venus offers a unique perspective on female sexuality. Her writing challenges the traditional norms and taboos of the time, presenting a more liberated and honest portrayal. While some may find the content shocking or offensive, it's crucial to approach it with an open mind and consider the historical context in which it was written.

Nin's ability to blend sensuality with literary artistry is truly remarkable. Her descriptions are vivid and detailed, yet they maintain a certain elegance and sophistication. She delves deep into the psyche of her female characters, exploring their desires, fears, and insecurities. Through their experiences, we gain a deeper understanding of the complex nature of female sexuality.

Moreover, The Delta of Venus can be seen as a feminist work. By giving voice to the female perspective and celebrating female sexuality, Nin is challenging the patriarchal view that has long dominated society. She is asserting the equality of women and their right to express their sexual selves without shame or inhibition.

In conclusion, although The Delta of Venus may not be to everyone's taste, it is a significant and thought-provoking work of literature. It offers a unique exploration of female sexuality and challenges our preconceived notions about gender and desire. It is a testament to Anais Nin's talent as a writer and her courage to break free from the constraints of convention.

This book is extremely hot.

I didn't realize it was all erotica until I opened it on the plane ride home from France. The entire ride, I felt a little warm under the collar.

It deals with some scandalous themes such as incest, necrophilia, pedophilia, rape, bestiality, voyeurism, exhibitionism, some low-key BDSM, homosexuality, and so on.

It doesn't have the vast abundance of themes you might find on the internet, but it is markedly better written than most of what you'd find there.

Even though the things she is writing about would otherwise be distasteful, she somehow manages to make them seem hot.

It's a strange combination of taboo and allure that keeps the reader engaged from start to finish.

Whether you're into this kind of literature or not, it's hard to deny the author's skill in creating a steamy and captivating read.

Perhaps it's the way she weaves these scandalous themes into a story that makes it so irresistible.

Or maybe it's the fact that she manages to make the reader feel a range of emotions, from shock to arousal.

Either way, this book is definitely one to check out if you're looking for something a little different and a lot more exciting.

The image presented here shows a captivating scene.

It features a detailed illustration that immediately grabs the viewer's attention.

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This book is extremely difficult to review, simply because it is hard to digest as a collection. Nin is an outstanding writer, with a unique style of her own: dreamlike, seductive, enveloping you in honey, spices, and erotic ginger. The closest writer I know to her is Angela Carter. It is true that her (unedited) diaries are where she truly shines, but she also brought a grace, a truth, and a tease to erotica that is not present in male writings. The tales seem almost to be seen from the corner of your eye. As in all kinds of sexual encounters, the build-up, the playful dance that brings two (or more) people together, is what is of the greatest interest. The touches, the glances, the play on the senses, anticipating future pleasures - and while Nin brings more poetry than most to the act itself, that is not the primary concern here.

Unfortunately, although the writing is of the highest quality, even when - as in the case of her erotica - Nin was writing on commission and on demand, reading story after story without a break is not ideal and eventually becomes exhausting. Therefore, I have deducted a star for the format.

(#25 in my Year of Reading Women)

A collection of erotic stories penned by an author who had intimate associations with the infamous Henry Miller.

Some of these stories unfold the entire life journey of a character, while others are merely brief snapshots of some spicy incident. The characters are drawn from the creative milieu: artists, models, dancers, and also women of loose morals. And almost all of them, predominantly men, bear some sort of childhood or youth trauma that impacts their adult life, particularly in their interactions with the opposite sex.

Personally, I valued these stories not for their erotic content but for the significant attention they devote to the psychological dynamics between men and women. When I initially began reading this book, I had no inkling of what it was about, so the first chapter came as a great surprise to me. The stories didn't strike me as overly explicit, nor did they leave any particularly profound impressions. However, if you're in the mood to peruse some quality erotica, I would indeed recommend it.

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