Before this book, my only experience with erotica had been through *gasp* the internet. Now anyone who’s cared to research the subject knows there’s a lot of erotica in cyberspace and they also know that most of it is awful. Finding a story good enough to be re-readable is rare and requires wading through many painful tales of heaving bosoms and lady-flowers. So I looked forward to having someone else do the dirty work for me – compiling the best short stories available and presenting it to me in a handy printed form. Having recently developed a keen interest in relatively kinky sex and bondage play, I decided to try out Alison Tyler’s collection, the appropriately named “Best Bondage Erotica.”

First, I’ll break it down by numbers: there are 21 stories in all, written by 21 different authors, with Alison Tyler putting in her submission of “The Morning After” for the final piece. Of these 21 works, 11 highlight a female point of view, 8 a male point of view, and 2 take the omniscient voice. Of the 11 female-centric stories, all 11 women are submissive. The male stories are evenly split – 4 subs and 4 doms, and interestingly, the 2 omniscient stories feature the participants switching roles. I was disappointed with the absence of a story from a dominant female point of view, and I consider it an oversight on the part of the editor who otherwise did a very good job of incorporating all sorts of bondage scenarios into her collection.

There are stories that depict threesomes, lesbians, fruits and vegetables. Stories that could only be fantasy and stories that could have happened this morning before work. Stories of long-time lovers and stories of anonymous flings. It’s a good range, if not comprehensive. None of the pieces delve into the more extreme or scatological forms of domination, and there is only one, "Caged," which illustrates a master/slave dynamic. Then again, there’s a fair amount of material for individuals who enjoy spanking and flogging – “Bushing Beauty,” “Never Say Never”, “For Emphasis”, and “Selling Point” focus almost entirely on the pain aspect of bondage. “The Perfect O” also features pain, but in the form of piercing.

The most over-arcing theme of this collection, however, is that of mental manipulation and submission, a fact that is reinforced by the inclusion of the first story, “Moving,” which involves no sex, but psychological self-discovery and complete submission of the mind. Sometimes this focus on the mental instead of physical can be frustrating, because it leads some of the authors into highfalutin concept work. For example, “Hard Core” is the story of hikers carrying the dead body of a fallen friend while the narrator reminisces about a relationship gone sour. There is a metaphor in there, sure, but it doesn’t make for especially enticing erotica – it’s difficult to feel sexy when you’re picturing a decomposing body (unless you’re into that sort of thing).

Overall, it was a quick, easy and enjoyable read. The writing was infinitely better than the majority of the swill floating around on the internet – these authors actually have a vocabulary that does not consist entirely of “fuck,” “thrust,” and “engorged hard-on.” Some of the stories missed the mark, but the majority were quite stimulating. I read a few aloud to my partner to good effect (though I really would have liked a female domination point of view to use on him). At the very least, the narratives opened up interesting topics of conversation and expanded our erotic understanding.