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The Surrender
Alternate cover edition for ISBN 0007221509 / 9780007221509
For previous cover edition see here
For previous cover edition see here
Few women do it and even fewer will admit to it. But in Toni Bentley's daring and intimate memoir, The Surrender, she pulls the sheets back on an erotic experience that's been forbidden since the Bible and celebrates "the joy that lies on the other side of convention, where risk is real and rapture resides." From Story of O to The Kiss to The Sexual Life of Catherine M., readers have been enthralled with sexually subversive memoirs by women. But even those erotic classics didn't navigate the psychosexual terrain that Bentley does when she meets a lover who introduces her to a radical and unexpected pleasure, to the "holy" act that she came to see as her awakening.
The Surrender is a witty, intelligent, and eloquent exploration of one woman's obsession that will be sure to leave readers questioning their own desires.
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
87 people are currently reading
1033 people want to read
About the author
Toni Bentley
12 books29 followersToni Bentley danced with George Balanchine's New York City Ballet for ten years. She is the author of five books, all named New York Times Notable Books, which include "Winter Season, A Dancer's Journal," "Holding On to the Air" (the autobiography of Suzanne Farrell co-authored with Farrell), "Costumes by Karinska," "Sisters of Salome," and "The Surrender, An Erotic Memoir." Her essay, "The Bad Lion" (originally published in the New York Review of Books) was selected by Christopher Hitchens for Best American Essays 2010. She writes frequently for the New York Times Book Review, the Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, Playboy, the Daily Beast, Vogue, Vanity Fair and other publications. She has been invited to give talks at Harvard, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Rutgers, Middlebury College and the THiNK Conference 2013 in Goa, India. "The Surrender" has been adapted into a one-woman play that premiered in January 2013 in a production by the Spanish National Theater in Madrid, Spain, and it will have its English-language world premiere at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2013. She is the recipient of a 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 126 reviews
August 14, 2015
Look, believe me, I'm as surprised as anyone to find myself giving four stars to an ass-fucking memoir written by a professional ballerina. Especially with the ghastly soft-porn image they've stuck on the e-book version. But here we are. We just have to deal with this now and move on; I've rated The Surrender above The Great Gatsby. That is a thing that's happened.
To be honest when I got this I thought I was mainly in it for the comic relief. And my god, did it deliver. This is the funniest book I've read all year – though much of it apparently unintentional. Still. If you like the idea of encountering deadpan lines like
then this is the book for you. I didn't know a whole lot about Toni Bentley before this; I've read a couple of her pieces in the New York Times and I was peripherally aware that she'd written a well received memoir of her time as a dancer at the New York City Ballet (Winter Season: A Dancer's Journal). I wish I could have seen her publisher's face when she announced this one as a follow-up.
Here Bentley writes not primarily as a dancer (though her background is a key part of the book), but rather as a self-declared ‘anal zealot’. The religious connotations of the word are not inapposite. Sodomy for Toni – I feel I can call her Toni, we became pretty intimately acquainted while I was reading this yesterday – is quite literally a religious experience, as she explains:
Or:
Or:
But Toni, think of the autopsy! It is first hilarious, then jaw-dropping, and ultimately almost moving to see her desperately struggling to convey in mere earth-words what a transcendent experience it is for her to take one up the tradesman's. Bentley is well-read – at one point she goes into some detail about her favourite authors, Nin, Miller, Lawrence, of course; also Simone Weil, Woolf, Mann, and, especially, reams of Kierkegaard – and she draws on all the literary and philosophical allusions she can muster to describe the importance of meeting the Übermensch who finally took her anal virginity. ‘Like Sir Richard Burton entering Mecca,’ she begins, improbably – and yes she really is going to push through with this metaphor—
The point where I broke down completely on the train came when I hit the following sober declaration.
This has now moved so far beyond satire that, paradoxically, you actually end up forced to take it all kind of seriously: a remarkable achievement of Bentley's prose for which I give her great credit. Anyway, you get the point. Since that first transorgasmic experience, she has considered herself
you know, in case you forgot that part.
