Macho Sluts: Erotic Fiction

by Patrick Califia

When it was first published in 1988, Patrick Califia's Macho Sluts, a collection of S/M stories set in San Francisco's dyke bathhouses, sex parties, and S/M gay bars, shocked the lesbian community and caused an upheaval in the field of queer publishing. Nobody had ever written so frankly about the kinky potential of woman-to-woman sex (and nobody has ever done it any better). If any book is responsible for the formation of the modern lesbian leather community, this one is it.

Despite its graceful language, imaginative scenarios, and abundant humor, the lesbian press trashed Macho Sluts, and it became a focal point for the infamous legal battles between Canada Customs and Little Sister's, the gay and lesbian bookstore. But readers loved it, and to this day Macho Sluts remains a vital and moving classic that still has the power to educate, radicalize, and expand our notions of the body's potential to provide us with pleasure, pain, and love.

This new edition, part of Arsenal Pulp Press' Little Sister's Classics series resurrecting classics of LGBT literature, includes a new afterword by the author, and an introduction by Wendy Chapkis, a professor of sociology and women and gender studies at the University of Southern Maine in Portland.

Patrick Califia has written many books about radical sex, queer communities, and the repression of desire. Almost ten years ago, Califia transitioned from female to male; he now lives as a bisexual transman in San Francisco.

Genres: Erotica, Queer, Fiction, LGBT, Short Stories, Sexuality, BDSM

300 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1988

About the author

Patrick Califia, who formerly wrote under the names Pat Califia and Patrick Califia-Rice, is a writer of nonfiction (on men, gender, transgender identity, and sexuality) and fiction (erotica, poetry, and short stories).

Reviews

[Captainlaurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this as part of my voracious consumption of queer smut during my late teen coming-out days in the mid-90's. I thought that it was awesome and hot in a brilliantly filthy way that I'd never encountered before. Califia writes about beating the hell out of someone and then fisting them like some people write about religion, and I appreciate her for that. She's like a Jesus freak, except for hardcore queer fucking.

I read it a few times (some stories more than others) then my copy sat on my shelf for a few years until 2005 or so when I lent it to someone I went to college with. As far as I know it really got around, going from friend to friend all over Brooklyn.

I never saw it again.

[Liz · Rating 2 out of 5]

I guess this is the kind of thing you can't really argue over, but I didn't find it that hot and, you know, a lot of my interests are represented so I potentially should've. However! A lot of the stories were interesting anyway. "The Hustler" was great, it's more of a dystopic story about a world governed according to second wave radical feminist principles. There is a great bit where the protagonist is surprised during sex with another woman and the police disapprove because "now that it's possible to have equal heterosexual relationships, it's considered vaguely ungrateful to be queer" -- zing! a one-sentence takedown of political lesbianism. I also really liked "A Touch of Vanilla", an ostensibly vanilla story about someone going down on her lover, who takes forever to come. It's an arduous and even physically painful experience for her. Her internal narrative of service, duty, and transcending pain complicates the neat division between vanilla and kinky sex, and stayed with me for some time.

[Cecilia Tan · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I first got into the BDSM community back around 1991, there were only a tiny handful of books that every person I met had on their shelf. The Leatherman's Handbook (a nonfiction book) was one of them, and Macho Sluts was one of the others. The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty completed the triumvurate, one gay, one lesbian, one heterosexual(-ish). Of the three, Macho Sluts was the most readable, the most eye-opening, the most openly political about lust and kink. Decades later it is still an eye-opening book, even in the age of the Internet where I can find (for example) millions of words of Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy BDSM fiction and endless BDSM community blogs.

[CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian]

Well I know this isn't the erotica for me when I find the introduction and context of this book fascinating but wasn't into the actual stories. Published in the 80s during the anti-porn feminist wars, this book of well-written lesbian BDSM stories was controversial and popular. It became a cult classic, especially in Canada as Customs kept seizing it at the border when Vancouver's queer bookstore ordered it. Not for me, but definitely for others!

From the introduction:
"Some people cannot be trusted with a helpless body. You know who you are. Some people don't choose to take responsibility for the pain they inflict on others. Some people think it's kinder to ignore a need they don't understand, to starve someone in the name of decency or equality or love...I don't believe in God...But if you'd feel safer spending a night with one of them than you would with me or some other macho slut, I'll remember you in my prayers."

[Laurie]

Ik had dit boek in Nederlandse vertaling gekregen, uitgegeven in 1988 door de lesbische SM-stichting SMet. Boy, o boy, het was een ervaring, en de oude spelling met de c-als-k maakte het helemaal af.

