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Heckin' Lewd: Trans and Nonbinary Erotica
If you've been searching for smutty, fearless gender diverse erotica written by affirming, own-voices folks who get it, then this is the book you’ve been looking for! Packed with explicit stories from trans, nonbinary, and gender diverse writers, Heckin’ Lewd celebrates sexual nonconformity, queerness, non-traditional relationship structures, and unrestrained lust, pleasure, and kink.
204 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 1, 2022
About the author
Nillin Lore
9 books26 followersMx. Nillin Lore is the autistic, Canadian, queer, genderflux, polyamorous and disabled author of "How Do I Sexy? A Guide for Trans and Nonbinary Queers" from Thornapple Press. They are now hard at work writing another two titles for the publisher, "Carry On: Unpacking Your Internalized Transphobic and Queerphobic Baggage" and "Nonmonogamy and Queer Inclusivity".
Fun fact #1: Nillin is proudly furry trash.
Fun Fact #2: They are super naked on the internet and that earned them the coveted 1st place spot in Molly’s Daily Kiss’ Top 100 Sex Blogs of 2021.
Fun fact #1: Nillin is proudly furry trash.
Fun Fact #2: They are super naked on the internet and that earned them the coveted 1st place spot in Molly’s Daily Kiss’ Top 100 Sex Blogs of 2021.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
May 15, 2022
First, before I begin: I am the target audience for this anthology. I am nonbinary and gay. Every three months I get a nurse to stick me full of anabolic steroids. I also enjoy having sex.
I put all of those first to underline that I wanted this collection to be good. The foreword by Mx. Nillin Lore underlines the dearth of inclusive queer erotica, how for most young queer people it must be subliminated through what little scraps the violent heterosexist porn industry throws to the side. I would like to access written erotica that is both inclusive and good. It would be doubly nice if this came from a small queer press.
Unfortunately double of zero is zero.
This anthology is not good. The degree to which it is not good upsets me. Inclusive is up for debate.
I’m going through this story by story.
1. Idle Hands & Dirty Minds – Jaymie Wagner
The first story of an anthology should pop. This is a story about two trans women partners summoning a succubus through sex magic. It is, unfortunately, okay until the succubus turns up and turns them into demons. One of the women ejaculates red cum and I looked at the screen and slowly scrolled up and then back down to make sure I had not read that incorrectly. There’s a Cannibal Corpse song called I Ejaculate Blood.
Not a good start. It’s inoffensive enough, and the two main characters have chemistry as written, but it’s not very interesting.
2. Welcome Aboard – Quenby
Gangbang on a pirate ship. Main character’s name is Samphire. Nope. You can’t do that. This is my protagonist, Sheet of Nori. Samphire internally refers to themselves by their nickname, “Sexy Badger.” I personally don’t enjoy the Age of Sail black leather corset aesthetic and I let out an audible groan at the purple “pegging leg.” The sea vegetable says “Hngggggggh yeeeessss, breed me, Daddy!” I’m incredibly annoyed at the editor for letting that stay in. The dialogue sucks but if you’re into gangbang porn it’s fine. I am a little miffed that the first story in this anthology to feature a nonbinary character has them bottoming for characters who identify as male and/or call themselves “Daddies” and use “breeding” terms but eh, that’s just a me thing, probably. It probably will not be the overwhelming tenor of the sexual pairings.
3. Only The Good Die Young – Ash Reilly
Switch f/nb couple steal nanobots or something. I was interested in the nanobot stealing plot but it didn’t go anywhere. The main couple have some chemistry together, some nice banter, but this is a story that is trying to manage six of one half dozen of the other and ends up less than the sum of its parts. It ended rather abruptly; I feel like this is a chapter and a half of a longer story about a criminal couple in a book that perhaps makes a few too many jokes about how transfems are all computer geeks, but it kept my interest.
This had a few throwaway lines about consent that ruined the flow just because that’s not how people talk. It also had a character wearing a “not gay as in happy but queer as in fuck you” shirt. Yes! I am aware! I picked up a book called Heckin’ Lewd because it was a trans and NB erotica anthology! Why is this character wearing a bumper sticker that says “I spend too much time on the most anodyne parts of queer Twitter”?
4. This Fragile Little Affair – Kelvin Sparks
Why does this have so much worldbuilding in it? It’s just hatesex between a man and a woman who both have two sets of genitalia. This could – possibly should – have been set in an office or the houses of parliament or something instead of a fantasy world. I neither know nor care what an Archon is and there isn’t enough time to either explain or make me invested. All the other details are distracting.
5. Past midnight, before dawn – Anne Staggs
And this is where I went from mild irritation that this collection wasn’t better to jawdropped horror. This story ruined everything else for me. Maybe if I hadn't read it I would have been more sympathetic to the other stories.
I'm not asexual. I understand the vocabulary around this might be different. However. I don’t think me being asexual or not has any bearing on the deeply upsetting core of this story.
My first impressions: If my partner was worried about me accepting that they had a lower and different libido than I did, I would simply not have sex with them immediately after they voiced this concern. Sorry to Dillon but I'm different. I am especially perturbed by the transgender, asexual partner being the submissive.
As I finish the story:
If my newly-out asexual, transgender partner was worried about me accepting they had a lower and different libido than I did, to the point that they had nightmares about it, I would simply not have sex with them immediately after they voiced this concern, nor would I encourage to describe their body in sexually humiliating ways, because I am not a fucking sociopath.
This story is unsettling, and unpleasant. No one involved - not the author, not the editor - seems to understand that this is a story about a coercive sexual relationship. Like all the other stories so far, this is graceless. The difference is that the clumsiness trips from uninspired to repulsive. The requisite consent-speak dropped in from space worsens the effect. Dillon has mastered buzzwords to insist on their libido's primacy. Of course they don't care that you don't enjoy sex, he coos. As long as you let me fuck you anyways, Connie, it doesn't matter. I like you for you!
Vile. Hate it. Hate especially that it's being offered to me as if this is acceptable. Run, Connor, run.
6. The Earth Within Me – Lillith Hill
A nonbinary afab person (bottom) fucks a cis male ghost (top).
That's it. There's some bondage or whatever. He calls them peach because their pussy is wet. I don't care. How do you make ghostfucking boring. I will give it points for not accidentally being a story about an abusive relationship filled with sexual coercion. I will then take away those points because actually that’s not a bar that requires any difficulty to clear.
7. Stray – MJ Moréo
Look, I have no interest in catboy stuff. I understand other people do. If they write about it well enough I can read it. I can’t read this with any interest, not even the horrified fascination of something I don't get. A guy and his partner set up a scene where they do some catboy roleplay. Fine. But god almighty can we stop with the high church kink protocols bracketing any sexual acts? This is a book of erotica. I know what I'm getting into. This is boring. I don’t know why a story using a double-ended vibrator and kitten play and a quite convoluted fantasy is boring. Maybe it’s because the author thinks it’s acceptable to write sentences like “I kissed his head, and his shampoo, the shampoo he’d always used, was erotic and familiar.” Yes, we are aware it is familiar, you just said he always used it, but why is it erotic besides you saying that it is?
8. The Devil You Blow – Rien Gray
Gym buddies fuck. I have no idea why the author introduces the name Dantalion and then cowers back into Danny. Dantalion rules. It sounds like the name of an insane Eurovision entry that mishandles the pyrotechnics and nearly kills the presenter. This story was the one that most resembled fun erotica. Another bottom-afab top-cis man pairing, alas, but the author is pleasantly aware that erotica is located in the body. This is bright and earthy and sunny and the prose snaps. I want to relocate it into a better anthology.
9. Something’s Happening To Rylen – Mx. Nillin Lore
"Dee wasn’t sure what to make of her enboifriend, Rylen, suddenly going radio silent on her, but the half-hour drive up to her parents’ cabin was giving her plenty of time to think, and to worry." No, no, no, no, no. No. Who edits these, I bay to the sky, and realize that this person does. This is the editor. My nemesis, Mx. Nillin Lore.This could have been a boilerplate werewolf-monster thing without the atrocious prose. Rylen has no personality. Dee is an idiot who didn’t notice her enboifriend growing a foot taller than her. The creature design, such as it is, sucks. I have the sinking feeling that the author has either produced or consumed a lot of omegaverse fanfiction. Honestly that's no excuse. Please master the rudiments of show-don't-tell before you edit an anthology, Mx. Lore. Unreadable. Past Midnight Before Dawn was creepy and offensive, but this is just bad.