Nicholson Baker says somewhere – I think it might be in Vox – that anal is one of those acquired tastes that you don't really understand in your twenties but come to appreciate in your thirties. But I think this might be a generational thing. Bentley is nearly twenty years older than me, and I'm not sure for people my age, in Europe, whether anal congress has quite the same power to become the psychosexual epiphany it was for her (although I do know at least one person who had a not-dissimilar response to it).
And then for the generation under me, of course, it's basically third-date material nowadays – or so at least I'm led to believe by my moody and cursory attempts to keep up with popular culture. Given the kind of porn available everywhere today, I can only assume that schoolkids must now have the kind of anatomical know-how that used to be reserved for only the most diligent proctologists.
In Bentley's case – to get back to the book – she is so obsessed with hanging on to some memory of these out-of-body assgasms that she keeps an anal diary to record the details of every encounter she has with her lover. And then of course there's The Box. Oh lord, The Box. The Box is a sacred chest, like a reliquary, in which she has decided to keep all the used condoms – yes, really – that have been employed in these assignations. Nearly three hundred of them, filled with semen and smeared with KY jelly, stuck in a box on the window-sill.
Good luck getting that image out of your head.
The funny thing is, what makes this memoir remarkable and honest is not really the anal sex at all. It's her attitude to sexuality and relationships in general. When, immediately post-divorce, she has a satisfying fling with her masseur, she writes:
It is very rare to find someone willing to write seriously about how important sex is to them in this way. However you feel about her personal preferences, for Bentley sex is not some transient pleasure on the side, it's central to what she wants out of life and central to who she is.
This primacy of the sexual experience is pursued to the detriment of any accompanying relationship. ‘I don't trust love,’ she says. ‘I've heard it declared too often. But I trust lust completely.’ Even when she finds the man who shows her the light (i.e. this guy who fucks her in the ass), with whom she is clearly in love – and it seems mutual – there is no relationship at all outside of meeting for anal sex twice a week. Deliberately so: they don't have to worry about laundry, washing-up, all the quotidian banalities that can make it difficult to maintain ‘the spark’ – she wants only spark. This goes on for three years, and they barely even have dinner together.
This, I think, is where The Surrender is properly challenging. She does not want monogamy – they have a don't ask, don't tell policy and Bentley's jealousy is balanced by her attraction to the idea of him as a libidinous free spirit. She occasionally sees other people herself whom she can boss around in bed, allowing her to remain perfectly, purely submissive when she's with Him. Power play is indeed the whole point of anal sex for Bentley.
And elsewhere:
Is it because you showed them The Box?
Given all this refreshingly un-doctrinaire sexual politics, which in many ways is hugely positive just because she's so unapologetic about it, it's a shame that she ends up denigrating all those who have boring old pedestrian vaginal sex. The squares! It's like she can't get her head around the fact that some people's preferences may be different. For those who opt for what she describes, rather infelicitously, as ‘the well-trodden vaginal trail’, she has nothing but scorn. Vaginas, she scoffs,
‘Vaginas for babies, asses for art,’ she concludes – another of those slogans that one likes to think Bentley has cross-stitched on a scatter cushion somewhere.
But it's that attitude, along with the gender politics, the threesomes, the insane true-believer schtick, the very sexy passages about getting ready to meet a lover, the Kierkegaard references, that make this book at once hilarious and weirdly inspiring. She is not tiptoeing around anything (and this is someone who can tiptoe en pointe if she wants to): she just really, really loves having anal sex and she is trying as hard as she can to explain why. It's the kind of thing you want to talk about with your friends when you're drunk but are not comfortable recommending when you're sober. Well I'm drunk right now and I can tell you, it's no Gatsby, but it's actually pretty great.
