2021
Toronto-based Dierdre Winter is one of my favorite writers of erotica working today, publishing a range of stories and novellas which are consistently sensual, intelligent, and sexy. Her characters are believable, populating environments grounded in a realism which feels authentic and filled with erotic promise: reading her work, I feel like these events definitely could happen (or, perhaps, they already have happened in some form or another to the author, and she is transcribing events). Winter´s talents also do not seem to falter when she crosses over into different sub-genres of erotica--from lesbian and post-apocalyptic to hotwife and groups.
Winter also is particularly skilled at writing erotica about bisexuality, polyamory, and swinging. In Behind Closed Doors, she collects three shorter pieces together which are all told from the perspective of a bisexual woman, engaged in adventures which range from playful and hot to delightfully dirty. Opposite-sex, same-sex, spouse-swapping, groups--Winter provides a wonderful series of scenes here in a compact amount of pages. "Deep down," one of her characters remarks at one point, "we´re all filthy sluts."
In Annie, the opening story´s titular character accidentally spills wine on her laptop while masturbating to gay porn, later discovering that she now has the power to see the desires of those around her. One touch from Annie, and she learns that her husband Michael not only wants to treat her more roughly, but that he is interested in sucking the cock of his hiking buddy, Mark. Her newfound ability allows her to encourage her friends and loved ones to make their fantasies become real, to find release from the cages of convention.
At the beginning of Impossible Love, Amanda is being teased by her best friend Savannah for having a crush on her colleague Luke, from the law firm. To "take her mind off of things", she invites Amanda to join her and three nurses for an evening of drunken debauchery. The next morning, while still nursing a hangover, she accompanies Luke and another lawyer, Tom, out of town to try to salvage a last-minute defense for one of their firm´s clients. While there, the three discover their feelings for one another, and their own bisexuality. Returning home, can Amanda and Luke find a way to have their sexualities fulfilled, while at the same time nurture their new emotional bond?
In the final story, Zoey and Zach, Maddie and her husband Daniel join their two friends to a much-needed getaway in the Caribbean. While lounging in string-bikinis beside the water, they discover that Zoey and Zach are swingers, as well as bisexual. Curious and turned-on, Maddie suggests they try this with their friends. It´s so rare to find people who are sexy and who can hold a good conversation together; why not explore and enjoy a new dimension within their marriage?
Winter´s writing is clean, economical, and arousing. The sex scenes contained within Behind Closed Doors offer a range of scenes, acts, and imagined fantasies, making it practically a guarantee that readers will find at least a handful of episodes to get off to.
In addition, Winter´s erotic fiction showcases bisexual women and men in a positive light, providing scenarios of what healthy expressions of this often-misunderstood sexual identity could look like. Too frequently, bisexuals in fiction get trapped in recurring tropes: for women, their bisexuality is merely "an overture" to the inevitable presence of a male; for men, their bisexuality is characterized by with emotional angst, because he is "really" gay. In other words, bisexuals don´t exist on their own, and there are too few healthy representations of this, even in erotic literature.
Thankfully, Winter´s writing offers alternative narratives about bisexuality people which are positive, fun, and incredibly sexy. None of her characters have any form of mental illness, none are lying to their spouses or hurting their partners, and no one has their attraction to both men and women invalidated. In Behind Closed Doors, bisexuality is both normalized and celebrated, something which for this reader (an openly bisexual man for over 30 years) finds to be a very rare treat.
Oh, and Winter does emphasize one fundamental truth, which none of the characters here make any apology for: bisexuals are utterly filthy sluts.
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