writer, student, and teacher of sexuality, gender, kink, and relationships
“Want to salivate over stone-femmes and/or butches? Do you jerk it to scenes of (consensual) beatings, whippings, and floggings? Or do you prefer strap-on sex and gender play? Sugar Butch Chronicles, an award-winning sex blog from Sinclair Sexsmith, a queer butch Dominant, writer, and editor of Best Lesbian Erotica, is IT. Hands down (heh), it’s the best destination for kinky queer sex stories on the internet.”
The Best Free Online Erotica for One-Handed Reading on Shape
Cleis Press will always be a must-read publisher for me. Their anthologies never fail me, and they always strive for excellence at all cost. This is my first book in the lesbian erotica collection, and I am eager to see how it has evolved over the years—and how it continues to do so.
This is a diverse book, much more diverse and inclusive than it would have been 15 or 20 years ago. Check out any lesbian erotica collection from the early 2000s and you’ll find a lot of classic butches, blonde femmes, champagne kisses, and relatively tame scenes of oral sex and fingering. And who can say those aren’t hot as hell? But there’s so much more out there, and it is uncovered in every story here. To name just a few that may interest you, there are trans femme love interests (“Do Tellâ€), characters over 50 (“Pinkedâ€, “Love Remembersâ€), characters with chronic pain and disabilities (“Pleasure With Her Pain,†“What I Wantâ€), and non-binary and GNC characters (“Of Sword and Sorcery,†“The Butler, the Flapper, and the Stable Boyâ€).
Most of the stories are unique in setting and tone. There’s the classic scenarios of role-playing (“The Butler, the Flapper, and the Stable Boyâ€), gang-banging (“My Sweet Femme Nightmareâ€), and older-character-teaching-younger (“Modern Lovers (You Probably Haven’t Heard of Them)â€), but each story has an element that makes it quintessentially lesbian. There are a few parts that veered closely to the male-gaze (the exhibitionism in “Leviathan,†the objectification in “All Dolled Upâ€), but even in those stories, there’s something about those porn-level acts that are so shockingly different when only women are participating. It feels more secret, even more taboo. Yes, we can like these things, even if the porn industry has twisted them into something they are not. It’s so freeing to read—nothing is off-limits, no matter what blog or websites tells you otherwise. But don’t worry, this is all in good, safe fun—there’s a ton of enthusiastic consent and communication, which we all know is necessary, but can also be unbearably sexy.
Review: Best Lesbian Erotica of the Year, Volume 4 on Love Bytes: LGBTQ Book Reviews
“Sugar Butch Chronicles is an award-winning sex blog from dominant butch educator and writer Sinclair Sexsmith. It explores themes like BDSM, gender, sexuality, and kink.”
“Sexsmith (editor of the Say Please: Lesbian BDSM Erotica anthology) brings together 20 new and familiar voices in a wide-ranging celebration of Sapphic love and sexuality. Some of these tales are delightfully playful and rooted in reality, as with Avery Cassell’s “Pinked,†which features an elderly lesbian couple, one of whom finds a way to tease and torment her partner via her latest sewing project, and “Good Girls Do†by Marie Carlson, set in the tack room of a stable but featuring a different kind of riding. Others explore racier sexual fantasies, as with the anonymous encounter of “Gina, Across the Tracks†by Fallen Matthews and the steamy vacation sex of “Adventure in Palm Springs†by Dorothy Freed. Sweetly vanilla stories alternate with tales of couples delving into kink, from the relatively mild dom/sub dynamic of Olivia Dromen’s “All Dolled Up†to Xan West’s depictions of more intense sadism and masochism, including knife play and punching, in “Crave.†Though not every tale is as polished as one might expect from previous volumes, there is enough variety and spiciness to please most readers. (Dec.)”
Best Lesbian Erotica of the Year Volume 4 featured on Publisher’s Weekly
I got an ARC of this book.
Wow.
This is an amazing anthology.
Remember how just a few days ago, I said I would lose my mind if dental dams were used. This book CAME SO CLOSE. Dental dams were mentioned, but they were not used. I had so much hope. So it was one small detail away from perfection.
Seriously. It was that good. The stories met all of my criteria for good erotica. They were full of consent, full of safety (except for the dental dam issue), and there were scenes that emphasized how bodies work. One of my favorite scenes featured an older woman who used lube for any form of penetration, since her body just didn’t get wet like it used to. YES. This detail was just perfection. I loved that an older woman was the star of an erotic story and that her body was treated with respect and it normalized the idea that bodies change as people age.
Best Lesbian Erotica of the Year, Volume 4 on MI Book Reviews
Award winning editor Sinclair Sexsmith has put together a collection of stories from a refreshingly diverse group of individuals of various genders and identities in the fourth volume of Best Lesbian Erotica of the Year. These multi-talented authors showcase a variety of diverse stories that include anything from a mysterious warrior at a Renaissance Faire to a fantasy speed dating night. While each story is tremendously different each of them showcases what it feels like to fully step into one’s own power and feel deeply in your own body.