[Mirjam Kok]

I read the introductory essays a couple of years ago (they make for an interesting read on their own), but wasn’t ready for the rest of it. Until Love Lies Bleeding (2024) brought me back to this book and my… god. It was a ride. Some stories turned me on, others turned me off, and some I found deeply disturbing. Even though the majority didn’t exactly tickle my pickle, it’s very well written and it was really interesting to learn about the history of leather dykes and the San Francisco community!

[Marjorie Elwood · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed the three introductions more than I did the stories, which pretty much left me cold. I much prefer the Alison Kaine series, which injects a great deal of humor into the BDSM scene. This collection took itself too seriously and the writing was pedantic at times, as when a dominatrix enumerated the number and types of whips she owned.

Having said that, this is a groundbreaking classic that opened up a new world of lesbian sexuality. The book was challenged repeatedly and was confiscated regularly by Canada Customs, until a court case that pitted Little Sisters, a glbt bookstore in Vancouver, against the government. From the Appendix: "We were successful in having the Supreme Court of Canada condemn the discriminatory, arbitrary, and irrational decision-making that was so prevalent prior to the Little Sister's case."

[Caty · Rating 3 out of 5]

The other stories are your basic lesbo BDSM mainstream fare so far (though I'm sure they were quite revolutionary in their day) but one story, "The Hustler", really stuck with me and may even be worth
buying the volume for. It's about a FEMINIST SOCIALIST dystopia that even I as a radical feminist found believable, showing that misogyny isn't the only ingredient in homophobia, whoraphobia, transphobia, and the fear and hatred of kink. And it's not just ideology either--Califia manages to paint the main character's world and her pain in a poignant, very personal way. Not to mention the amazing, heartbreaking way the story depicted the love between two street workers in a D/S relationship.
I know it's all just a metaphor for the 80s feminist porn wars, but I don't care.

[M. · Rating 2 out of 5]

For a kid that spent most of their adolescence online reading and writing smutty sci-fi fan-fiction, this book echoed a lot of conventions I was already well-acclimated to. And while I can't flat out say it was predictable, so-so erotica, sometimes the characters were just so... hokey, for lack of a better word, that I couldn't really get into the whole of the story plots. It mostly struck me as akin to some of the more poorly written fanfic you could find online back in the glory days of AOL and Live Journal, which is funny considering this is (justly) considered a sort of ground-breaking piece of work.

[S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

How to fuck.

[india :) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Best intro I've probably ever read and my favorite part of the book. actually woke as hell in even todays standards, and mind you this was from 1988. Like after reading this, I was like woah I totally get why people read nonfiction and books about ideas and thoughts. It was kinda awesome to learn. Porn is such a touchy subject, especially now when people have 'porn addictions' and sex work is talked about and done more freely. She writes something so introspective about porn x butchs x sexual freedom x fascism x female liberation x sadomasochism that i cant explain bc i know if i try, i will butcher the meaning that captured me. I dont want it to come across as this overdone argument that porn/plastic surgery/etc is feminist bc youre taking control of your body blah blah, because its not that at all. Literally a light bulb moment for me was this discussion about lesbians opening their minds to the porn they are "allowed" to consume. 'Straights and gay men take it for granted that they can use material about other groups of people to turn themselves on. A straight man flipping through a "lesbian" photo magazine doesn't worry about his masculinity. Why shouldn't we feel equally free to exploit non-lesbian sex objects? What we find erotic about gay men or straight sex is probably different from what gay men or straights consider important or arousing about themselves...Lesbian writers must have the option to write about men...Non-lesbians write about us without ever thinking about whether or not they are qualified.' A lot of times, the rush is about fantasizing about these desires, not the actual performance of them and that is why writing porn can be such an essential tool. I wish I could write a summary about the intro but I cant so read it yourself and you can be enlightened. Now on to the actual stories, didnt really care that much tbh. The whole point was that they were about sadomasochism and taboo topics, which also meant that there were a lot of topics i was not interested in. The author has a 9 o' cat tails whip kink because goddamn it was mentioned in every story girl we get it.
-"The Finishing School" was about an incestuous relationship between a dom (a mother) and her subs (the mother's daughter and the mother's sister). yeah couldnt really get into a child being sexually dommed by her mother
-"The Calyx of Isis" was the longest and most intense and most graphic. The main character had 2 cats named sodom and gomorrah and that was my favorite part of the book. I thought the idea of all of these sadist coming together to prove the loyalty of one of their subs was in theory a beautiful experience. It was def a lot and they have this crazy long scene where she like obliterated at the end and then they all drive home and have an orgy? like girl what are you talking about. that girl needs to sleep for 3 day straight, it immediately took me out bc it was so unrealistic.
-"The Hustler" gave me the vibes of a society that is so left its right. Where society has become matriarchal and in turn becomes Terf-y too. Butches are trying to be men, kink is demeaning, dildos are anti feminist. Interesting but gave nothing.
-"The surprise party" was my least favorite, it really grossed me out. This butch getting arrested by cops and forced to have sex with them and her unintentionally receiving pleasure from admiring their masculinity and presence and height and also dicks. The cops part just threw me off from the start to the end because i can understand gender envy but why couldnt it have been like firefighters or emt's or something. And then finding out at the end like this was all planned for these fake cops to abduct her and tie her up and pretend to r*pe her was just too much.