To be honest when I got this I thought I was mainly in it for the comic relief. And my god, did it deliver. This is the funniest book I've read all year – though much of it apparently unintentional. Still. If you like the idea of encountering deadpan lines like
The edge of my ass is the sexual event horizon
then this is the book for you. I didn't know a whole lot about Toni Bentley before this; I've read a couple of her pieces in the New York Times and I was peripherally aware that she'd written a well received memoir of her time as a dancer at the New York City Ballet (Winter Season: A Dancer's Journal). I wish I could have seen her publisher's face when she announced this one as a follow-up.
Here Bentley writes not primarily as a dancer (though her background is a key part of the book), but rather as a self-declared ‘anal zealot’. The religious connotations of the word are not inapposite. Sodomy for Toni – I feel I can call her Toni, we became pretty intimately acquainted while I was reading this yesterday – is quite literally a religious experience, as she explains:
I am an atheist, by inheritance. I came to know God experientially, from being fucked in the ass – over and over and over again.
Or:
The others just made me come. With him I came to…the Kingdom.
Or:
That's all I need. Over and over and over. I want to die with him in my ass.
But Toni, think of the autopsy! It is first hilarious, then jaw-dropping, and ultimately almost moving to see her desperately struggling to convey in mere earth-words what a transcendent experience it is for her to take one up the tradesman's. Bentley is well-read – at one point she goes into some detail about her favourite authors, Nin, Miller, Lawrence, of course; also Simone Weil, Woolf, Mann, and, especially, reams of Kierkegaard – and she draws on all the literary and philosophical allusions she can muster to describe the importance of meeting the Übermensch who finally took her anal virginity. ‘Like Sir Richard Burton entering Mecca,’ she begins, improbably – and yes she really is going to push through with this metaphor—
he is the first Westerner to have infiltrated the tangled jungle of my bowels, my uncharted territory, the heart of my darkness.
The point where I broke down completely on the train came when I hit the following sober declaration.
Ass-fucking is the event in which Rainer Maria Rilke's hallowed dictum to “live the question” is, in fact, finally embodied.
This has now moved so far beyond satire that, paradoxically, you actually end up forced to take it all kind of seriously: a remarkable achievement of Bentley's prose for which I give her great credit. Anyway, you get the point. Since that first transorgasmic experience, she has considered herself
changed ever since. Forever changed. And it began physically with his cock in my ass,
you know, in case you forgot that part.
Nicholson Baker says somewhere – I think it might be in Vox – that anal is one of those acquired tastes that you don't really understand in your twenties but come to appreciate in your thirties. But I think this might be a generational thing. Bentley is nearly twenty years older than me, and I'm not sure for people my age, in Europe, whether anal congress has quite the same power to become the psychosexual epiphany it was for her (although I do know at least one person who had a not-dissimilar response to it).
And then for the generation under me, of course, it's basically third-date material nowadays – or so at least I'm led to believe by my moody and cursory attempts to keep up with popular culture. Given the kind of porn available everywhere today, I can only assume that schoolkids must now have the kind of anatomical know-how that used to be reserved for only the most diligent proctologists.
In Bentley's case – to get back to the book – she is so obsessed with hanging on to some memory of these out-of-body assgasms that she keeps an anal diary to record the details of every encounter she has with her lover. And then of course there's The Box. Oh lord, The Box. The Box is a sacred chest, like a reliquary, in which she has decided to keep all the used condoms – yes, really – that have been employed in these assignations. Nearly three hundred of them, filled with semen and smeared with KY jelly, stuck in a box on the window-sill.
Good luck getting that image out of your head.
The funny thing is, what makes this memoir remarkable and honest is not really the anal sex at all. It's her attitude to sexuality and relationships in general. When, immediately post-divorce, she has a satisfying fling with her masseur, she writes:
I knew right then that my decision to leave my marriage and break those vows before God was worth it. Worth it all for those two hours.
It is very rare to find someone willing to write seriously about how important sex is to them in this way. However you feel about her personal preferences, for Bentley sex is not some transient pleasure on the side, it's central to what she wants out of life and central to who she is.
I am most alive, most observant, and most intelligent when sexually engaged.
