reviewed by Bill Noble

"And I wasn't really a woman anymore, I mean, I still looked like a woman, but I was acting like water. And I know he was loving the water rolling over his body, her hands all over him. So it was a perfect setup. He couldn't resist me, with me looking like a woman with the sea water dripping off the ends of my curly hair but tasting like salt and smelling like oysters, and if he had just licked my face or felt the sand all mixed up with my hair he would have been a goner."

-- "A Conversation About Green Water," by Leslie Cole

Lonnie Barbach is a culture hero. Or would be, if we were a little less squirrely in our attitudes about eros and women.

In 1972, Lonnie, a young college student, found herself leading a women's sexuality workshop at UC Berkeley, the first UC had ever permitted. She discovered that many of the women were preorgasmic. Many more were distressed or confused about their orgasms. The group discussed and experimented joyfully in the safety of an all-woman environment. At the end of the six-week program more than 90% of the participants were having orgasms, when and how they wanted them. The era of years-long psychoanalysis (and a 20% success rate!) as the treatment for "frigidity" were ending.

Word spread. As a grad student, Barbach was invited to lead her workshops at UC Med Center in San Francisco. She went on to write For Yourself, a hands- on book for women. Almost 30 years later, it's still in print and selling strongly. Lonnie Barbach's other non-fiction books include For Each Other, a couple's guidebook, and books about intimacy, menopause, and lasting relationships.

In 1984 she edited her first groundbreaking collection of erotic stories, Pleasures. It's the first collection of erotica by women ever published. It's still in print, too, and the all-time best-seller among anthologies of erotica. The stories in the book are true, and superbly written. Several are by well-known writers. Pleasures includes classics of pre-safe-sex glory like Carol Conn's "A Few Words about Turning Thirty in Marin County, California" and my all-time favorite, "Morning Light."

"Stephen scrambled away from me as if he'd been shocked by electricity. I managed to untwist my underpants, but it was too late. There I lay naked, legs spread in the straw."

-- "Morning Light," by Beth Tashery Shannon

Pleasures was followed by another best-selling women's anthology, Erotic Interludes, which included authors like the poet Deena Metzger. One story, "One Florida Night," has become legendary. Then came a book by women and men, The Erotic Edge, with one section of paired stories by couples. Check out "A Matter of Attitude" by Clark Demorest -- unique setup, thermonuclear sex, and a very cool woman -- or Dina Vered's "The Accident," a sad-sweet tale of Jews and Arabs.

Seductions. (That's the book I'm supposed to be reviewing here!) It's a worthy addition, with admirably hot stories: try the two I've quoted from above, plus "The Other Woman," the full-on "Welcome Home," and a shot-to-the-heart tale about truth-telling, "I Wanted To" (see below). Those are just my recommendations, of course. We all come in different flavors; you may salivate over others.

"In a blur of arms, legs and mouths she had me lying on my back and she was on top of me, her knees bent, one of my legs between hers, the other up over her hip. . .She rocked steadily, pressing her pelvic bone into me. I felt her clitoris slide against mine. . ."

-- "Knowing," by Kate Fox

So what flavor is Seductions? More than anything else, humane. We see lots of sex on the bookstands: jack-off porn, Penthouse formulas, Gothic romance, fetish and kink, gay, straight. . . In "erotica," the current fad is hard- edged and aggressive, focused on intensity -- check out, for instance, the steady trend of Susie Bright's annual Best American Erotica in that direction. Lonnie Barbach gives us something kinder. We can care about the characters she anthologizes. Their interactions are usually positive. They get kinky, they leave inhibitions far behind, but they build relationships with others. They writhe with horniness and howl when they come and do things you wouldn't necessarily tell your mom about, but they model sex you could build a life with, sex where person comes before sensation. . .at least usually.

"[He] lifted me off his mouth. . .while he blew warm steady breaths against my sex. My God, I thought. Does he know what he's doing? Lick me there, for Christ's sake, lick me there!"

--"I Wanted To," Lisa Prosimo

Does that mean boring, vanilla sex? (I always flinch at the put-down implied by 'vanilla' -- aren't we working on sex-positive here, gang?) Some of the variations Lonnie offers: God fucking old ladies, a pussy-romp in the French court, a little boy-on-boy on BART, some wet-suit stuffing in a seaside parking lot, a private dick with a hard twist, D&S salted with revenge. Not dominant elements, but, hey, not bad for vanilla.

Give these "tales of erotic persuasion" a spin. Take Lonnie's outstretched hand, turn down the lights, let your heart begin to gallop. Come, she says. C'mon! You can trust me. You can.