Quotes:
-'The things that seem beautiful, inspiring, and life-affirming to me seem ugly, hateful, and ludicrous to most other people.'
-'I do not believe that sex has an inherent power to transform the world. I do not believe that pleasure is always an anarchic force for good. I do not believe we can fuck our way to freedom. But this is not what the discourse of sexual repression tells us. In that discourse, unleashed sex has enormous disruptive potential. Minority forms of sex have to be repressed or the social contract will hang in tatters. People will look to their friends and lovers for warmth, affection, love and support instead of to their biological families... I suspect that what is really being protected by censorship, anti-abortion and homophobic campaigns is the self-image of the so called majority.'
-' "You don't get rid of that until I say so. Now crawl over here and lick my big, fascist boots." ' LOL

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pat Califia is a perverted literary genius. I don't just mean that she writes about sexy taboos with great skill. She has the will and insight to stare into the face of the our collective psychological abyss and mine it for all its erotic potential. That's no easy feat by any means, but for me what makes Califia a genius is the fact that she is also willing to candidly discuss the political/moral implications of her work and the quest to get off in repressive times. I would like to think that the political landscape has changed for the better since this book was originally published in 1988, but the intro this collection of shorts stories is both a frightening and insightful analysis of the sexual politics landscape at the time.

As for the stories, there is a little bit of everything in this collection: Victoriana, sci-fi/fantasy, girl on girl, guy on guy, hetero, orgies, etc. All of it heavily laced with Dominance/submission and Sadomasochistic themes. Definitely a very hot collection, but honestly the stories are intriguing in their own right even if you aren't looking for erotic thrills.

[Maud · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the one about the cops that was hot

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn't a review, it's a collection of thoughts as I read the book. There may be spoilers, although I reject the notion that a book published thirty years ago can really be "spoiled".
Introduction: it's not an intoduction, it's a manifesto, and that's with a capital M as in manifest, by definition: "display or show (a quality or feeling) by one's acts or appearance; demonstrate."
Califia is saying, "If you want the erotic fiction you desire, first you must demonstrate what it is." That's this book. Califia is correct that the specifics are dated, but it contains relevant historical information on censorship.

Finally on to the meat of the matter: the first story, "Jessie" (AKA the starfucker). It starts out like your typical hookup story, but it promises to take a darker turn, and quickly. Am I going to do a play-by-play (or blow-by-blow) of this book? Quite possibly. My reaction at the end of the first story: Califia can work up a kinky-hot-sex scene, but doesn't seem to know how to wrap up a story.

"The Finishing School" - whoa, these short stories are long, especially for porn. I guess people's attention spans were a lot longer thirty years ago. Anyhow, this one is strictly for the aficionados (if there are any) of faux-Victorian lesbian incest porn. Age of consent, anyone? Also, not all of these sluts are macho by anyone's definition. Also, Califia's writing goes from the sublime to the ludicrous, example quote here:
"[Mamma] caught influenza while two counts, one French and one Italian, were making love to her in an open carriage on her way back to our hotel. They were quite piques because her fever made her delirious before she could tell them which of their countries had won her accolade for amative skill. " My least favourite story in the book.

I've been told that "The Calyx of Isis" is the real deal, and the heart of this collection. It had better be, since at 90 pages, it's practically a porn novella, especially in this era of the short attention span. Calyx of Isis: Hot wish-fulfillment fantasy, and I'm only talking about the establishing premise, the notion that there would be a permanent. multi-story, well-run, well-appointed and scrupulously maintained woman-owned women-only sex-positive space for dancing, socializing, and other more intimate activities. File under "would never happen", or "this is why we don't get to have nice things".
And later: Thirty-three pages into Calyx of Isis: 'Scuse me while I get some graph paper to map out the dungeon. Fortunately, the author already rolled all the stats for this quest, because this not-so-short story has more characters than a Russian novel.
Still later: 'I continue to plod or plow through Calyx of Isis. Upside 'leather-and-fur-bikini'. Downside? All those cans of Crisco." This story can be an ordeal for the reader as well as the fictional protagonist, but as a work of fiction it sets up the scenarios, the archetypes and the stereotypes of lesbian S&M writing well enough to be a reference point for much of the works that followed.