This primacy of the sexual experience is pursued to the detriment of any accompanying relationship. ‘I don't trust love,’ she says. ‘I've heard it declared too often. But I trust lust completely.’ Even when she finds the man who shows her the light (i.e. this guy who fucks her in the ass), with whom she is clearly in love – and it seems mutual – there is no relationship at all outside of meeting for anal sex twice a week. Deliberately so: they don't have to worry about laundry, washing-up, all the quotidian banalities that can make it difficult to maintain ‘the spark’ – she wants only spark. This goes on for three years, and they barely even have dinner together.
I preferred sex on an empty stomach, and to eat alone with a good book.
This, I think, is where The Surrender is properly challenging. She does not want monogamy – they have a don't ask, don't tell policy and Bentley's jealousy is balanced by her attraction to the idea of him as a libidinous free spirit. She occasionally sees other people herself whom she can boss around in bed, allowing her to remain perfectly, purely submissive when she's with Him. Power play is indeed the whole point of anal sex for Bentley.
If a man can possess a woman sexually—really possess—he won't need to control her ideas, her opinions, her clothes, her friends, even her other lovers. In my experience of many lovers, only he has truly possessed me and so set me free. He fucks my ass for hours with a dick an inch too big for the job: that is possession.
And elsewhere:
He was the one who treated me like his—in bed. All the others treated me like theirs out of bed, but in bed I could smell their fear.
Is it because you showed them The Box?
Given all this refreshingly un-doctrinaire sexual politics, which in many ways is hugely positive just because she's so unapologetic about it, it's a shame that she ends up denigrating all those who have boring old pedestrian vaginal sex. The squares! It's like she can't get her head around the fact that some people's preferences may be different. For those who opt for what she describes, rather infelicitously, as ‘the well-trodden vaginal trail’, she has nothing but scorn. Vaginas, she scoffs,
are old news—tired, betrayed, overused, reused, abused—and have been overly publicized, politicized, and redeemed. They are no longer naughty, no longer the place for defiance, rebellion, or rebirth. Pussies are now too politically correct. The ass is where it's at: the playground for anarchists, iconoclasts, artists, explorers, little boys, horny men, and women desperate to relinquish, even temporarily, the power that has been so hard won and so cruelly awarded by the feminist movement.
‘Vaginas for babies, asses for art,’ she concludes – another of those slogans that one likes to think Bentley has cross-stitched on a scatter cushion somewhere.
But it's that attitude, along with the gender politics, the threesomes, the insane true-believer schtick, the very sexy passages about getting ready to meet a lover, the Kierkegaard references, that make this book at once hilarious and weirdly inspiring. She is not tiptoeing around anything (and this is someone who can tiptoe en pointe if she wants to): she just really, really loves having anal sex and she is trying as hard as she can to explain why. It's the kind of thing you want to talk about with your friends when you're drunk but are not comfortable recommending when you're sober. Well I'm drunk right now and I can tell you, it's no Gatsby, but it's actually pretty great.
August 21, 2017
This is Toni Bentley's butt-fuck memoir, about how she found God up her ass. I'm serious.
"I came to know God experientially, from being fucked in the ass—over and over and over again."
"I want to die with him in my ass"
It's a pretty good read, I have to say, although I wish I knew exactly how much of the humor was intentional. A lot of it reads like Mad Libs entries where all the inserted words and phrases involve ass: "True happiness can be found... in the ass." "Love is... taking it up the ass." "The last taboo is... ass." "I never got over my childhood until I explored the joy of... ass" "My training as a ballerina prepared me for... ass."
If all you want to know is what I think of The Surrender, you're done now. But if you want to read about the unusual circumstances in which I read it, read on. (I won't tell you yet if it involves ass. That will be a surprise.)
I read this years ago, standing up in a bookshop, hypnotized. Then I heard the sound of clapping. I went to see what was going on, and saw an author standing by a table of books, with a small audience. I went closer to see who it was, thinking that if it wasn't anyone I'd heard of, I'd check her out anyway because hey, she's on tour and some day that'll be me and maybe her book would be really cool and something I'd want to read and then I'd buy it and make her happy and justify this leg of her tour.