In opening this new addition to the Cleis Anthology series, Sexsmith discusses how writing erotica can be used as a way of creating your own identity. While you may not know it you have probably in some way written some form of erotica, whether it was in a slightly racy text to a partner or even just in writing down what you’ve experienced or even hope to experience. While society primarily shares heterosexual ideas of sexuality this series brings forward queer identities and romance, which allows people to see themselves in new ways. The first story, “Do Tell,†involves the element of speed dating, but with a twist. Instead of just talking about yourself pairings are based on Tempters and Temptees. The Tempters much paint a word picture of what they would do with the Temptee. They must make it through different rounds, this story ends with two of the women from this pansexual speed dating event experiencing the described first date involving chocolate covered strawberries and a night of wild pleasure. The story is well written and showcases different identities and preferences, which is a great way to start off the book.
“Of Sword and Sorcery,†the other story I mentioned in my intro, includes a character who uses gender neutral pronouns. The two primary characters of the story are incredibly attracted to each other and are able to indulge their desires in the woods near the faire they are attending. They though do not leave each other after this one rendezvous and instead want to spend more time with each other, the end notes that this may just be the beginning. In “Pleasure with her Pain†Kate enjoys session with Nina where she is submissive, but Nina begins to pick up that something might be wrong. While Kate wants to be with her and have these experiences she is bruising more easily and Nina is picking up on issues in the room. There is a love there that surpasses what the two women are doing and while Kate struggles with steady relationships, Nina is there for her and is always looking out for her. While yes, there is sex in this story, the intimacy between the two women is what really speaks through. Nina is there for Kate no matter what and is ultimately always looking out for her safety and well being. Each of the stories in this book showcase different elements of eroticism and while some are focused on sex, many examine societal and personal issues connected to the characters as well. This isn’t just a book of steamy stories, but rather an experience for all those who chose to read it.
Best Lesbian Erotica of the Year Volume 4 Book Review from @kleffnotes on The Nerdy Girl Express
“I’ve loved Sinclair’s writing for years, but this was the year when their work had the biggest effect on my actual life, so I knew I needed to put them on this list. I still keenly remember the day when, about a month into my relationship with my Sir, he texted me that he’d been reading a bunch of Sinclair Sexsmith articles – and I knew that our D/s dynamic was about to get an upgrade as a result.
Sinclair has written in detail about protocol – an aspect of my relationship that gives me great joy now but that I wouldn’t have even known I’d like if not for Sinclair’s writing on the subject. They’ve also written a lot about topping, dominance, and daddy identity – all of which has helped me better understand my partners’ headspace so I can be more empathetic and a better submissive. Their writing is often beautiful, or instructive, or both at once, and I find it inspiring as both a kinky person and a writer. If you haven’t explored their work, you owe it to yourself to check it out!”
“If you’ve ever been a little interested in BDSM, but don’t yet feel ready to dip your toes into some of the hardcore imagery, BDSMsex stories might help you test the waters. And Sugarbutch Chronicles is a great place to do that, because the site—run by queer writer, teacher, and nonbinary butch dominant Sinclair Sexsmith—is one of the internet’s best resources for stories that are sexy and also beautifully written. Sexsmith launched the blog in 2006, so there’s a ton of smut to peruse at your leisure. Sexsmith writes their own personal posts and reposts dirty queer sex stories from other writers.”
When Sinclair Sexsmith — a butch nonbinary feminist dom, and author of the award-winning sex blog Sugarbutch Chronicles — got married last year, it wasn’t to the kind of person Sexsmith had always imagined committing to. That’s because Sexsmith (who uses they/them pronouns) had been “femme-oriented†for most of their adult life, preferring queer femmes and having “a fetish for feminine accoutrements.â€
Then Sexsmith met Rife, a trans/genderqueer “boi†in the BDSM community. “We met at a kinky summer camp, and we decided to have a scene together and play …. the chemistry was unmistakable. What first drew my attention was the combination of his submission and his boldness. He could sense my dominance … as I could sense his submission, and it was intoxicating.â€
The top acknowledges that Rife was “definitely not my orientation, yet what he provides in our D/s [Dominant and submissive] and M/s [Master and slave] relationship is profound and what I’d been searching for.†The couple developed a “total power exchange†or a 24/7 master and slave relationship. “M/s and full ownership was something we’d both been seeking, somewhat unconsciously. It was incredibly clear to me that this is my path when I met Rife and we started going deep into power exchange.â€
Sexsmith says while their own identity hasn’t changed (“I identify as a queer butch, and that’s still very trueâ€), other people have had a different reaction. “I have had some folks express disappointment toward me,†acknowledges Sexsmith. “Particularly femme folks who perceive a shortage of butches who like femmes and a rise in gay trans men or butches being attracted to other butches — both of which I believe are myths, but those are hard things to prove. The hardest part has been not being seen as someone who loves and respects femmes, and being presumed to have always been into other masculine-of-center queers.â€
Sex Outside the Lines on The Advocate
