It has been two and half years since I last posted on the Cabinet of Curiosities and, in that time, we’ve all weathered the isolation and anxiety of Covid, a carousel of conservatives governing Britain and the warmest year so far on record. For me, these last two and half years have been a period … Continue reading Exploring Desire
The Secret Spaces
I read Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body when it was first published by Vintage in 1996 and I never forgot it. The way she writes about her love, her passion for Louise, are some of the most eloquent and erotic passages I’ve ever read. The section where she delves into the body of her … Continue reading The Secret Spaces
How to be Both
Our concepts of motherhood and female desire don’t sit comfortably together. The ideal of the nurturing, loving mother, selflessly caring for her children, and the woman who is sexual, aroused, naked and open, don’t combine easily in our imaginations. Although sex obviously leads to pregnancy, there aren’t many authors who explore this post-birth conflict without … Continue reading How to be Both
The most successful erotic book ever…
Fifty Shades of Grey - the first in the trilogy of EL James’s erotic novels - was a phenomenon which took the publishing industry by surprise when Vintage bought it in 2012. It’s the fastest selling adult novel of all time, selling 15 million copies in the US and Canada in just three months. The … Continue reading The most successful erotic book ever…
The Bondage of Love
I’ve wanted to read the Story of O for years. I remember, as a child, adults referring to it with raised eyebrows, hinting at their own sexual liberation and kinky interests. Its reputation as a work of “pornography sublimed to the purest art” hasn’t waned since its publication in 1954. It was written by a … Continue reading The Bondage of Love
The Queen of Literary Porn
Anais Nin’s two collections of erotica - The Delta of Venus and Little Birds - were published after her death in 1977. She’d been commissioned to write them when she moved to the US in the 1940s by an anonymous client and kept them secret throughout the rest of her turbulent life. A surprising decision … Continue reading The Queen of Literary Porn
The Modern Adulteress
The third review in my series of writing about sex explores the modern adulteress through two novels written by Leila Slimani and Jill Alexander Essbaum.
What Women Want
The second book review in my series of writing about sex is on Lisa Taddeo's Three Women. It's an astonishing piece of narrative journalism on female desire; the beauty and violence of yearning.
Lucy Roeber 
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