When I got close enough to read the sign, which advertised "Barbara DeAngelis: author of How Did I Get Here? : Finding Your Way to Renewed Hope and Happiness When Life and Love Take Unexpected Turns and Are You the One for Me?: Knowing Who's Right and Avoiding Who's Wrong," three things happened:
1. I realized that I knew who the author was, and that I'd flipped through some of her books before, and that I'd found them insipid, cliched, and unquestioning of defunct gender roles.
2. A woman in the audience said, quite loudly, "There's a seat here in the front!"
3. Barbara DeAngelis said, "Come on in, there's a seat right here."
Since, after all, some day it would be me up there... I pretended that I had intended to attend the thing, and obediently sat down.
Barbara DeAngelis proceeded to talk for forty minutes without break. She used words like "authenticity," "healing," "wholeness," and "transformative." She referred to Native American vision quests. She asked all of us who had had an experience we didn't expect to have happen to us occur in the last year to raise our hands. She said that we thought we'd had a good day when things like our job, our family, and our friends were all doing well, and a bad day when bad things happened to those things that we cared about, but we should have a good day because of what's inside of us, not because of outside events-- that if we were dying, we'd say it was a good day just because we were alive, so we should always say it's a good day because we're alive. She said that we don't have mid-life crises, we have mid-life opportunities for change.
I didn't want to be horribly rude and walk out, especially from my first row seat, so I amused myself by imagining how Toni Bentley would have written DeAngelis' books: How Did I Get Up Your Ass? : Finding Your Way to Renewed Hope and Happiness in the Ass When Life and Love Take Unexpected Turns into Ass and Are You the One for My Ass?: Knowing Who's Right for Your Ass and Avoiding Who's Wrong for Your Ass.
Barbara DeAngelis informed us that she had built a career out of total honesty and straightforwardness, and yet she realized that there were parts of herself that she had been hiding from the world, and so she decided that in order to be a truly authentic person, she would have to come out of the closet and reveal those significant aspects of herself that she'd been holding back out of fear.
Ass, I thought. Ass, ass, ass! Please tell us that authenticity lies in ass!.
"My psychic talents," she said. "My great work as a spiritual healer and counselor. I have helped so many people, I have so much compassion, and I wish to share that... Now... With all of you."
She looked into all our eyes, dramatically, one by one. I sat there until it went to question and answers, then I ostentatiously checked my watch, mimed "Eeek, it's late!" and fled. Even so, I'm sure she thought I was an ass.
"I came to know God experientially, from being fucked in the ass—over and over and over again."
"I want to die with him in my ass"
It's a pretty good read, I have to say, although I wish I knew exactly how much of the humor was intentional. A lot of it reads like Mad Libs entries where all the inserted words and phrases involve ass: "True happiness can be found... in the ass." "Love is... taking it up the ass." "The last taboo is... ass." "I never got over my childhood until I explored the joy of... ass" "My training as a ballerina prepared me for... ass."
If all you want to know is what I think of The Surrender, you're done now. But if you want to read about the unusual circumstances in which I read it, read on. (I won't tell you yet if it involves ass. That will be a surprise.)
I read this years ago, standing up in a bookshop, hypnotized. Then I heard the sound of clapping. I went to see what was going on, and saw an author standing by a table of books, with a small audience. I went closer to see who it was, thinking that if it wasn't anyone I'd heard of, I'd check her out anyway because hey, she's on tour and some day that'll be me and maybe her book would be really cool and something I'd want to read and then I'd buy it and make her happy and justify this leg of her tour.
When I got close enough to read the sign, which advertised "Barbara DeAngelis: author of How Did I Get Here? : Finding Your Way to Renewed Hope and Happiness When Life and Love Take Unexpected Turns and Are You the One for Me?: Knowing Who's Right and Avoiding Who's Wrong," three things happened:
1. I realized that I knew who the author was, and that I'd flipped through some of her books before, and that I'd found them insipid, cliched, and unquestioning of defunct gender roles.