10. Redgum - Ash Orlando
A wonderful breath of fresh air. Two self-made boys, impact play, bondage, sex, Australian outback. This one has some lovely scene-setting. I'm not a fan of the throwaway line about trauma - jesus christ can we just have sex here, please - but the rest of it goes in with Dantalion. I am carrying this to a better anthology and setting it gently down among the eucalyptus leaves. Orlando's prose conquers every other author in the book. No contest. A gem in a heap of rags.
11. The Pink Lady Bar and Social Club
Jesse hits his head and time travels to 1911. Jesse is a bisexual trans man. He meets Molly, the bisexual propertier of the aforementioned bar and social club, and goes down on her. Jesse has to give himself brain damage to try to get back there. The concept of a guy trying to give himself a head injury so he can travel back in time to eat out a flapper is ridiculous but this isn’t fun at all. I will weakly applaud for that it deals with Jesse’s identity quite smoothly and doesn’t harp on it so much that it gets either annoying or weirdly fetishistic. Otherwise, boring. I think this one would have been better if it was just a one-off where Jesse fucks Molly and is like hm did that happen and then finds her lipstick in his pocket or something. The sex could have been less rote, that would have helped.
12. Immersed – Chace Verity
Another supernatural tale. This one has a trans lady in her early forties getting fingerbanged by a mermaid. This needed so many more passes to trim it down. There’s some nice sentences but it’s just overwritten. The breathplay and giantess kink elements exist. If the author had gotten to the sex quicker maybe they could have actually explored them.
13. Better By Half-Elf – Sally Bend
Oh, another fantasy public sex story. Please someone explain to me why anyone would think it’s appropriate to start a short erotic story with elves walking through sewage. Maple uses hir/ze pronouns and the author is clearly using their DND group’s Magic Tavern. Elf precum is sweet. Oh my god there’s a very graphic self-castration scene. I think? What in the fuck just happened there. I reread that paragraph about eight times. I think that’s a very clumsy Ye Olde magical transfem gender confirmation surgery/chastity cage…thing, but it comes right the fuck out of nowhere. “Reborn of the demon grove” seems to refer to having one’s gender. I got stuck on the worldbuilding and the frankly offensive treatment of transfem people and I’m outski.
14. Forbidden Fruit – Sienna Saint-Cyr
This one comes with a content note for consensual non-consent. Cedar wants to find a tentacle alien and be fucked to death by it. I’m totally fine with this premise. I am not fine with more tedious kink negotiation warnings. You have already said! Why does the bepenised tentacle alien use he/him pronouns? Why why why once again do we have sub NB afab/top maledom and why is it with fucking murder by tentacle rape? Cedar drops that they’re asexual and yet want to be fucked to death oh my god that seems incredibly offensive to asexuals. Again, the author does not seem to understand what their premise demands, even ending it with a sweet little note where the tentacle alien does not rape the afab NB person to death and goes out to get them food. Except the afab NB main character has committed to being the tentacle alien’s pet, and the tentacle alien has warned them that it will get harder and harder not to rape them to death. This isn’t CNC! This is Sharon Lopatka, Armin Meiwes territory. This is a person attempting to commit suicide via tentacle rape. This is erotic horror, or it’s splatterpunk. WHY IS IT SO DULL.
15. Sex With Your Ex – Quinn Rhoades
Content warnings for CNC, degradation, “queerphobic terms used by trans queer characters in a self-actualizing and affirming BDSM context.” First sentence: “You want him to fuck you like I haven’t given my consent for you to fuck other people?” I am staring at this sentence and it is looking back at me and I want to feed it to a nearby owl. Tedious. There are better ways to tell the reader that the character is experiencing gender euphoria than saying “I am currently experiencing gender euphoria.” Queer elder joke. This one at least has some sexual charge to it but like all the others it’s bogged down by tedious rote kink negotiation, paper-flat characters, pedestrian prose.
Conclusion
Back in undergrad, I read a Samuel R. Delaney short story for a class. I enjoyed it enough to go down to the basement library stacks, where they kept the fiction, and look for anything else he'd written. For some reason the only one of his novels on the shelves was Hogg, plain jacket, nothing on the back cover. I expected science fiction, perhaps science fantasy. I did not receive science fantasy.
I finished the book. It was compelling, in a horrible way. Delaney builds glimmering little cities out of words. I understood what in it he found erotic.
I'm not entirely sure if the authors of these stories find them erotic. I am in fact unconvinced by any of the text in front of me as anything other than desperate checklists, couched in enough pedestrian prose to present themselves as "stories." A story about fucking a ghost should not be so flat. A story about wanting to be raped to death by alien tentacle monsters should not need drawn-out kink negotiations.
These are allegedly ownvoices stories. I don't hear any unique voices. There is a shockingly juvenile quality to most of these stories. They reek of young queer people who think their limp sex lives are fascinating because as queer people they must be uniquely fascinating. These stories talk down to the reader, assuming you haven’t heard words like girlcock or safeword. Penetrative sex takes precedent. The nonbinary experiences here are almost uniformly afab transmasc.
And underneath all that there’s this troubling disassociation from the actual body. This is especially prominent with the stories featuring transfem characters. Many of these stories feel like they’ve been produced by people who aren’t intimately familiar with the possibility and variety of transgender bodies – or if they are familiar, they just don’t have any idea of how to express these bodies on page without offending some glaring Constant Reader. Scars are in the same place. Everyone is magnificently furred after a brief time on testosterone. There’s no smell of sweat, only precum. There’s no spontaneity. Everything must be carefully tagged beforehand, and then even more carefully arranged to show that it has been tagged. Look! Look at this lovely #ownvoices #queer #trans #nb gruel that we have served for you!
I'm depressed.
It is appalling that Mx. Lore, the worst of the lot, got the editor’s cap on this. It is erotically and aesthetically worthless, except for Redgum and The Devil You Blow. I wish those authors had saved those for a better collection. They outshine the other stories so hard that it ends up embarrassing for everyone involved. Ash Orlando and Rien Gray do not deserve to be stuck slumming in this dross.
I put all of those first to underline that I wanted this collection to be good. The foreword by Mx. Nillin Lore underlines the dearth of inclusive queer erotica, how for most young queer people it must be subliminated through what little scraps the violent heterosexist porn industry throws to the side. I would like to access written erotica that is both inclusive and good. It would be doubly nice if this came from a small queer press.
Unfortunately double of zero is zero.
This anthology is not good. The degree to which it is not good upsets me. Inclusive is up for debate.
I’m going through this story by story.
1. Idle Hands & Dirty Minds – Jaymie Wagner
The first story of an anthology should pop. This is a story about two trans women partners summoning a succubus through sex magic. It is, unfortunately, okay until the succubus turns up and turns them into demons. One of the women ejaculates red cum and I looked at the screen and slowly scrolled up and then back down to make sure I had not read that incorrectly. There’s a Cannibal Corpse song called I Ejaculate Blood.
Not a good start. It’s inoffensive enough, and the two main characters have chemistry as written, but it’s not very interesting.
2. Welcome Aboard – Quenby
Gangbang on a pirate ship. Main character’s name is Samphire. Nope. You can’t do that. This is my protagonist, Sheet of Nori. Samphire internally refers to themselves by their nickname, “Sexy Badger.” I personally don’t enjoy the Age of Sail black leather corset aesthetic and I let out an audible groan at the purple “pegging leg.” The sea vegetable says “Hngggggggh yeeeessss, breed me, Daddy!” I’m incredibly annoyed at the editor for letting that stay in. The dialogue sucks but if you’re into gangbang porn it’s fine. I am a little miffed that the first story in this anthology to feature a nonbinary character has them bottoming for characters who identify as male and/or call themselves “Daddies” and use “breeding” terms but eh, that’s just a me thing, probably. It probably will not be the overwhelming tenor of the sexual pairings.
3. Only The Good Die Young – Ash Reilly
Switch f/nb couple steal nanobots or something. I was interested in the nanobot stealing plot but it didn’t go anywhere. The main couple have some chemistry together, some nice banter, but this is a story that is trying to manage six of one half dozen of the other and ends up less than the sum of its parts. It ended rather abruptly; I feel like this is a chapter and a half of a longer story about a criminal couple in a book that perhaps makes a few too many jokes about how transfems are all computer geeks, but it kept my interest.
This had a few throwaway lines about consent that ruined the flow just because that’s not how people talk. It also had a character wearing a “not gay as in happy but queer as in fuck you” shirt. Yes! I am aware! I picked up a book called Heckin’ Lewd because it was a trans and NB erotica anthology! Why is this character wearing a bumper sticker that says “I spend too much time on the most anodyne parts of queer Twitter”?
