What a girl wants

My thoughts on Rachel Kramer Bussel’s Fast Girls.

A couple of weeks after my write up of Please, Sir, I saw Rachel Kramer Bussel put the word out for folks to review another collection of erotica that she’s editing, this one titled Fast Girls: Erotica for Women.

As I noted in my last write up, I actually haven’t read much contemporary erotica. Since I enjoyed Please, Sir so much, I figured this would be a great chance to continue to expand my exposure to contemporary erotica with a known, good editor.

Bussel talks in her introduction about what the title Fast Girls means to her and what she was seeking to shape as an editor with this collection:

I named this book after a song called “Fast Girls” by an indie pop/rock band called Sarge. That song is a feisty, punk-rock ode to a hot girl who is captivating in all kinds of ways.

I’m sure you know a girl like that. Or a woman. Or a lady. Or a butch. Or a femme. Or…you get the idea. She’s the kind of babe who takes no prisoners, who owns her life and her sexuality and not only doesn’t apologize for them, makes sure you notice her and what she’s all about.

Two definitions of “fast,” according to Merriam-Webster are “wild” or “sexually promiscuous,” and while that is the seed of what I was angling for here, I didn’t just want to read about slut after slut after slut. I wanted to read about women who in some way defy the conventional norms-whatever those are in this day and age. That doesn’t mean being shocking for shock’s sake, but following their passion, seeking out what it is that they need to be truly pleasured.

While it’s a bit of a long excerpt, I think it’s important because it outlines so clearly what she was aiming for in this collection. To borrow from the title of a movie (which I’ve never seen, to be fair), it’s about what a girl wants.

Fast Girls is a bit different from Please, Sir for having such a clear, singular, focused, editorial purpose behind the selection of stories. And Fast Girls differs from Please, Sir for having a broader variety of scenarios and styles. Because of that, Fast Girls is almost the cardinal opposite of Please, Sir.

Overall, I have to say, it seems to me that Fast Girls succeeds in its editorial goal of collecting stories where the theme is a focus on women “following their passion, seeking out what it is that they need to be truly pleasured.” Whether it’s a classic story of an older woman having an affair with the young landscaper, or a young woman in college whose dreams come true, these are stories centered on women who get what they want and that is truly satisfying. Even the two stories in the anthology about women choosing the path of sex work (one of which is by Bussel herself) ultimately comes back to sex work as an empowered and empowering choice. Interestingly, for me, these stories reminded me the most of the works of Anaïs Nin of any modern erotica I’ve read so far. The tone, subject matter, and feel of freedom to be found in giving up control resonate very strongly with her work.

Once again, Bussel delivers an erotica anthology that is well-put-together, highly readable and shows that there is good work being done today with modern erotica, most especially by and for women.

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