2. A woman in the audience said, quite loudly, "There's a seat here in the front!"
3. Barbara DeAngelis said, "Come on in, there's a seat right here."
Since, after all, some day it would be me up there... I pretended that I had intended to attend the thing, and obediently sat down.
Barbara DeAngelis proceeded to talk for forty minutes without break. She used words like "authenticity," "healing," "wholeness," and "transformative." She referred to Native American vision quests. She asked all of us who had had an experience we didn't expect to have happen to us occur in the last year to raise our hands. She said that we thought we'd had a good day when things like our job, our family, and our friends were all doing well, and a bad day when bad things happened to those things that we cared about, but we should have a good day because of what's inside of us, not because of outside events-- that if we were dying, we'd say it was a good day just because we were alive, so we should always say it's a good day because we're alive. She said that we don't have mid-life crises, we have mid-life opportunities for change.
I didn't want to be horribly rude and walk out, especially from my first row seat, so I amused myself by imagining how Toni Bentley would have written DeAngelis' books: How Did I Get Up Your Ass? : Finding Your Way to Renewed Hope and Happiness in the Ass When Life and Love Take Unexpected Turns into Ass and Are You the One for My Ass?: Knowing Who's Right for Your Ass and Avoiding Who's Wrong for Your Ass.
Barbara DeAngelis informed us that she had built a career out of total honesty and straightforwardness, and yet she realized that there were parts of herself that she had been hiding from the world, and so she decided that in order to be a truly authentic person, she would have to come out of the closet and reveal those significant aspects of herself that she'd been holding back out of fear.
Ass, I thought. Ass, ass, ass! Please tell us that authenticity lies in ass!.
"My psychic talents," she said. "My great work as a spiritual healer and counselor. I have helped so many people, I have so much compassion, and I wish to share that... Now... With all of you."
She looked into all our eyes, dramatically, one by one. I sat there until it went to question and answers, then I ostentatiously checked my watch, mimed "Eeek, it's late!" and fled. Even so, I'm sure she thought I was an ass.
February 1, 2025
I read this because of Warwick's hilarious review, which, I can now say, excellently captures the spirit of this oeuvre. Let me just quote his first sentence: "Look, believe me, I'm as surprised as anyone to find myself giving four stars to an ass-fucking memoir written by a professional ballerina."
June 13, 2010
The Surrender, Toni Bentley's fifth book, has feminists gnawing off their own limbs and male book reviewers salivating like Cujo and carrying around their blue balls in bowling bags. Make you want to read it yet?
It's incredibly daring and provocative, and while it is definitely graphic, this isn't hardcore porn by a long shot. It's witty, informational, and at times, moving. So what is the damned book about, already?
It's a memoir about anal sex.
Not just anal sex, but the connection between that particular act of penetration and the opening up to the realm of the divine, or spirit, or God (or whatever term you'd like to use to fill in that blank, feel free!) It explores the idea of submission to something greater than yourself, whether that's a ten inch cock, or the God of your understanding. After reading this memoir, I'm pretty sure that Bentley is convinced they're one and the same, and after experiencing anal sex myself in much the same way as she often describes, I'm not so sure she's wrong!
I don't necessarily like this woman all of the time, but do I understand her. She is an intelligent and insightful author, and in spite of the rantings of her feminist critics, she has a deep understanding of the feminine.
Bentley was a New York City ballet dancer for ten years, and in the book, she describes how she began a rather adventurous polyamorous lifestyle after her divorce. She meets her lover, "A-Man," through a threesome that eventually turns twosome. He introduces her to the world of anal sex, and the rest of the book is her cataloguing of their anal adventures mixed with a humorous look at the history, laws and taboos against anal sex.
