Libido: Reviews: Erotica Project

By Sharon Peters

The Erotica Project began four years ago as a guerilla radio project on New York’s WBAI-FM. It put out onto the airwaves a series of over-the-top tales of women being sexual. It’s pieces -- a mix of confessional stories, music and engineering -- are confrontational, outrageous, and unafraid.

Now, from Adrenaline Studios, comes the CD version which works hard to push a lot of buttons having to do with sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. The project is a collaboration of three three-name folks (Lillian Ann Slugocki -- a name you have to love -- Erin Cressida Wilson (screenwriter of the interesting recent S/M relationship film, Secretary and John Gould Rubin) who managed to find one another in the Big Apple jungle.

Definitely not politically correct, these short stories chronicle women behaving very badly. These babes are foul-mouthed and nasty, yet very alive in their skins. Basically the CD looks at young women’s big-city sexual exploration from two perspectives. One traces a club babe’s exuberant over-the-top sexual partying. The other looks back from the perspective of an older, presumably wiser, woman, reflecting on the experiences that shaped her sexuality.

Built from a well-produced mix of stories, music and engineering effects, these 11 pieces remind me of Henry Miller’s Paris writing. The stories are gritty and vulgar and replete with bodily fluids. I find their charm -- rather like Miller’s -- in their palpable charmlessness – which is neatly enhanced and made contempo by the musical frameworks they inhabit.

This is not elegant "erotica." It’s in-your-face female sexual excess. As unashamed and unafraid as it is un-learned. But that’s what makes it fun. It’s babe fantasy without restraint or consequences. I find that sexy.