Reading List · Erotica
Best Erotica
A lot of erotica sold to women is still written with someone else's gaze in mind. Every book on this list is written by a woman, with desire seen from the inside: pleasure that isn't performed, wanting that isn't explained away, and bodies that exist for their own sake. It runs from Anaïs Nin's stories for a private collector to anthologies, classic novels, erotic romance and the best nonfiction on female desire, so there is something here whether you want one electric short story or a book to get lost in for a week.
By Lisanne Swart · 25 books · Female authors · Updated September 2026
Quick answer
The best erotica by women starts with Anaïs Nin's Delta of Venus (1977), the benchmark for literary erotica. For contemporary short stories, try the anthology Best Women's Erotica of the Year; for a novel, Sarah Waters's Fingersmith or Erica Jong's Fear of Flying; for explicit romance, Tiffany Reisz's The Siren; and for nonfiction, Emily Nagoski's Come As You Are and Lisa Taddeo's Three Women. Below are all 25 books, in four sections.
Where to Start
If you want short stories
→ Delta of Venus by Anaïs Nin (1977).
If you want a novel to get lost in
→ Fingersmith by Sarah Waters (2002).
If you want explicit romance
→ The Siren by Tiffany Reisz (2012).
If you want the classic that caused a scandal
→ Fear of Flying by Erica Jong (1973).
If you want to understand desire itself
→ Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski (2015).
Erotic Short Story Collections by Women
Stories first. These are the collections where the writing itself is the point: precise, sensual and unafraid.
Delta of Venus
In the 1940s Nin, Henry Miller and a circle of other writers were paid a dollar a page to write erotica for an anonymous private collector. Nin's stories were only published in 1977, and they remain the benchmark for literary erotica written by a woman: lush, European and deeply interior, with desire tangled up in memory, power and longing. When the collector kept asking them to leave out the poetry, she wrote back that sex without emotion loses all its power.
Little Birds
Nin's second collection of erotica from the same period: shorter, more compressed stories with a darker and stranger edge. If Delta of Venus is a slow dinner, Little Birds is a series of sharp, well-aimed impressions.
Read them together, or start here if you prefer something more unsettling.
— LisanneHerotica: A Collection of Women's Erotic Fiction
A landmark anthology of erotic fiction by women: stories about straight, lesbian and bisexual desire, edited by Susie Bright, then the editor of the lesbian erotica magazine On Our Backs. It was the first fiction series from Down There Press, and Kirkus Reviews called Herotica the most successful series of erotica written for women.
Bad Behavior
Gaitskill's debut collection of stories about sex, power and loneliness in 1980s New York, including “Secretary”, the story behind the 2002 film with Maggie Gyllenhaal. Not erotica in the romantic sense: cool, unsettling and exact about what people want from each other.
Best Women's Erotica of the Year
An annual anthology of contemporary erotic fiction by women, published by Cleis Press since 2016. The first volume gathered 22 stories, including one by Tiffany Reisz, whose novel The Siren is further down this list, and each volume mixes established names with writers new to the genre.
If you want to sample a wide range of styles before committing to one author, start here.
— LisanneHer Body and Other Parties
Stories where desire, bodies and horror meet, including “The Husband Stitch”, a retelling of the old tale of the woman with the green ribbon around her neck. The collection was a finalist for the National Book Award.
Classic and Literary Erotic Novels by Women
Full novels where desire is woven into character, plot and language, not just the scenes.
Story of O
Published in France under a pseudonym and awarded the Prix des Deux Magots the following year, the most famous novel of erotic submission ever written. Only in 1994 did its author, the editor Anne Desclos, reveal that she had written it as a series of love letters to her lover, the writer Jean Paulhan. A note before you start: it depicts domination and consent in ways many readers find disturbing.
Fear of Flying
Isadora Wing, a 29-year-old poet, travels to a psychoanalytic congress in Vienna with her husband and decides to act on her fantasies. The book gave a generation the idea of the “zipless” encounter, became a landmark of second-wave feminism, and has sold more than 20 million copies.