4. This Fragile Little Affair – Kelvin Sparks
Why does this have so much worldbuilding in it? It’s just hatesex between a man and a woman who both have two sets of genitalia. This could – possibly should – have been set in an office or the houses of parliament or something instead of a fantasy world. I neither know nor care what an Archon is and there isn’t enough time to either explain or make me invested. All the other details are distracting.
5. Past midnight, before dawn – Anne Staggs
And this is where I went from mild irritation that this collection wasn’t better to jawdropped horror. This story ruined everything else for me. Maybe if I hadn't read it I would have been more sympathetic to the other stories.
I'm not asexual. I understand the vocabulary around this might be different. However. I don’t think me being asexual or not has any bearing on the deeply upsetting core of this story.
My first impressions: If my partner was worried about me accepting that they had a lower and different libido than I did, I would simply not have sex with them immediately after they voiced this concern. Sorry to Dillon but I'm different. I am especially perturbed by the transgender, asexual partner being the submissive.
As I finish the story:
If my newly-out asexual, transgender partner was worried about me accepting they had a lower and different libido than I did, to the point that they had nightmares about it, I would simply not have sex with them immediately after they voiced this concern, nor would I encourage to describe their body in sexually humiliating ways, because I am not a fucking sociopath.
This story is unsettling, and unpleasant. No one involved - not the author, not the editor - seems to understand that this is a story about a coercive sexual relationship. Like all the other stories so far, this is graceless. The difference is that the clumsiness trips from uninspired to repulsive. The requisite consent-speak dropped in from space worsens the effect. Dillon has mastered buzzwords to insist on their libido's primacy. Of course they don't care that you don't enjoy sex, he coos. As long as you let me fuck you anyways, Connie, it doesn't matter. I like you for you!
Vile. Hate it. Hate especially that it's being offered to me as if this is acceptable. Run, Connor, run.
6. The Earth Within Me – Lillith Hill
A nonbinary afab person (bottom) fucks a cis male ghost (top).
That's it. There's some bondage or whatever. He calls them peach because their pussy is wet. I don't care. How do you make ghostfucking boring. I will give it points for not accidentally being a story about an abusive relationship filled with sexual coercion. I will then take away those points because actually that’s not a bar that requires any difficulty to clear.
7. Stray – MJ Moréo
Look, I have no interest in catboy stuff. I understand other people do. If they write about it well enough I can read it. I can’t read this with any interest, not even the horrified fascination of something I don't get. A guy and his partner set up a scene where they do some catboy roleplay. Fine. But god almighty can we stop with the high church kink protocols bracketing any sexual acts? This is a book of erotica. I know what I'm getting into. This is boring. I don’t know why a story using a double-ended vibrator and kitten play and a quite convoluted fantasy is boring. Maybe it’s because the author thinks it’s acceptable to write sentences like “I kissed his head, and his shampoo, the shampoo he’d always used, was erotic and familiar.” Yes, we are aware it is familiar, you just said he always used it, but why is it erotic besides you saying that it is?
8. The Devil You Blow – Rien Gray
Gym buddies fuck. I have no idea why the author introduces the name Dantalion and then cowers back into Danny. Dantalion rules. It sounds like the name of an insane Eurovision entry that mishandles the pyrotechnics and nearly kills the presenter. This story was the one that most resembled fun erotica. Another bottom-afab top-cis man pairing, alas, but the author is pleasantly aware that erotica is located in the body. This is bright and earthy and sunny and the prose snaps. I want to relocate it into a better anthology.
9. Something’s Happening To Rylen – Mx. Nillin Lore
"Dee wasn’t sure what to make of her enboifriend, Rylen, suddenly going radio silent on her, but the half-hour drive up to her parents’ cabin was giving her plenty of time to think, and to worry." No, no, no, no, no. No. Who edits these, I bay to the sky, and realize that this person does. This is the editor. My nemesis, Mx. Nillin Lore.This could have been a boilerplate werewolf-monster thing without the atrocious prose. Rylen has no personality. Dee is an idiot who didn’t notice her enboifriend growing a foot taller than her. The creature design, such as it is, sucks. I have the sinking feeling that the author has either produced or consumed a lot of omegaverse fanfiction. Honestly that's no excuse. Please master the rudiments of show-don't-tell before you edit an anthology, Mx. Lore. Unreadable. Past Midnight Before Dawn was creepy and offensive, but this is just bad.
10. Redgum - Ash Orlando
A wonderful breath of fresh air. Two self-made boys, impact play, bondage, sex, Australian outback. This one has some lovely scene-setting. I'm not a fan of the throwaway line about trauma - jesus christ can we just have sex here, please - but the rest of it goes in with Dantalion. I am carrying this to a better anthology and setting it gently down among the eucalyptus leaves. Orlando's prose conquers every other author in the book. No contest. A gem in a heap of rags.
11. The Pink Lady Bar and Social Club
Jesse hits his head and time travels to 1911. Jesse is a bisexual trans man. He meets Molly, the bisexual propertier of the aforementioned bar and social club, and goes down on her. Jesse has to give himself brain damage to try to get back there. The concept of a guy trying to give himself a head injury so he can travel back in time to eat out a flapper is ridiculous but this isn’t fun at all. I will weakly applaud for that it deals with Jesse’s identity quite smoothly and doesn’t harp on it so much that it gets either annoying or weirdly fetishistic. Otherwise, boring. I think this one would have been better if it was just a one-off where Jesse fucks Molly and is like hm did that happen and then finds her lipstick in his pocket or something. The sex could have been less rote, that would have helped.
12. Immersed – Chace Verity
Another supernatural tale. This one has a trans lady in her early forties getting fingerbanged by a mermaid. This needed so many more passes to trim it down. There’s some nice sentences but it’s just overwritten. The breathplay and giantess kink elements exist. If the author had gotten to the sex quicker maybe they could have actually explored them.
13. Better By Half-Elf – Sally Bend
Oh, another fantasy public sex story. Please someone explain to me why anyone would think it’s appropriate to start a short erotic story with elves walking through sewage. Maple uses hir/ze pronouns and the author is clearly using their DND group’s Magic Tavern. Elf precum is sweet. Oh my god there’s a very graphic self-castration scene. I think? What in the fuck just happened there. I reread that paragraph about eight times. I think that’s a very clumsy Ye Olde magical transfem gender confirmation surgery/chastity cage…thing, but it comes right the fuck out of nowhere. “Reborn of the demon grove” seems to refer to having one’s gender. I got stuck on the worldbuilding and the frankly offensive treatment of transfem people and I’m outski.
14. Forbidden Fruit – Sienna Saint-Cyr
This one comes with a content note for consensual non-consent. Cedar wants to find a tentacle alien and be fucked to death by it. I’m totally fine with this premise. I am not fine with more tedious kink negotiation warnings. You have already said! Why does the bepenised tentacle alien use he/him pronouns? Why why why once again do we have sub NB afab/top maledom and why is it with fucking murder by tentacle rape? Cedar drops that they’re asexual and yet want to be fucked to death oh my god that seems incredibly offensive to asexuals. Again, the author does not seem to understand what their premise demands, even ending it with a sweet little note where the tentacle alien does not rape the afab NB person to death and goes out to get them food. Except the afab NB main character has committed to being the tentacle alien’s pet, and the tentacle alien has warned them that it will get harder and harder not to rape them to death. This isn’t CNC! This is Sharon Lopatka, Armin Meiwes territory. This is a person attempting to commit suicide via tentacle rape. This is erotic horror, or it’s splatterpunk. WHY IS IT SO DULL.
15. Sex With Your Ex – Quinn Rhoades
Content warnings for CNC, degradation, “queerphobic terms used by trans queer characters in a self-actualizing and affirming BDSM context.” First sentence: “You want him to fuck you like I haven’t given my consent for you to fuck other people?” I am staring at this sentence and it is looking back at me and I want to feed it to a nearby owl. Tedious. There are better ways to tell the reader that the character is experiencing gender euphoria than saying “I am currently experiencing gender euphoria.” Queer elder joke. This one at least has some sexual charge to it but like all the others it’s bogged down by tedious rote kink negotiation, paper-flat characters, pedestrian prose.
Conclusion
Back in undergrad, I read a Samuel R. Delaney short story for a class. I enjoyed it enough to go down to the basement library stacks, where they kept the fiction, and look for anything else he'd written. For some reason the only one of his novels on the shelves was Hogg, plain jacket, nothing on the back cover. I expected science fiction, perhaps science fantasy. I did not receive science fantasy.
