Okay so yesterday was my grandpa's death anniversary, and I have a separate book review in relation to that already planned for next week. In the meantime, I'm writing two book reviews to pay homage to the author who helped me read the most consistently during this past year of bereavement, specifically over the past six months: Zane. I did not have reading or writing about Zane on my 2024 bingo board, but I also needed something escapist and unchallenging to keep my readerly self going, and her work showed up to meet that need. This review focuses on two famously salacious story collections of hers, The Sex Chronicles and Sex Chronicles II.
While I did grow up in a Black Expressions household (see my review of Victoria Christopher Murray's Joy for an explanation of what Black Expressions was), I was not one of those kids who snuck and read their mom's Zane books. But that was simply because my mom didn't buy Zane. So while I'd heard about Zane's reputation as "The Queen of Black Erotica" for the past 20-something years—her raunchy material having been adapted into TV shows and films and audio drama podcasts alike—I'd never read her work until May of this year. I was browsing at my local library's spring book sale when I found a dozen Zane books tucked together, donated by a Black lady in Pontiac who'd previously stuck address labels to the inside overs. I bought the four that intrigued me most. Now would finally be my opportunity to read Zane's work for myself and see what all the hype was about. I figured this experiment would either be amazing, or a cringefest.
And honestly, what I've read lands somewhere in the middle, leaning toward cringe but surprising me with how intentionally Zane pushes the limits of sex on paper, not only for shock value but also to coax her early 2000s readers beyond their comfort zones. I cannot say that I am now a fan of Zane after having read four of her books; her writing is... not my favorite. And even the supposed freakiest, nastiest, or most twisted scenes in the Sex Chronicles collections might be considered tame by today's standards. But if nothing else, Zane's work is accessible and entertaining (vivid scenes and direct, uncomplicated language), and I respect the significance of her encouraging Black women to expand and even live out their sexual fantasies when they had even less space to do so than they do today. Plus, thanks to her including other Black erotica authors in subsequent anthologies, I've been exposed to a different author whose novel I currently cannot put down! (More on that in the next review.)
The Sex Chronicles: Shattering the Myth by Zane
The first section, "Wild," is the warm-up. A woman who is often aroused by water sounds gets railed in the rain, against a tree, on the side of the road during ridiculously slow traffic ("The Interstate"). A woman stalks a barber who works at the shop her brother frequents, eventually seducing the barber at the shop after hours and getting the business in his chair ("The Barbershop"). A woman's random security inspection by a customs officer quickly becomes a lesbian encounter, and then an FFM threesome including her man ("The Airport"). A woman pleasures herself with a baton in her grandparents' attic after reading about a sexual encounter in her grandmother's diary, which she found in that same attic ("The Diary").
The next section, "Wilder," is cooking with grease. An introverted and anxious young professional/recent graduate recalls the origin of "SHE", her alter ego who's been having quick, one-off, anonymous, and nearly wordless dalliances with countless men since seducing her first target in a university library basement during freshman year ("Nervous"). A woman who has camera anxiety but also needs a professional photo taken for work, becomes instantly and mutually infatuated with the photographer conducting her photo shoot at his home studio, and winds up pleasuring herself with her eyes closed in front of him as he takes photos of her before they have sex ("A Flash Fantasy"). A woman laid up in the hospital, depressed and in pain with an elevated broken leg, gets treated to a picnic and lovemaking session in her hospital bed when her man sneaks back in after visiting hours to help her feel better; they listen to each other's heartbeats with a stethoscope while copulating ("Get Well Soon"). A blues singer who is newly single after catching her boyfriend cheating, touches herself thinking about her longtime friend and piano player in the backseat of a cab (knowing the driver is watching), and later has sex with said bandmate atop his piano in an empty club while imagining an audience watching them ("Harlem Blues"). A bride celebrates the night before her wedding at a male strip club and is treated with a trip to one of the private back rooms, where a male stripper dances for her and then has sex with her in the same room where two other couples are already mid-coitus; in hindsight, she believes that the spontaneity and uninhibitedness of the experience made her a better lover for her husband ("The Bachelorette Party"). An undergraduate assistant to a chemistry professor gets caught pleasuring herself in a lab with a test tube by said professor, and he joins in helping her reach orgasm with it; a rare example of non-PIV sex in this book, the assistant describes it as making love, not masturbation ("Body Chemistry 101").
And last but not least, "Off Da Damn Hook" is where Zane takes the most audacious swings. An assistant district attorney in DC explains the structure and activities of Alpha Phi Fuckem, the secret sex sorority for educated and professional Black women that she's a member of; they have monthly, themed, meticulously planned sex parties and orgies with Black men who are specially recruited for each event ("Alpha Phi Fuckem"). The general manager of an underground sex mall called Valley proudly lists its variety of offerings, including strip clubs, massage parlors, bathhouses, individual sex show booths and custom porn studios, a sex toy shop, a porn shop, restaurants and bars that serve bodily fluids/food made with fluids/food shaped like genitals/food that's eaten off of employees, and a matchmaking service based on sexual compatibility ("Valley of the Freaks"). A woman who's just been dumped by her boyfriend because he doesn't find her freaky enough and thinks he can set her aside for later, gets her revenge by showing up to his college friend's masquerade birthday party and boinking the birthday boy in front of everyone before escaping unrecognized ("Masquerade"). A clearly bisexual woman, clocking how disengaged her man is, calls her female dominatrix roommate and sex buddy from college to put on a woman-on-woman show to entice her man instead of, I don't know, having that same woman-on-woman experience to gratify her own needs ("Wanna Watch?"). A proud nymphomaniac shares her sexual philosophies and her journey getting pleasured by sexually-skilled men whom she refers to as "mad fuckers," including one she seduced into railing her twice at a house party for all to see ("Nymph"). A woman who moved to Alabama for work meets two men at a juke joint who are first cousins (to each other, not to her), and proceeds to have sex with both of them at the juke joint, in their car, and at the apartment of one of the men ("Kissin' Cousins"). A new divorcée and her friends travel from Detroit to an all-Black sexual playground in an unspecified Caribbean country ("Sex Me Down Village"). A sex worker explains why she views herself more as a "dream merchant" than a call girl, describing a few clients for whom she fulfills fantasies in a way that those men's wives or girlfriends won't due to Madonna-Whore complexes ("Dream Merchant"). A women's university student waits desperately for three years to be visited by a mysterious man who sneaks into students' dorm rooms at night to pleasure them orally before escaping back out their windows each time ("The Pussy Bandit"). The same narrator from the "Alpha Phi Fuckem" story recounts recruiting her male "playmate" for the national convention in Atlantic City, where a gigantic private casino orgy precedes a spa sex session and a formal banquet ("Alpha Phi Fuckem—The Convention").
