KINK| EROTIC FICTION | BOOKS
On Discovering Illicit Erotica from the Victorian Era
How historical erotic fiction shaped my fantasies and my writing
I’ll never forget the summer that I discovered underground erotic fiction from the Victorian era …
I was nearly nineteen, no longer a virgin, but had yet to find a lover who could touch me, awaking my flesh and desires, as effectively as I did for myself. I suspect I’m not alone in this. Many girls have boyfriends who are so eager to get off, or who shoot their load so quickly, that their partner barely gets into second gear but they’re already finished.
I’d been reading books with sex scenes in them since I was fourteen, drawn to the spicy interludes within the body of the story. I found the approach to sex in historical romances more appealing than in contemporary books. My fantasies began to weave in women left in chastity belts (to protect them from ‘courtly love’) or dressing in complicated garments that were hard to remove without assistance, such as hooped skirts and boned corsets.
I was browsing paperbacks in my local newsagents when I first saw The Pearl. My eye was drawn to its plain white cover, depicting a woman wearing black stockings and a satin corset. Her expression was coquettish…