I finished the book. It was compelling, in a horrible way. Delaney builds glimmering little cities out of words. I understood what in it he found erotic.
I'm not entirely sure if the authors of these stories find them erotic. I am in fact unconvinced by any of the text in front of me as anything other than desperate checklists, couched in enough pedestrian prose to present themselves as "stories." A story about fucking a ghost should not be so flat. A story about wanting to be raped to death by alien tentacle monsters should not need drawn-out kink negotiations.
These are allegedly ownvoices stories. I don't hear any unique voices. There is a shockingly juvenile quality to most of these stories. They reek of young queer people who think their limp sex lives are fascinating because as queer people they must be uniquely fascinating. These stories talk down to the reader, assuming you haven’t heard words like girlcock or safeword. Penetrative sex takes precedent. The nonbinary experiences here are almost uniformly afab transmasc.
And underneath all that there’s this troubling disassociation from the actual body. This is especially prominent with the stories featuring transfem characters. Many of these stories feel like they’ve been produced by people who aren’t intimately familiar with the possibility and variety of transgender bodies – or if they are familiar, they just don’t have any idea of how to express these bodies on page without offending some glaring Constant Reader. Scars are in the same place. Everyone is magnificently furred after a brief time on testosterone. There’s no smell of sweat, only precum. There’s no spontaneity. Everything must be carefully tagged beforehand, and then even more carefully arranged to show that it has been tagged. Look! Look at this lovely #ownvoices #queer #trans #nb gruel that we have served for you!
I'm depressed.
It is appalling that Mx. Lore, the worst of the lot, got the editor’s cap on this. It is erotically and aesthetically worthless, except for Redgum and The Devil You Blow. I wish those authors had saved those for a better collection. They outshine the other stories so hard that it ends up embarrassing for everyone involved. Ash Orlando and Rien Gray do not deserve to be stuck slumming in this dross.
June 16, 2022
I was hopeful that this would be an anthology of a wide range of representation in terms of trans and non-binary identities and bodies with great smut. Ultimately it was more of a mixed bag than I hoped for and kinda light on the smut at times. I would have loved some subversion in terms of dynamics and less fantasy/paranormal than was present. Several of the stories felt like excerpts of larger books, with too much world building and exposition rather than standalone short stories.
A couple stories were standouts, several were downright disappointing, and the rest weren't memorable. Stories I enjoyed were This Fragile Little Affair by Kelvin Sparks, Stray by M.J. Moréo, and The Devil You Blow by Rien Gray. I found Past Midnight, Before Dawn by Anne Stagg pretty problematic in terms of ace rep and Better By Half-Elf by Sally Bend made me cringe. I would have liked to see CWs at the front or back end of each story. As it was I can imagine some people would come across some limits while reading that they would have preferred to be made aware of.
I received an advanced reading copy from Bold Strokes Books through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
A couple stories were standouts, several were downright disappointing, and the rest weren't memorable. Stories I enjoyed were This Fragile Little Affair by Kelvin Sparks, Stray by M.J. Moréo, and The Devil You Blow by Rien Gray. I found Past Midnight, Before Dawn by Anne Stagg pretty problematic in terms of ace rep and Better By Half-Elf by Sally Bend made me cringe. I would have liked to see CWs at the front or back end of each story. As it was I can imagine some people would come across some limits while reading that they would have preferred to be made aware of.
I received an advanced reading copy from Bold Strokes Books through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
May 28, 2022
So.
How „good“ smut is obviously mainly determined by personal preferences. How many details you want, which words are used, if/which kinks are included, the interplay between characters – there really isn't an exact formula. For short stories, there are some general guidelines to help make them good. Not too exposition-heavy, use your word count wisely, sparse but effective worldbuilding... but you would expect at least some consideration on how these erotic shorts are set up.
Therefore, I was surprised at how... average this anthology is.
First, so many of these pieces feel rushed which is just not the experience you want to have while reading. Second, I don't feel many of these stories were actually that erotic. Maybe it's my bias but I have read some incredible pieces by queer authors, some who contributed in here, that were better than what was presented in this. There was no place to feel sexy because of often quite terrible writing.
Many of the authors do not have any titles listed on Goodreads which only supports my assumption that they have written few if any (erotic) short stories before... I will repeat it forever but short fiction writing is a very different skill and not everyone call pull it off.
Aside from the queer rep, we don't have much other diversity.
The POV characters are usually, thin white, and conventionally attractive (or the narrative simply does not contradict my assumption). The body types are all pretty similar and characters seem to easily pass if they want to. There are few characters of colour. There is no religious or disabled character. And many of these stories tended towards having the trans AFAB person on the bottom which is not really that groundbreaking?
For an anthology like this, I wish there had been content notes in the back for every story since I am of the opinion that your hard limit should not be a surprise. It would have been so easy to include the list of kinks and they are included in one case but not the others.
A full breakdown of the stories, couples and my opinion behind these spoilers.
When I hear #ownvoices trans erotica, I do not expect a 101 guide on safe sex practices and the basics of transitioning, hormones and such. I do not expect so many other things that the erotic content takes a backseat.
Aside from Ash Orlando, Rien Gray and maybe Kelvin Sparks, the other authors really missed the point of this.
I received an advanced reading copy from Bold Strokes Books through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
How „good“ smut is obviously mainly determined by personal preferences. How many details you want, which words are used, if/which kinks are included, the interplay between characters – there really isn't an exact formula. For short stories, there are some general guidelines to help make them good. Not too exposition-heavy, use your word count wisely, sparse but effective worldbuilding... but you would expect at least some consideration on how these erotic shorts are set up.
Therefore, I was surprised at how... average this anthology is.
First, so many of these pieces feel rushed which is just not the experience you want to have while reading. Second, I don't feel many of these stories were actually that erotic. Maybe it's my bias but I have read some incredible pieces by queer authors, some who contributed in here, that were better than what was presented in this. There was no place to feel sexy because of often quite terrible writing.
Many of the authors do not have any titles listed on Goodreads which only supports my assumption that they have written few if any (erotic) short stories before... I will repeat it forever but short fiction writing is a very different skill and not everyone call pull it off.
Aside from the queer rep, we don't have much other diversity.
The POV characters are usually, thin white, and conventionally attractive (or the narrative simply does not contradict my assumption). The body types are all pretty similar and characters seem to easily pass if they want to. There are few characters of colour. There is no religious or disabled character. And many of these stories tended towards having the trans AFAB person on the bottom which is not really that groundbreaking?
For an anthology like this, I wish there had been content notes in the back for every story since I am of the opinion that your hard limit should not be a surprise. It would have been so easy to include the list of kinks and they are included in one case but not the others.
A full breakdown of the stories, couples and my opinion behind these spoilers.
When I hear #ownvoices trans erotica, I do not expect a 101 guide on safe sex practices and the basics of transitioning, hormones and such. I do not expect so many other things that the erotic content takes a backseat.
Aside from Ash Orlando, Rien Gray and maybe Kelvin Sparks, the other authors really missed the point of this.
I received an advanced reading copy from Bold Strokes Books through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
May 15, 2022
I'm so glad this collection of short stories exists, simply to have had the pleasure of reading 'Redgum' by Ash Orlando. I felt transported to the Australian outback, and I loved the relationship and chemistry between these two characters. Although I applaud the mission behind the collection, to gather gender diverse erotica written by Own Voices authors, I wish there had been a little more diversity of internal experience and presentation amongst the characters. With one or two notable exceptions, many of the stories lean on somewhat tired tropes, and I was hoping for something a little more fearless. With that said, I think this anthology offers a strong jumping-off point for readers looking to dip their toe into trans and nonbinary erotica.
I am grateful to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC of 'Heckin' Lewd: Trans and Ninbinary Erotica'. These opinions are my own.
I am grateful to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC of 'Heckin' Lewd: Trans and Ninbinary Erotica'. These opinions are my own.
June 8, 2022
Like any book with short stories by multiple writers, some are always better than others. I am going to tell yall of the ones I liked.
Past Midnight, Before Dawn, Stray. Something's happening to Rylen, The Pink Lady and the Social Club, and Immersed.
I highly recommend reading these stories and I honestly enjoyed them.
The others were not bad really, just a bit boring and boring is not what you want to see when you are reading erotica.
Past Midnight, Before Dawn, Stray. Something's happening to Rylen, The Pink Lady and the Social Club, and Immersed.
I highly recommend reading these stories and I honestly enjoyed them.
The others were not bad really, just a bit boring and boring is not what you want to see when you are reading erotica.
