I'm a pretty tough customer when it comes to erotica. It's like masturbation: you know how to do yourself best!

Contributor Cecilia Tan. Photo by Efrain Gonzalez.

That said, there is so much literary smut out there, it would be remiss of us to not review it for you. The folks at Carroll & Graf publish all the Mammoth books, many of which are erotic anthologies. Maxim Jakubowski is the editor of many, including The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica. This is the 2005 edition.

This tome includes work by many of the usual suspects: Patrick Califia, M. Christian, Cara Bruce, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Cecilia Tan, to name a few. The good news -- and possibly the bad news -- is that there is something for everyone. Which means if you only like BDSM stories or bisexuality or Silhouette Romance-type stuff, you're better off seeking out books that specifically cater to your proclivity. This is more of a sampler; use it to see which flavor of printed kink gets your motor running or perhaps broadens your erotic horizons.

Themes and topics in this year's Mammoth Book run the gamut: crossdressing, hallucinatory homosexual loss of virginity, dominance, hard-bitten crime plots, college-age sexual awakenings, a whole lot of "first time" experiences with every imaginable sex act. The revelatory nature of some stories is somewhat clichéd, simultaneously embarrassing and arousing. Settings span the globe, from the Australian Outback to Japan, London to San Francisco, Greece to the not-too-distant future.

Contributor M. Christian. Photo by Michael Rosen.

There are 45 stories, all previously published, many appearing in Scarlet Letters; Leather, Lace and Lust; and Clean Sheets.

M. Christian's sci-fi tech noir tango with necrophilia will thrill some and surely leave others flaccid, but at least he's adventurous. It's tough to make death sexy, but he does a bang-up job. Tara Alton's slutty, slangy "The End of Daphne Greenwood's Travel Career" had me squirming. Cara Bruce is still writing of jarringly dark, drug-addled sexual encounters. Sage Vivant's "The Key" is classic couples' erotica straight out of Penthouse Letters. Alison Tyler's "Ten Minutes in the Eighties" was touchingly nostalgic. The longest piece in the collection, Mike Kimera's "American Holidays," is an intricate character study of the myriad ways people's lives are entwined. There's a whole lot of sex in it, but somehow it just flows with the story. I enjoyed that one quite a bit.

Oddly, with the exception of the obviously fictional, such as the sci-fi and futuristic pieces, many of the stories feel voyeuristically autobiographical. It would be interesting to find out who writes about what they really know -- and enjoy personally -- and who doesn't. Whatever the genesis of these fictions, it's clear that office sex and one's initial encounter with BDSM enjoy high rotation in peoples' fantasy lives.

The stories are all a turn-on in their own way, but collectively they make for a somewhat schizophrenic masturbatory adventure. I suppose the way it would work best -- if you're hoping that reading erotica will enhance your sex life -- would be to read one story at a time. Trying to process a number of them in one evening gave me fitful dreams.

Treat it like a smorgasbord: graze through the offerings and choose the most appetizing. I guarantee there is more than enough here to sate your hunger.