The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty
Anne Rice, the author of Interview with the Vampire, wrote this explicit retelling of Sleeping Beauty under a pen name, as the first book of a trilogy published between 1983 and 1985. It is fairy tale as BDSM fantasy, and not for everyone: consent is not part of its world.
Written on the Body
Winterson's most formally daring novel: the narrator's gender is never specified, and the language for desire and the body is precise and lyrical throughout. The long passage in which the narrator catalogues a lover's body, part by part, is extraordinary.
If you want erotic fiction by a woman that is also literature, this is the one.
— LisanneTipping the Velvet
Waters's debut follows Nan, an oyster girl from Whitstable, into the music halls and back streets of 1890s London after she falls for a male impersonator on stage. Frank, funny and sensual, it was adapted by the BBC in 2002.
Kushiel's Dart
Epic fantasy with desire at its centre. Phèdre nó Delaunay, a courtesan trained as a spy, who experiences pain as pleasure, is drawn into a conspiracy against her country. It won the Locus Award for Best First Novel and began a long series.
Fingersmith
A Victorian thriller built around an erotic romance between two women, with one of the best plot twists in contemporary British fiction. Waters writes physical desire with great restraint and then suddenly without it. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and Park Chan-wook adapted it as The Handmaiden (2016).
If you've seen The Handmaiden, read the original.
— LisanneErotic Romance by Women
Explicit books with a love story at the centre, and a happy ending as part of the promise.
Bared to You
The first book in the Crossfire series, often mentioned alongside Fifty Shades of Grey. Eva Tramell and Gideon Cross's relationship is intense, explicit and emotionally complicated in ways that feel earned rather than melodramatic.
The Siren
The first novel in Reisz's Original Sinners series. Nora Sutherlin, a successful erotica writer who wants to be taken seriously, ends up working with a demanding editor, and the power dynamics between them are explored with real psychological intelligence. Sharp, funny and explicit, which is a rare combination.
The Idea of You
Solène, a divorced gallery owner nearing 40, falls for Hayes Campbell, the 20-year-old singer in the world's biggest boy band. A smart, sensual novel about desire, age and being looked at, filmed in 2024 with Anne Hathaway.
The Kiss Quotient
Stella Lane, an autistic econometrician, hires an escort to teach her about intimacy. Warm, explicit and one of the most thoughtful portrayals of female desire and neurodivergence in contemporary fiction, centring a woman's pleasure and autonomy without apology.
Get a Life, Chloe Brown
Chloe, a chronically ill web designer, writes a list of ways to shake up her careful life and ends up enlisting Red, her building's tattooed superintendent. Funny, tender and steamy, with a heroine whose body is part of the story rather than a problem to be solved.
Nonfiction About Female Desire
Not fiction, but just as illuminating: these books take female sexuality as a subject worth rigorous, honest attention.
My Secret Garden
Friday collected hundreds of women's sexual fantasies at a time when women weren't supposed to have them. It is still the most honest record of female fantasy ever assembled: raw, varied and quietly radical. Some of it reflects the anxieties of its era, which is part of its value as a document.
As a guide to desire today, pair it with Come As You Are.
— LisanneHenry and June
The unexpurgated pages of Nin's diary from 1931 and 1932, when in Paris she fell in love with Henry Miller and became fascinated by his wife, June. Philip Kaufman's 1990 film of it was the first to be released with the NC-17 rating.
Women on Top
Friday's return to women's fantasies almost twenty years after My Secret Garden, drawn from a new generation of letters and interviews, and a record of how much had changed in between.
Sex Drive: In Pursuit of Female Desire
A sexual anthropologist examines women's libido at a moment when medicine keeps treating low desire as a dysfunction. Smart, grounded in research, and written with warmth rather than clinical distance.
Come As You Are
Nagoski, a sex educator and researcher, dismantles the idea that women's desire works like men's and explains, with research, why that matters. First published in 2015, it was revised and updated in 2021.
Read it before or after anything else on this list.
— LisanneThree Women
Taddeo spent eight years reporting on the inner and sexual lives of three American women, Lina, Maggie and Sloane, and wrote them with the intimacy of a novel. It became a number one New York Times bestseller.
Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again
A short, sharp essay on consent and desire after #MeToo, arguing that women should not have to know exactly what they want in order to be safe. The title borrows a line from Michel Foucault.
How I Chose These Books
Every book here is written by a woman. In one case that was a secret for forty years: Story of O was published under a pseudonym in 1954, and Anne Desclos only confirmed she had written it in 1994.
Beyond that, the test was whether desire is written from the inside, as something a woman feels and chooses, rather than as something that happens to her for a reader's benefit. The writing also had to hold up away from the sex scenes. That is why the list mixes explicit books with restrained ones, and literary fiction with romance.
Some of these books go to dark places. Where a book depicts domination or non-consent, its entry says so, so you can decide before you start.
Frequently asked questions about erotica by women
What is the best erotica written by women?
Anaïs Nin's Delta of Venus (1977) is the classic starting point for literary erotica by a woman. For a novel, Sarah Waters's Fingersmith and Erica Jong's Fear of Flying are the best known; for contemporary short stories, the annual anthology Best Women's Erotica of the Year; and for explicit romance, Tiffany Reisz's The Siren.
What makes erotic literature written by women different?
Perspective and interiority. Erotic fiction written with the female gaze tends to focus on how desire feels from the inside, the emotional texture of wanting, not just the mechanics of what happens, and it is more likely to portray women as the subject of their own desire rather than the object of someone else's. There is no single definition, though, and the best test is how a book feels to read.
What is the female gaze in erotic fiction?
The female gaze is a counterpoint to the male gaze: desire, bodies and intimacy seen from a woman's perspective rather than staged for a male audience. In erotica it often means prioritising female pleasure, interiority and agency. It does not mean erotica has to be soft or romantic; it can be explicit, dark or transgressive and still be written through a female gaze.
What is the difference between erotica and erotic romance?
Erotica puts sexual content at the centre: the explicit scenes are the point, not a subplot within a love story. Erotic romance uses explicit content within a romantic plot that ends with an emotional resolution between the characters. In practice the lines blur. Anaïs Nin's collections and Herotica are erotica; Sylvia Day's Crossfire series is erotic romance; Tiffany Reisz sits somewhere between the two.
Where can I read erotic short stories written by women?
In print, the best places to start are anthologies: Herotica, edited by Susie Bright, and the annual Best Women's Erotica of the Year, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel, alongside Anaïs Nin's two collections. If you prefer to listen, the most popular apps for audio erotica are Dipsea and Quinn.
What should I read after Fifty Shades of Grey?
If you liked the intensity of E. L. James's novel, try Sylvia Day's Bared to You, the first book in the Crossfire series, or Tiffany Reisz's sharper and funnier The Siren. For power dynamics in a very different setting, Jacqueline Carey's fantasy novel Kushiel's Dart.
Who wrote Story of O?
Story of O was published in France in 1954 under the pseudonym Pauline Réage. In 1994 the French editor and writer Anne Desclos revealed that she was the author, and that she had written it as a series of love letters to Jean Paulhan.
Is Nancy Friday's My Secret Garden still relevant?
Yes, though perhaps not in the way you'd expect. Published in 1973, some of the fantasies it collects reflect the anxieties of that era, and that is also what makes it worth reading: a document of what women were thinking about when they were expected not to think about it at all. As a guide to desire today, pair it with Emily Nagoski's Come As You Are.
Are these books available in the Netherlands?
Most of them can be ordered from bol.com, Waterstones or Amazon, and many are also available as ebooks. Older titles such as Herotica are often easiest to find second-hand.
Footnotes
- Women's erotica — Wikipedia
- A passionate letter from Anaïs Nin — Letters of Note
- Bright, Susannah — Encyclopedia.com
- Down There Press — Wikipedia
- Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 1 — Simon & Schuster
- Fear of Flying (novel) — Wikipedia
- Fear of Flying — Penguin Random House
- Story of O — Wikipedia
- Tipping the Velvet — Wikipedia
- Fingersmith (novel) — Wikipedia
- Her Body and Other Parties — Wikipedia
List last verified 11 September 2026.
“Only the united beat of sex and heart together can create ecstasy.”
— Anaïs Nin, Delta of Venus (1977)
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