May 21, 2022
I received an advance copy from the publisher for review purposes; this in no way influences my review.
I was looking forward to this anthology because Chace Verity, one of the contributing authors, is one of my all time favorite authors, but I’m happy to say I enjoyed every story in this anthology, where only Chace and Rien Gray were familiar-to-me authors. I’m going to describe this book as a sexy hug because it’s so affirming and lovely and sweet, while also being extremely sexy and arousing, a perfect blend. There is something so intrinsically queer in every story, and that fills my heart with such joy. I loved all the different gender expressions and the different iterations of kink and the various ways characters interacted with their bodies. I really had a lot of fun with this anthology, and I’m so extremely glad it exists, and hope many folks needing more trans and nonbinary erotica in their life find it and enjoy it as well!
I was looking forward to this anthology because Chace Verity, one of the contributing authors, is one of my all time favorite authors, but I’m happy to say I enjoyed every story in this anthology, where only Chace and Rien Gray were familiar-to-me authors. I’m going to describe this book as a sexy hug because it’s so affirming and lovely and sweet, while also being extremely sexy and arousing, a perfect blend. There is something so intrinsically queer in every story, and that fills my heart with such joy. I loved all the different gender expressions and the different iterations of kink and the various ways characters interacted with their bodies. I really had a lot of fun with this anthology, and I’m so extremely glad it exists, and hope many folks needing more trans and nonbinary erotica in their life find it and enjoy it as well!
May 9, 2022
For those of you who are interested, Advance Review Copies are now available via NetGalley!
https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/boo...
https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/boo...
July 10, 2022
PLEASE this is so CRINGE
December 30, 2022
I'm actually not a huge fan of erotica. Or rather, I can picture plenty of ways for erotic stories to be written that I would love, yet I struggle to find books that fit what I want. I tend to want there to be more to the stories than just the attempt to turn on the reader. I want good writing, and character development, and worldbuilding in case we have a fantasy setting. For this collection in particular, I wanted to have stories that seem empowering to trans people, and that show the variety of different ways in which they can perceive their bodies and sexuality, because had it actually delivered on that, it might have been one of my favorite books, despite not being a genre I typically like. Unfortunately it didn't do that at all, some experiences (mostly AFAB people bottoming for vaginal sex) were repeated over and over again, so it totally missed the opportunity to show 15 different experiences in 15 different stories. Why not give us a gay trans man who only likes anal sex because that's what makes him feel seen in his gender and sexuality? Or someone who has a type of kink that doesn't require genitals? I also would have liked to see some people who aren't comfortable getting completely naked, for example someone always leaving on their binder during sex, because they are not comfortable with anyone seeing or touching their chest. All of those are experiences people could have, and deserve to see represented, and while of course one book could never showcase the full variety of trans sex experiences, once half of it stories dive into the same kind, and one that is already pretty overrepresented, it becomes a problem.
Apart from that, I also found the writing, as well character and general story-development pretty underwhelming in almost all of these stories. Most of them had pretty good ideas, but didn't go anywhere with them. None of the sex was hot at all either, but that we could blame my general pickiness with erotic content for (as well as the fact that there wasn't a lot of non vagina involving stuff, and therefore not any kinds of sex I find hot at all. I don't really want to give those stories individual ratings, so instead I'll just tell you the rep they include, the ideas that were good, and how they ultimately failed for me.
Idle Hands & Dirty Minds:
Rep: Two trans women (and a succubus who's probably cis, but I'm also not sure whether demon genders work the same way as humans'), one of them has her genitals magically changed in the course of the story (I think it was only one and not both of them, but I don't 100% remember)
The good ideas: I mean, it's a sex ritual demon summoning story. That should have been dark and exciting and fun to read.
Where it failed: Somehow it just was super bland. I wanted more horror, more atmosphere, more worldbuilding. I know that's not necessarily the focus of erotica a lot of the time, but it's the kind of erotica I want to read.
Welcome Aboard:
Rep: non-binary person who just got a vagina (I'm not sure whether through surgery or magical means) gets fucked by their two Daddies (one a cis guy, one also non-binary) while a lot of people are watching
The good ideas: Pirate ship setting, supposed to show how the crew of the ship is supporting the main character's identity
Where it failed: It was pretty confusing to follow along what was even happening and at first I kept confusing the two Daddies. I also didn't really see where this was the great show of support from the crew that it was supposed to be.
Only the Good Die Young:
Rep: non-binary love interest and cis woman main character?? I'm a little confused here, because why would you write a story for a trans anthology from the perspective of a cis person, so maybe she was supposed to be trans? But then again, in a trans anthology, I would like the main character to be trans on paper, and not only to be assumed trans because that's what the anthology is about.
The good ideas: a heist story
Where it failed: The heist was somehow boring af. Also, what does the title even have to do with the story? Super forgettable as well.
This Fragile Little Affair:
Rep: Two people that both have a vagina and a penis, on of them a man and one a woman
The good ideas: Fantasy setting and also set in a library, actually pretty decent writing, the way the two characters feel about their bodies and want to have sex is different even though they have the same body type, includes a character who doesn't want to be touched sexually by anyone else. My second favorite story in here, although with how bad most of the anthology was that doesn't mean a ton.
Where it failed: There was nothing big that ruined this. Mostly it's just a case of me not being into the kind of sex we see here once again. My only real complaint is, I was a little confused about how it said one of the characters took something to keep her penis from getting hard, but then she still liked it being touched, I wish it had explained that. I don't only want to get the sexual acts themselves, I want to read about how they make people feel and why they like what they like. Even more confusing, the story said the main character was doing the same, but then it talked about him getting hard, but it can't be that they meant he took something to not get wet because that happened as well??
Past Midnight, Before Dawn:
Rep: non-binary person with both a penis and vagina, asexual cis man
The good ideas: It's about someone who likes sex just for the emotional closeness it provides, not the physical aspects (which sounds like it would make for a story I could potentially enjoy a lot more than most erotica), supposed to show a couple that are super close and in-tune which each other and have great communication
Where it failed: Constantly switched between the two perspectives and I was so confused as to what is even happening. The two characters didn't feel nearly as close as they were supposed to, their communication wasn't really that great and especially the way they discussed safewords read likes two people having their first scene together. Despite the premise it still focused a ton on just the physical aspects. I also would have prefered it, had the trans person been the one to only like the emotional aspect of sex, for the sake of having more diversity in how the trans characters in this collection experience sexuality.
The Earth Within Me:
Rep: AFAB non-binary person, cis male love interest
The good ideas: It's about having sex with a ghost, which could have been fun. The writing style in here was better than in many of the other stories.
Where it failed: Not only is this another story that only features basic vaginal sex, but it also talks about how seen in their trans identity the main character feels when having sex with that ghost person. Maybe I'm being stupid here, but please explain to me why having a kind of sex that in no way differs from the most typical way a cis man would have sex with a cis woman would make you feel accepted as being trans?
Stray:
Rep: Trans guy with a cis male love interest
The good ideas: Finally we have a trans guy who tops in the sex scene (with a strap-on). He still puts a vibrator into his vagina too, so if you were looking for no vaginas involved trans guy sex you still won't get it here, but it still was different from the constant AFAB people bottoming that so many of the other stories showed, so I was quite happy with that. It's also about pet play, and the first half of it (the non-sexual one) was so cute. Seeing the main character take care of his love interest just made me so soft. It's my favorite story in here (still not something I'm super crazy about, but a lot better than the rest)
Where it failed: I just don't like sexual pet play, it makes me kind of uncomfortable, so I didn't enjoy the second half of the story too much. Of course I knew this wouldn't be the anthology to give me non-sexual pet play, since it's erotica-themed, but I've never read any other story with that or heard of one either, which is really sad to me.
The Devil You Blow:
Rep: trans man and agender person? (that's how I read their identity, but they didn't use that word)
The good ideas: It features a half demon and a half angel
Where it failed: They gym setting was extremely boring to me, so much so I struggled paying attention to the story. It had a few cringey formulations, and yet more vaginal sex.
Something's happening to Rylen:
Rep: trans woman and non-binary love interest
The good ideas: It's kind of body horror, and I feel like that's a genre that you could connect to trans themes in a lot of really interesting and effective ways.
Where it failed: It was just way too weird and not in a good way. Part of it I will blame on the fact that I don't like monster smut. But also the descriptions of people's bodies and of the sexual things they were doing were formulated in such an awkward way. I also wanted it to make some kind of point/commentary with the transformation of the character, but if it did, I missed what it was.