Most of those in the mainstream who encountered her book when it was released in 2004 were shocked by its content, although I imagine if you're reading this review on Literotica, you've already encountered enough information about anal sex on this site alone to fill an encyclopedia. Anal sex isn't the "last" taboo, or even the "latest" taboo, but Bentley does do something shocking that we don't read much about here at Literotica or anywhere else. She connects sex with God. Yes, I said the G-word. She connects to something greater than herself during what she describes as transcendent sexual anal experiences (two-hundred and ninety-eight of them in fact.)
Now we're talking taboo!
Bentley writes: "I am sitting on the threshold. Perhaps this is the final paradox of God's paradoxical machinations: my ass is my very own back door to heaven. The Pearly Gates are closer than you think. Sacred and profane united in one hole."
This is the crux of her message, and she explores this idea, in many ways, throughout the book. Sex is just another way to experience the divine, and anal sex in particular, because it requires a great measure of trust on the part of the receiver, and a great amount of control on the part of the giver, makes the perfect metaphor and learning experience for the art of surrendering.
In this way, I believe Bentley truly moves into new territory, and through her memoir, shows us how it can be done. God, or spirit, can be found anywhere. She finds it through her asshole, which, of course, is no accident. It is particularly sensitive for her. She speaks of her childhood, experiences of being spanked and humiliated by her father, and how anal sex begins her process of psychologically working through those wounds.
Bentley describes an encounter with A-Man: "His cock is my laser healer. Every point in it probes inside and pierces my armor, the armor of self-protection, and the two fears—love and death—momentarily close their grip and I experience a moment of immorality." It is without a doubt a transcendent experience for her, one that takes her into places that only surrender to something greater than yourself possibly can.
If you want a turn-on, and you already enjoy anal sex, this is a beautifully written, interesting, funny, and provocative book. If you're looking for a how-to, you might want to look elsewhere. If your proclivities lie in the realm of Tanta, transcendent sex, and the connection of the profane and the sacred, this book is like striking gold.
Bentley gives us a deep and profound look into the tender rosebud that is the asshole. It holds our shadow, personally and collectively, and yet like any shadow, it can be our pathway to the light. I am particularly moved by her revealing her newly acquired openness and vulnerability by sharing this memoir with the world. Her act of surrender points the way for others. Every door is a doorway that leads to God, even the backdoor.
*****
Toni Bentley is also the author of Winter Season: A Dancer's Journal, Holding On to the Air: The Autobiography of Suzanne Farrell (by Suzanne Farrell with Toni Bentley), Costumes by Karinska, and Sisters of Salome
It's incredibly daring and provocative, and while it is definitely graphic, this isn't hardcore porn by a long shot. It's witty, informational, and at times, moving. So what is the damned book about, already?
It's a memoir about anal sex.
Not just anal sex, but the connection between that particular act of penetration and the opening up to the realm of the divine, or spirit, or God (or whatever term you'd like to use to fill in that blank, feel free!) It explores the idea of submission to something greater than yourself, whether that's a ten inch cock, or the God of your understanding. After reading this memoir, I'm pretty sure that Bentley is convinced they're one and the same, and after experiencing anal sex myself in much the same way as she often describes, I'm not so sure she's wrong!
I don't necessarily like this woman all of the time, but do I understand her. She is an intelligent and insightful author, and in spite of the rantings of her feminist critics, she has a deep understanding of the feminine.
Bentley was a New York City ballet dancer for ten years, and in the book, she describes how she began a rather adventurous polyamorous lifestyle after her divorce. She meets her lover, "A-Man," through a threesome that eventually turns twosome. He introduces her to the world of anal sex, and the rest of the book is her cataloguing of their anal adventures mixed with a humorous look at the history, laws and taboos against anal sex.
Most of those in the mainstream who encountered her book when it was released in 2004 were shocked by its content, although I imagine if you're reading this review on Literotica, you've already encountered enough information about anal sex on this site alone to fill an encyclopedia. Anal sex isn't the "last" taboo, or even the "latest" taboo, but Bentley does do something shocking that we don't read much about here at Literotica or anywhere else. She connects sex with God. Yes, I said the G-word. She connects to something greater than herself during what she describes as transcendent sexual anal experiences (two-hundred and ninety-eight of them in fact.)