Of course, The Sex Chronicles does have some issues. With few exceptions, the sex
scenes are heteronormative,
penetrative (focusing on PIV), and raw. The acts described are rather repetitive, pulling out is rare, no one is explicitly on birth control, and there is zero exchanging of STI test results before coitus. Condoms are
not mentioned until page 89 (in a story called "Wrong Number"), and then
again in only two
other stories. Granted, as irresponsible as it may be for Zane to overlook these things, the heteronormativity and the lack of safe sex
practices are probably typical of that time. I'm also willing to cut her
some slack for the fact that ultimately, this is a self-published book of
erotica, the realm of fantasy, not a sex ed brochure or public health pamphlet.
On
the plus side, the leading ladies in this book always get exactly what they want
sexually, exactly how they want it, and they always come away satisfied. In fact, most
stories end happily ever after with the woman married to or in a
committed relationship with the man who's pleasuring her, regardless of
if the trysts were initially meant to be casual or singular or not. Even
the stories
where women commit infidelity end optimistically,
because
they believe they've gained the skills to please their significant others better, or at the very least to be more comfortable
expressing and exploring what they desire.
And
that last part is truly the most endearing commonality across these
stories, male-centered though it may be: Women are
often eager to be more sexually adventurous, eager to be the "freaks"
men say they want, and would actually exhibit that if given the chance. That is
to say, if
men or situations made them feel safe enough to do so. If the men
they wished to experiment with were to want them back, and also be open to what
they have
in mind without judgment. If men would pay more attention to the
multitude of ways in which their women have
already been repeatedly indicating an interest in shaking things
up in the bedroom (or elsewhere). If men would listen to constructive
criticism that would
make them better lovers. If men would be receptive to women
leading, making more brazen demands, and introducing them to
something new. If women could access services and a sense of community that
would allow them
to enact their fantasies with support and anonymity. Black women in the
year 2000 are not as prudish as people might presume them to be, and Zane
clearly empathizes with their unmet needs and secret
longings in a way that was groundbreaking when The Sex Chronicles was published.
"For my loyal readers, I love each and every one of you, no matter what your race, no matter what your sexual persuasion. Making love is universal" (xiii)."Glancing over at you sitting on the piano bench and watching all the passion from your soul escape through your fingertips, I began to fantasize about how it would be if we made love, what your passionate fingers would feel like all over my body. Would you play my body with the same intensity as you played the piano, would you make me forget all the shit Kendall had done, would you show me what making real love was all about? (123)."I told myself that once I hit thirty, I was going to take the sexual-prime theory to heart and let go of all my inhibitions... The sexual-prime theory must be true, because the day after I turned thirty, my pussy gained a mind of its own. I was daydreaming about dick all the time, masturbating every dayum day, and began asking myself one question: If I can't wake up to a bagel with cream cheese and a stiff dick, why wake up at all?" (149-50).
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"Wilder" is still mostly aight, and attempts to address queerness more than last time. A woman who's been in a committed relationship with a woman for seven years and has been secure in her lesbianism for over a decade, starts craving penises again and blows up her relationship to act on that craving; she spends an entire night with a random man she spots while out one day, and after getting dumped and thrown out by her girlfriend, she dates bisexually with a preference for men ("Back to the Dick"). An exotic dancer and
aspiring model/actress from Idaho is artfully seduced by a fellow
female model from Kentucky, while they're waiting at a photographer's
loft for a nude photo shoot to start; this is the Idaho model's first time with another woman, she absolutely loves it, and what follows is a
threesome with the photographer and a pivot toward even more nude projects in her career ("Do You Really Want to Touch It?").
"So imagine that I'm touching you. Imagine that I'm always around, always there for you. Just close your eyes and feel me. Feel my hands all over your body. Feel me inside you. Feel my love surrounding you... Will you try to do that for me?" (93)."I'm not saying he was a manwhore like the guys from Deuce Bigalow when I met him, but he was surely knocking on whoredom's door" (105)."It was like a scene from an old, romantic black-and-white movie, walking off into the bedroom to finish the feelings. The only difference was, we both had innies instead of outies. And what a nice, delicious, scrumptious innie Betty had... It was such a strange and wicked feeling, but I loved it from jump street; having my mouth bursting at the seams with the meat of another woman" (205-206)."A sister can always fantasize, though, because what happens in a person's private thoughts carries no risk or judgment" (254).
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