Redgum:
Rep: Honestly, I'm not completely sure. I thought one of them non-binary and one trans masc non-binary, but then it called both of them boys by the end, so maybe both trans masc non-binary?
The good ideas: Even though I'm not sure I would necessarily choose this one if you asked me what the worst story in here was, I don't have anything to say about this that would have stood out positively.
Where it failed: This was pretty boring, again we just get more vaginal sex, and also I'm not sure about that whole “self-made boys” narrative. It just sounds like you need to do something first to become a boy, which also implies trans men who never do anything to change their bodies aren't men.
The Pink Lady Bar and Social Club:
Rep: a trans man and a cis woman love interest
The good ideas: It involves time-travel and a bar for queer people and others that are “in some way different”. Also for once we don't have an AFAB person bottoming for vaginal sex.
Where it failed: I wanted so many more descriptions of the setting and see more of that bar. I also would have rather gotten a story about a trans guy genuinly not wanting people to see him naked, instead of leaving on his pants simply because he didn't know how to explain his body. Unsurprisingly the sex did nothing for me either.
Immersed:
Rep: trans woman and a mermaid, who I think is cis, but I haven't written it down and don't remember it for sure
The good ideas: I liked sea settings and mermaid stories.
Where it failed: Honestly, there was nothing I actually found wrong with this. It just didn't have any aspects that really captured my attention, and like many sapphic stories gave me a feeling of “I shouldn't be here, it's not my place to watch (aka read) this”, which is why I could never tell you whether or not a sapphic sex scene is good at all.
Better By Half-Elf:
Rep: trans woman and non-binary person using neo-pronouns
The good ideas: This has a fantasy setting and the main characters perform at some kind of sex club, which sounded like an amazing premise to me.
Where it failed: I struggled so much with keeping the main characters apart, I wanted to know so much more about the world, it all just felt kind of randomly thrown into the story, so I would have appreciated some actual worldbuilding. Also, yet more vaginal sex, I literally can't see it anymore at this point.
Forbidden Fruit:
Rep: non-binary protagonist and tentacle creature that uses he/him pronouns and doesn't use private parts, only their tentacles, for sex
The good ideas: I don't really have much to say here, it really just depends on which kinds of kinks you have, and tentacles aren't for me, they literally only make me think of food.
Where it failed: Yet more vaginal sex with an AFAB trans person. I hated how it painted the main character as asexual, but then they were so attracted to the tentacle person, and it never explored that, which really feeds into the “asexual people just haven't found the right person/ right kind of sex yet” narrative. It also made the main character take off their binder and wear a short skirt with no underwear, while stating that they are very uncomfortable with people seeing those parts of their body, which felt really icky to me as well. Stop telling people they need to be okay with showing all of their bodies to have sex, and also, some trans people genuinely feel like their bodies aren't theirs, and consider their real body to be what they would look like if they had the body parts they'd be comfortable with, and I'm so tired of seeing people telling them they need to accept their body like it is as a body positivity thing, it's not body positivity, it's invalidating their identities.
Sex with your Ex:
Rep: trans man with a trans guy and non-binary love interest (I think for once it was an AMAB non-binary person here) (also, I keep saying love interest, although it often is just sex and no romance)
The good ideas: It was about humiliation play and I was pretty excited to see an exploration of how that kind of thing can actually be very affirmative to trans people in particular.
Where it failed: Once again, it never actually went into discussing anything. We really just got the sex, and nothing about why the main character liked it, or how exactly it made him feel, or how liking it might be connected to him being trans. Also, if I never have to read a trans man bottoming for vaginal sex again, it will be too soon.
Apart from that, I also found the writing, as well character and general story-development pretty underwhelming in almost all of these stories. Most of them had pretty good ideas, but didn't go anywhere with them. None of the sex was hot at all either, but that we could blame my general pickiness with erotic content for (as well as the fact that there wasn't a lot of non vagina involving stuff, and therefore not any kinds of sex I find hot at all. I don't really want to give those stories individual ratings, so instead I'll just tell you the rep they include, the ideas that were good, and how they ultimately failed for me.
Idle Hands & Dirty Minds:
Rep: Two trans women (and a succubus who's probably cis, but I'm also not sure whether demon genders work the same way as humans'), one of them has her genitals magically changed in the course of the story (I think it was only one and not both of them, but I don't 100% remember)
The good ideas: I mean, it's a sex ritual demon summoning story. That should have been dark and exciting and fun to read.
Where it failed: Somehow it just was super bland. I wanted more horror, more atmosphere, more worldbuilding. I know that's not necessarily the focus of erotica a lot of the time, but it's the kind of erotica I want to read.
Welcome Aboard:
Rep: non-binary person who just got a vagina (I'm not sure whether through surgery or magical means) gets fucked by their two Daddies (one a cis guy, one also non-binary) while a lot of people are watching
The good ideas: Pirate ship setting, supposed to show how the crew of the ship is supporting the main character's identity
Where it failed: It was pretty confusing to follow along what was even happening and at first I kept confusing the two Daddies. I also didn't really see where this was the great show of support from the crew that it was supposed to be.
Only the Good Die Young:
Rep: non-binary love interest and cis woman main character?? I'm a little confused here, because why would you write a story for a trans anthology from the perspective of a cis person, so maybe she was supposed to be trans? But then again, in a trans anthology, I would like the main character to be trans on paper, and not only to be assumed trans because that's what the anthology is about.
The good ideas: a heist story
Where it failed: The heist was somehow boring af. Also, what does the title even have to do with the story? Super forgettable as well.
This Fragile Little Affair:
Rep: Two people that both have a vagina and a penis, on of them a man and one a woman
The good ideas: Fantasy setting and also set in a library, actually pretty decent writing, the way the two characters feel about their bodies and want to have sex is different even though they have the same body type, includes a character who doesn't want to be touched sexually by anyone else. My second favorite story in here, although with how bad most of the anthology was that doesn't mean a ton.
Where it failed: There was nothing big that ruined this. Mostly it's just a case of me not being into the kind of sex we see here once again. My only real complaint is, I was a little confused about how it said one of the characters took something to keep her penis from getting hard, but then she still liked it being touched, I wish it had explained that. I don't only want to get the sexual acts themselves, I want to read about how they make people feel and why they like what they like. Even more confusing, the story said the main character was doing the same, but then it talked about him getting hard, but it can't be that they meant he took something to not get wet because that happened as well??
Past Midnight, Before Dawn:
Rep: non-binary person with both a penis and vagina, asexual cis man
The good ideas: It's about someone who likes sex just for the emotional closeness it provides, not the physical aspects (which sounds like it would make for a story I could potentially enjoy a lot more than most erotica), supposed to show a couple that are super close and in-tune which each other and have great communication
Where it failed: Constantly switched between the two perspectives and I was so confused as to what is even happening. The two characters didn't feel nearly as close as they were supposed to, their communication wasn't really that great and especially the way they discussed safewords read likes two people having their first scene together. Despite the premise it still focused a ton on just the physical aspects. I also would have prefered it, had the trans person been the one to only like the emotional aspect of sex, for the sake of having more diversity in how the trans characters in this collection experience sexuality.
The Earth Within Me:
Rep: AFAB non-binary person, cis male love interest
The good ideas: It's about having sex with a ghost, which could have been fun. The writing style in here was better than in many of the other stories.
Where it failed: Not only is this another story that only features basic vaginal sex, but it also talks about how seen in their trans identity the main character feels when having sex with that ghost person. Maybe I'm being stupid here, but please explain to me why having a kind of sex that in no way differs from the most typical way a cis man would have sex with a cis woman would make you feel accepted as being trans?
Stray:
Rep: Trans guy with a cis male love interest
The good ideas: Finally we have a trans guy who tops in the sex scene (with a strap-on). He still puts a vibrator into his vagina too, so if you were looking for no vaginas involved trans guy sex you still won't get it here, but it still was different from the constant AFAB people bottoming that so many of the other stories showed, so I was quite happy with that. It's also about pet play, and the first half of it (the non-sexual one) was so cute. Seeing the main character take care of his love interest just made me so soft. It's my favorite story in here (still not something I'm super crazy about, but a lot better than the rest)
Where it failed: I just don't like sexual pet play, it makes me kind of uncomfortable, so I didn't enjoy the second half of the story too much. Of course I knew this wouldn't be the anthology to give me non-sexual pet play, since it's erotica-themed, but I've never read any other story with that or heard of one either, which is really sad to me.
