The front cover of Penthouse Variations asks, “Where do you draw the line?” The back cover promises me “28 Flavors, No Vanilla!” If only, Penthouse. If only.

Alright, Penthouse has never been know as a purveyor of fine literature, so I can’t say I had especially high hopes for this collection of stories. I picked up this book because, hey, who doesn’t love some variety in their erotica? I like reading about different fetishes that people have, even if it’s not necessarily something I’m into myself, and this seemed like it might be a fun collection of stories. I was actually pleasantly surprised by the first few stories I read. There are definitely a few hot stories scattered throughout the volume. But after that, I started to notice that things were getting a bit repetitive. This collection purports to be written by different people. The writing itself tells a different story. At least 90% of the stories were written in the same voice. They were definitely written by the same person, or at the least very heavily edited into the same style.

There are a ton of stories in this book. If you like short erotic stories where they get right to the good stuff, you might like this book. Some stories are written from a female perspective, others from a male. The sex is primarily between straight couples, with a few girl-on-girl stories and threesomes.

The book is divided up into seven thematic chapters. Each chapter contains several stories with different characters. Here I’ve listed the chapters for you, with a short description of the types of stories you’ll find:

Exotic Vacations–stories about couples discovering passion while on vacation
Lustful Gatherings–threesomes and swingers’ parties
Erotic Fantasy–couples indulge in roleplay
Midnight Desires–BDSM, but nothing too extreme
Casual Encounters–chance meetings while traveling or at work
Satin Embraces–girl-on-girl
Fetish Scene–Only four stories in this chapter: A man experiments with dressing in lingerie, a couple recounts their meeting at a tattoo and piercing convention, a couple explores a foot fetish, and last, a story about a wife with a latex fetish and a husband with a leather fetish.

I enjoyed the chapter on Erotic Fantasy the most. In the first story, a woman describes a fantasy where she is a serving wrench in the Middle Ages, who gets abducted and ravished by a handsome barbarian. In another story, a wife orchestrates a fun role-play scenario for her husband, and even gets a couple of friends involved. The husband loves the idea that he’s getting to fuck his wife after having caught her with a lover. These stories are good because they’re fairly well fleshed-out. None of the stories in the book are long enough to have room for any amount of character development, but they provide some fun and sexy scenarios.

For a book that tries to be edgy, this one felt surprisingly conservative. The sex is all pretty conventional. I would have liked to read about people getting off from all sorts of things, not just intercourse and oral. The writing also seemed a bit dated. The publication date is 2003, but judging by the amount of pubic hair that’s described, the stories were written several years earlier. In addition, a lot of the couples described are married. Maybe it’s just because I have no plans to get married any time in the near future, but I found this a bit off-putting.

Overall, the book suffered from trying to fit in too many stories. Eventually I felt like I was just reading the same thing over and over again. The total length is 340 pages, but with a fairly large sized font. Stories generally averaged 10 pages each. The book would have been better if they had focused on quality over quantity. The descriptions of sex quickly become repudiative, especially since they all seem to be written by the same person. Certain techniques of oral sex are described again and again, with couples who are supposed to be different people. In the end, it all blends together. There’s no spark of passion or originality in most of the stories. Needless to say, I was bored. I don’t think this book is one I’ll be keeping.