Quote: from "The Hustler" "You can go a long way on middle-class rectitude and sheer ignorance." This may be my favourite story of this collection, and that quote is only one of the reasons.

"Surprise Party": if cop/leather fantasy is your thing, this one starts off well. Even if that’s not your taste, stick with it, as it gets better. My personal preference is a plot with a beginning, a middle and a happy ending, and this story comes through on all counts. Will definitely re-read.

"The Vampire" This story could be the mother of all those sexy-vampire stories, Personally I'm not a fan of the erotic-lesbian-vampire genre. It's too much akin to the lesbian-dies-in-the-end trope, except in this version she's already undead. However, it does highlight once again Califia's fascination with sex as a predator-prey activity.

"The Spoiler": another cat-and-mouse game of obsession, seduction and humiliation, this time with no female characters at all. It's probably the most unusual story in this collection. Fascinating, yes, but erotic? Your mileage may vary.

"A Touch of Vanilla": supposedly the only story in the volume that doesn't feature hard-core kink, and yet I would like to dispute the label. It's like Califia was thinking, "I'm writing all this niche erotic fiction for the S&M crowd, I should do something for the non-kinksters that is as kinky as possible in that genre." And so they wrote a story about cunnilingus as an ordeal.

The Afterword: "A Note Lesbians, AIDS, and Safer Sex". DISCLAIMER: you shouldn't read this as a safer sex guide or (maybe not even read it at all}. It seemed obligatory in the late 1980's, when HIV-AIDS was not well understood and the death toll was rising, to include as much knowledge as possibly about the disease and ways to reduce personal risk, but this information definitely reflects the state of knowledge at that time.

[Fulani Fulani · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this some time ago, and it made a lasting impression. It's a story collection, with a with all the stories on a lesbian BDSM theme. The longest story revolves around a proof-of-submission ordeal in a BDSM club, with a woman becoming the submissive of the club owner. Other stories range from dystopian near-future SF in a female-dominated society, to the acting out of kidnap scenarios. That said, it's also a clever collection with intellectual arguments and propositions underlying the stories and some experimentation with style. It's an exemplar any fetish writer should read, and for readers it's a great benchmark for at least some forms of writing about BDSM and fetish.

[Danika at The Lesbrary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Macho Sluts is a book that apparently needs a lot of introduction: 75 pages of it out of the 400 page book. It makes sense, though, because a lot of the appeal and importance of Macho Sluts comes from the reaction to it. It was originally published in the 80s, during the feminist sex wars. BDSM was seen as a patriarchal power display, and something lesbians just didn’t do. Macho Sluts inspired a lot of outrage, but it also just kept selling...

Read the rest of my review here: http://lesbrary.com/2012/07/29/danika...

[HeavyReader · Rating 3 out of 5]

I used to be really into the sex-centered short stories of Pat Callifa, but I don't know if I am so much any more. They're a bit too hardcore SM for me these days.

Pat sure can write.

Warning: This book contains possibly triggering material.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

pat califia, aside from being a pretty kick ass activist for trans folk, is a marvelous writer of eroticism. this book has my favorite kink erotic fiction ever.."the surprise party"..where three gay cops abduct and have their way with a butch lesbian!

[Moose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it. Loved the lush writing that was so rich and talented even when it turned me off; loved all the essays that added context for such an important part of queer history; loved the variety of stories.

[Kate Klein · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a complicated "four stars" for me. I definitely didn't like all of it, and there were parts of it that I really DIDN'T like, but the parts of it that I didn't like made me think a whole lot and I got a lot out of that.

[Mo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I used to strategically leave this lying around in my room when I was in college, just in case anyone had any...questions.

[Sheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

see review of No Mercy.

[Jeanette · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another excellent book of S/M stories by my favorite author. Tasty!

[Mischief]

what more is there to say????

[Warren · Rating 4 out of 5]

hottt!

[Valency · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hardcore (and sometimes disturbing) lesbian s/m erotica. Yummy. "The Calyx of Isis" remains one of the most erotic stories I've ever read!

[Lorraine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite hot in some parts, but it's a little tiring to see fucking for pages after pages after pages after pages....

I've given it a 3, but I would give 3.5 stars if I could...

[Evelyn]

Mostly it's the story about the daughter being sent to boarding school that I love. So hot!

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, hot porn!

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Macho Sluts: Erotic Fiction by Pat Califia (1994)