The Devil You Blow:
Rep: trans man and agender person? (that's how I read their identity, but they didn't use that word)
The good ideas: It features a half demon and a half angel
Where it failed: They gym setting was extremely boring to me, so much so I struggled paying attention to the story. It had a few cringey formulations, and yet more vaginal sex.
Something's happening to Rylen:
Rep: trans woman and non-binary love interest
The good ideas: It's kind of body horror, and I feel like that's a genre that you could connect to trans themes in a lot of really interesting and effective ways.
Where it failed: It was just way too weird and not in a good way. Part of it I will blame on the fact that I don't like monster smut. But also the descriptions of people's bodies and of the sexual things they were doing were formulated in such an awkward way. I also wanted it to make some kind of point/commentary with the transformation of the character, but if it did, I missed what it was.
Redgum:
Rep: Honestly, I'm not completely sure. I thought one of them non-binary and one trans masc non-binary, but then it called both of them boys by the end, so maybe both trans masc non-binary?
The good ideas: Even though I'm not sure I would necessarily choose this one if you asked me what the worst story in here was, I don't have anything to say about this that would have stood out positively.
Where it failed: This was pretty boring, again we just get more vaginal sex, and also I'm not sure about that whole “self-made boys” narrative. It just sounds like you need to do something first to become a boy, which also implies trans men who never do anything to change their bodies aren't men.
The Pink Lady Bar and Social Club:
Rep: a trans man and a cis woman love interest
The good ideas: It involves time-travel and a bar for queer people and others that are “in some way different”. Also for once we don't have an AFAB person bottoming for vaginal sex.
Where it failed: I wanted so many more descriptions of the setting and see more of that bar. I also would have rather gotten a story about a trans guy genuinly not wanting people to see him naked, instead of leaving on his pants simply because he didn't know how to explain his body. Unsurprisingly the sex did nothing for me either.
Immersed:
Rep: trans woman and a mermaid, who I think is cis, but I haven't written it down and don't remember it for sure
The good ideas: I liked sea settings and mermaid stories.
Where it failed: Honestly, there was nothing I actually found wrong with this. It just didn't have any aspects that really captured my attention, and like many sapphic stories gave me a feeling of “I shouldn't be here, it's not my place to watch (aka read) this”, which is why I could never tell you whether or not a sapphic sex scene is good at all.
Better By Half-Elf:
Rep: trans woman and non-binary person using neo-pronouns
The good ideas: This has a fantasy setting and the main characters perform at some kind of sex club, which sounded like an amazing premise to me.
Where it failed: I struggled so much with keeping the main characters apart, I wanted to know so much more about the world, it all just felt kind of randomly thrown into the story, so I would have appreciated some actual worldbuilding. Also, yet more vaginal sex, I literally can't see it anymore at this point.
Forbidden Fruit:
Rep: non-binary protagonist and tentacle creature that uses he/him pronouns and doesn't use private parts, only their tentacles, for sex
The good ideas: I don't really have much to say here, it really just depends on which kinds of kinks you have, and tentacles aren't for me, they literally only make me think of food.
Where it failed: Yet more vaginal sex with an AFAB trans person. I hated how it painted the main character as asexual, but then they were so attracted to the tentacle person, and it never explored that, which really feeds into the “asexual people just haven't found the right person/ right kind of sex yet” narrative. It also made the main character take off their binder and wear a short skirt with no underwear, while stating that they are very uncomfortable with people seeing those parts of their body, which felt really icky to me as well. Stop telling people they need to be okay with showing all of their bodies to have sex, and also, some trans people genuinely feel like their bodies aren't theirs, and consider their real body to be what they would look like if they had the body parts they'd be comfortable with, and I'm so tired of seeing people telling them they need to accept their body like it is as a body positivity thing, it's not body positivity, it's invalidating their identities.
Sex with your Ex:
Rep: trans man with a trans guy and non-binary love interest (I think for once it was an AMAB non-binary person here) (also, I keep saying love interest, although it often is just sex and no romance)
The good ideas: It was about humiliation play and I was pretty excited to see an exploration of how that kind of thing can actually be very affirmative to trans people in particular.
Where it failed: Once again, it never actually went into discussing anything. We really just got the sex, and nothing about why the main character liked it, or how exactly it made him feel, or how liking it might be connected to him being trans. Also, if I never have to read a trans man bottoming for vaginal sex again, it will be too soon.
July 13, 2022
As a non-binary queer person who generally enjoys sex and reading horny romance novels—hell, even fanfiction—it crushes me to rate this anthology series so low.
The introduction starts out by promising a diverse exploration of gender and sexual expression that is so rarely found in erotica. And while yes, each story does tick the box of at least one non-cishet character, most of them failed to hold my interest long enough to feel even a moment of excitement. I was also surprised at how confusing and oddly edited the collection was as a whole with most of the stories spending way too much time on world-building and not nearly enough on getting down to business.
Rather than continue to harp on what I didn't enjoy, I'll choose to focus on gems that gave me some new authors to keep tabs on:
• Only the Good Die Young by Ash Riley | A couple pulls off a heist with nice banter/chemistry
• Stray by MJ Moreo | Incredibly cute cat boy roleplay scenario
• Redgum by Ash Orlando | BDSM + camping trip
• The Devil You Blow by Rien Grey | Devil/angel transmasc couple hooking up at the gym
Thank you to NetGalley and Bold Strokes Books for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.
The introduction starts out by promising a diverse exploration of gender and sexual expression that is so rarely found in erotica. And while yes, each story does tick the box of at least one non-cishet character, most of them failed to hold my interest long enough to feel even a moment of excitement. I was also surprised at how confusing and oddly edited the collection was as a whole with most of the stories spending way too much time on world-building and not nearly enough on getting down to business.
Rather than continue to harp on what I didn't enjoy, I'll choose to focus on gems that gave me some new authors to keep tabs on:
• Only the Good Die Young by Ash Riley | A couple pulls off a heist with nice banter/chemistry
• Stray by MJ Moreo | Incredibly cute cat boy roleplay scenario
• Redgum by Ash Orlando | BDSM + camping trip
• The Devil You Blow by Rien Grey | Devil/angel transmasc couple hooking up at the gym
Thank you to NetGalley and Bold Strokes Books for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.
June 3, 2022
Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!
Review to come!
Review to come!
January 7, 2024
CRAZY
Some stories I didn't like and I had to skip through some of the last one but some were absolutely perfect
Some stories I didn't like and I had to skip through some of the last one but some were absolutely perfect
September 28, 2022
Thanks to NetGalley for providing a copy to review.
Representation: every story has at least one trans or nonbinary main character, variety of gender presentations
Rating: 3.5/5 This is a collection of erotica that covers a range of genres and steaminess levels. Since it’s a collection, I can’t really discuss much detail without just recapping the whole book. I read through this in probably a day or so, and immediately after finishing it, I thought hey, that was pretty good. But looking back on it and thinking more about the individual stories, it’s actually more okay than good. The two stories in particular that stuck with me because they were good were Redgum, a BDSM story that takes place during a camping trip in Australia; and The Devil You May Blow, a transmasc angel/devil gym buddy story. A couple others stuck with me, but not because they were good, simply because the story was very…out there. I don’t think this is a terrible collection, but I do feel like a lot of these stories read as someone’s first time writing erotica after reading all the tropes and trying to follow those tropes. Some of these stories had problematic views on asexuality, consent, and weird thoughts about trans bodies. All of these stories are ownvoices yes, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s not problematic. I did appreciate the wide range of genres, but it did lean very heavily into paranormal and fantasy. I liked the variety of descriptions for body parts, even though some were kind of odd to me, but that’s just me. Overall, I thought this collection was fine, but I wouldn’t immediately recommend it to anyone who reads erotica.
Representation: every story has at least one trans or nonbinary main character, variety of gender presentations
Rating: 3.5/5 This is a collection of erotica that covers a range of genres and steaminess levels. Since it’s a collection, I can’t really discuss much detail without just recapping the whole book. I read through this in probably a day or so, and immediately after finishing it, I thought hey, that was pretty good. But looking back on it and thinking more about the individual stories, it’s actually more okay than good. The two stories in particular that stuck with me because they were good were Redgum, a BDSM story that takes place during a camping trip in Australia; and The Devil You May Blow, a transmasc angel/devil gym buddy story. A couple others stuck with me, but not because they were good, simply because the story was very…out there. I don’t think this is a terrible collection, but I do feel like a lot of these stories read as someone’s first time writing erotica after reading all the tropes and trying to follow those tropes. Some of these stories had problematic views on asexuality, consent, and weird thoughts about trans bodies. All of these stories are ownvoices yes, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s not problematic. I did appreciate the wide range of genres, but it did lean very heavily into paranormal and fantasy. I liked the variety of descriptions for body parts, even though some were kind of odd to me, but that’s just me. Overall, I thought this collection was fine, but I wouldn’t immediately recommend it to anyone who reads erotica.
