My First Experience with Erotic Literature

[Brigit Astar]

By the time I was sixteen I had read a number of books that had erotic elements in them, but I had not read any thing that I would consider erotic literature. Then, I came across a curious work with the curious title "Pleasures and Follies of a Good-Natured Libertine" with the sub-title "Anti-Justine." And my eyes were opened, as the old saying goes. "Pleasures and Follies" influenced me so much in my writing. It still remains the best erotic work I have ever read. The strange thing about it is that the book was written more than two hundred years ago. When I first read it, the language of the writer and the setting and time of the novel made me think that--wow, this writer can really write. I didn't know anything about the writer, but I assumed that he was still living, and had written a novel of the past. I learned that Bretonne--the author of the novel--had lived in the eighteenth century and had written "Pleasures and Follies" in the midst of the French Revolution. I also learned that "Pleasures and Follies" is the first modern literary work of erotica. I have read the novel four times. Each time I read it, my admiration for Bretonne grows. For what he did was to write the first modern, "realistic" erotic novel. In a sense, Bretonne created modern, natural, realistic erotic literature. He was the father of erotic literature.

[crzy67]

I had the book "Pleasures and Follies" when in college. At the time I only read-through parts of it think that I would get back to it later. Somewhere along the way the book got stolen that semester. Too bad, I like what I had red and have yet to find another copy. But it did turn me on better to erotic literature. I now always to find something new to read.

[Brigit Astar]

If you read a lot of erotic literature, you will come to know the good writers from the bad. There are perhaps a half dozen good erotic writers--I mean writers that are published a lot or that have their writing posted a lot on the net.

[crzy67]

There was a book, now long since lost, and I can't remember the name of. But, if fueled many thoughts that I had in my early teens. I have read books by both men and women and feel for the most part, women do a better job at writing erotica. They have a better insight about sex.

[Brigit Astar]

I tend to agree with you that women do a better job of writing erotica. I don't know if they have a better insight about sex than men do. Roughly I think that women write better erotica; men write better porn.

[jbrick]

Not my kind of story but good none the lless

[Brigit Astar]

I've found that the more erotic writing you read, the more discerning you become in what's good and what's not. Quality will always will out.