May 26, 2022
First of all, full disclosure: I did not finish this book. I will put it down to my own asexuality though rather than the content or writing. I did get around 100 pages in though. It's good, it's gritty, it's honest, and it has a lot of scenarios. For me, I couldn't vibe with it because I need a strong connection with characters before I care about anything else. Each story is about 2 pages long, so it didn't give me the opportunity I needed to become invested. I know that's not really the point of the book though, so I'm still rating it highly. I think it does what it set out to do, I just didn't get what I wanted from it. I liked concept of some of the shorts and I would probably recommend this to some of my friends who might enjoy it more than I did. It's diverse, genderqueer sex which is underrepresented, so I still appreciate this book.
May 30, 2022
Found this to just be pretty wholesome and fun overall! I liked the range of genres, you get everything from high fantasy through horror, and even some more worldly pieces too. While there were definitely some tropes, just as other reviewers mentioned, I personally found it oddly comforting and assuring to see them through a queer lens for a change.
There were lots of authors that were new to me in this one too, which I always love, and it was nice seeing so many first-time trans and nonbinary writers getting published here as well. Too often you see a lot of the same names in collections like this, but Heckin’ Lewd included mostly folks I’ve never read before. More gender diverse authors entering the industry is a good thing, and I’m excited to see how each of those featured here improve and grow!
Definitely recommend this as just a light, fun read for queer and trans readers.
There were lots of authors that were new to me in this one too, which I always love, and it was nice seeing so many first-time trans and nonbinary writers getting published here as well. Too often you see a lot of the same names in collections like this, but Heckin’ Lewd included mostly folks I’ve never read before. More gender diverse authors entering the industry is a good thing, and I’m excited to see how each of those featured here improve and grow!
Definitely recommend this as just a light, fun read for queer and trans readers.
July 5, 2022
I requested this book simply because I had never seen anything like it and I was excited about publishers (even if small) finally realising that there is a market for these stories. Writing-wise I was only impressed by a couple of stories, and plot-wise by a few more, but the book in its entirety did make me happy, simply because these stories exist and were written by authors that identify as the same as a lot of their characters so they knew what they were talking about when it came to the more physical action and the emotional weight as well.
Thank you to NetGalley and Bold Strokes Books for this DRC
Thank you to NetGalley and Bold Strokes Books for this DRC
July 21, 2022
This is an anthology of short Trans and Nonbinary erotica. There are stories across many genres, and werewolves, succubi, witches, pirates, aliens, and more all end up with representation.
On the whole it was an interesting collection - where gender expression was not fetishized, but simply part of the characters. I thought it was a fantastic collection showcasing that.
A downside for me, was that of all the stories, only two had a setting that was essentially modern, without sci-fi or fantasy elements. I was kind of hoping for more of that - but that is a personal thing, and if you prefer more variety, this could be the collection for you to check out.
On the whole it was an interesting collection - where gender expression was not fetishized, but simply part of the characters. I thought it was a fantastic collection showcasing that.
A downside for me, was that of all the stories, only two had a setting that was essentially modern, without sci-fi or fantasy elements. I was kind of hoping for more of that - but that is a personal thing, and if you prefer more variety, this could be the collection for you to check out.
June 24, 2022
2/5 stars
Thank you to Bold Strokes Books and Netgalley for a chance to review this eARC!!
Little sad that I have to write this review during Pride Month, but here we go.
1) I wish I could give more stars because I adore queer erotica, but the quality just wasn't the best. I've read better on AO3 and Wattpad unfortunately.
2) I was really disappointed in this anthology for the lack of diversity and inclusiveness. Not all trans and non binary people are thin, white, and able bodied.
All in all, FANTASTIC concept, just lacking in execution.
Thank you to Bold Strokes Books and Netgalley for a chance to review this eARC!!
Little sad that I have to write this review during Pride Month, but here we go.
1) I wish I could give more stars because I adore queer erotica, but the quality just wasn't the best. I've read better on AO3 and Wattpad unfortunately.
2) I was really disappointed in this anthology for the lack of diversity and inclusiveness. Not all trans and non binary people are thin, white, and able bodied.
All in all, FANTASTIC concept, just lacking in execution.
May 22, 2022
Heckin' Lewd has a diverse array of stories to choose from ranging in length, dynamics, and kinks. I found it a pleasure to read. Redgum by Ash Orlando and Sex with Your Ex by Quinn Rhodes are particularly good!
June 14, 2022
So great! The stories are all so affirming and represent so many different people that aren't often represented through a respectful and positive lens. Loved it!
November 23, 2022
Review to come. I just need to think a little bit
October 26, 2023
I'm the editor. This was my first time in that role, and the first time many of these writers were published. I learned a lot, am very proud of what we did, and hope that folks enjoy it!
November 10, 2024
I found this on a shelf at my local library and got very excited because, I personally find, its very hard to find queer erotica. I read a few reviews before starting and really hoped people were being too harsh, unfortunately most of these reviews are pretty spot on. While its harder to give a proper rating because there are multiple writers the compilation of the stories was pretty weak, I've seen better erotica for queer people written on Tumblr by some horny queer adult Ill never hear about again.
I will admit I did find some of the stories decently enjoyable but I really struggled getting through the book because I didn't even want to pick it up to read it. Unfortunately DNF is not in my vocabulary so I was determined to finish this anthology.
I would really like to give this a higher review because we need more books like this but not like this, better and put together better, the stories are so chaotically out of whack and I know they are all separate but a little more order might have been nice.
Overall depending on your experience, your kinks and your love of queer literature. You will probably like a few stories but if this is on your TBR I wouldn't move it up in the queue unless you come across it organically or free at your local library.
I will admit I did find some of the stories decently enjoyable but I really struggled getting through the book because I didn't even want to pick it up to read it. Unfortunately DNF is not in my vocabulary so I was determined to finish this anthology.
I would really like to give this a higher review because we need more books like this but not like this, better and put together better, the stories are so chaotically out of whack and I know they are all separate but a little more order might have been nice.
Overall depending on your experience, your kinks and your love of queer literature. You will probably like a few stories but if this is on your TBR I wouldn't move it up in the queue unless you come across it organically or free at your local library.
December 21, 2022
I received this as an ARC on NetGalley.
I adored these stories. I felt like you could really tell a difference in how the representation in these stories difference from cis het writers who attempt to write more inclusive type characters without sensitivity reader or real-life inspirations. The representation was varied, non-exploitative, and real.
The smut was FANTASTIC. Many of these stories had me gasping (Welcome Aboard!!). The kinks represented were also so well done. Well-researched and accurate to real BDSM.
The actual plots and stories themselves were great too. Some grabbed me more than others but there were not any stories I disliked. Some I really need full length books of (like Only The Good Die Young).
Highly recommend. Perfect read for Pride month!
I adored these stories. I felt like you could really tell a difference in how the representation in these stories difference from cis het writers who attempt to write more inclusive type characters without sensitivity reader or real-life inspirations. The representation was varied, non-exploitative, and real.
The smut was FANTASTIC. Many of these stories had me gasping (Welcome Aboard!!). The kinks represented were also so well done. Well-researched and accurate to real BDSM.
The actual plots and stories themselves were great too. Some grabbed me more than others but there were not any stories I disliked. Some I really need full length books of (like Only The Good Die Young).
Highly recommend. Perfect read for Pride month!
June 15, 2022
My rating for this book comes with an extra star for the representation and creativity! The content however, doesn’t do it for me. I wish there had been some content warnings on netgalley for some of the stories, because while the word “kink” is in the book description, it barely scratches the surface. While all of the stories feature consensual sexual content, lots of them are paranormal with fantasy elements including shape shifting (which often reads as body horror), blood play, breath play, hardcore BDSM, and more. I’m all for kinks but I wasn’t warned about it and I don’t love that. I’m not finished with it, and I probably won’t finish it. Might chip away at it a little at a time over a few months.
January 14, 2024
Something for everyone
Smut for queers of all kinds. A little bit of everything gay, perverted and horny. It was a fun adventure through the kinky, dirty minds of sex positive folk.
Smut for queers of all kinds. A little bit of everything gay, perverted and horny. It was a fun adventure through the kinky, dirty minds of sex positive folk.
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