Now we're talking taboo!
Bentley writes: "I am sitting on the threshold. Perhaps this is the final paradox of God's paradoxical machinations: my ass is my very own back door to heaven. The Pearly Gates are closer than you think. Sacred and profane united in one hole."
This is the crux of her message, and she explores this idea, in many ways, throughout the book. Sex is just another way to experience the divine, and anal sex in particular, because it requires a great measure of trust on the part of the receiver, and a great amount of control on the part of the giver, makes the perfect metaphor and learning experience for the art of surrendering.
In this way, I believe Bentley truly moves into new territory, and through her memoir, shows us how it can be done. God, or spirit, can be found anywhere. She finds it through her asshole, which, of course, is no accident. It is particularly sensitive for her. She speaks of her childhood, experiences of being spanked and humiliated by her father, and how anal sex begins her process of psychologically working through those wounds.
Bentley describes an encounter with A-Man: "His cock is my laser healer. Every point in it probes inside and pierces my armor, the armor of self-protection, and the two fears—love and death—momentarily close their grip and I experience a moment of immorality." It is without a doubt a transcendent experience for her, one that takes her into places that only surrender to something greater than yourself possibly can.
If you want a turn-on, and you already enjoy anal sex, this is a beautifully written, interesting, funny, and provocative book. If you're looking for a how-to, you might want to look elsewhere. If your proclivities lie in the realm of Tanta, transcendent sex, and the connection of the profane and the sacred, this book is like striking gold.
Bentley gives us a deep and profound look into the tender rosebud that is the asshole. It holds our shadow, personally and collectively, and yet like any shadow, it can be our pathway to the light. I am particularly moved by her revealing her newly acquired openness and vulnerability by sharing this memoir with the world. Her act of surrender points the way for others. Every door is a doorway that leads to God, even the backdoor.
*****
Toni Bentley is also the author of Winter Season: A Dancer's Journal, Holding On to the Air: The Autobiography of Suzanne Farrell (by Suzanne Farrell with Toni Bentley), Costumes by Karinska, and Sisters of Salome
July 29, 2012
It's strange to see so many disparate reviews of this book, but then I guess anal sex is a divisive topic.
I read this book because it was this month's selection for my erotica book group. I almost didn't read it because it's not available in ebook format but I finally caved and bought the dead-tree version and I'm glad I did.
First of all, let me say I felt a particular affinity with the author, having a background in dance, daddy issues, and a pre-existing love of anal sex and all things explicit. So, take this review in that light--I am okay with the base material. If anal sex and explicit prose is a turn off for you, run screaming the other way.
Let me also say that I disagree this book is about anal sex...the anal sex doesn't come until halfway through the book. This book is about self-exploration and obsession, and I think the book's ultimate conclusion is that we never really know the mysteries of ourselves and our sexualities. We do all these things to steer, control, manage our sexuality but in the end it's a force too powerful for us. I thought that was the deeper message of the book and the reason I liked it so much. I've been involved in obsessive love affairs. I found her depiction of her obsession with A-man painfully familiar and depressing at times, but also healing in a way that I realized I was not alone and that other people (at least one, lol, but I suspect many more) have had these types of experiences.
Like other reviewers, there were times I didn't like what she had to say. For instance, when she delved too deeply into the connection between her childhood and her current sexuality I was kind of icked/bored/unconvinced. Sometimes her self-analyzation got a little overbearing. Yes, she is certainly a selfish/narcissist type but her story still had a lot to offer regarding sexuality and obsession, and the feelings that dredges up.
Her descriptions of her sexual experiences and her encounters with A-man were extremely well written. I also liked the way she analyzed her sadism vs. her masochism, her dominant and submissive sides. I felt turned off by the way she ordered around her "pussy hound" friends but as a member of the BDSM community this all sounded familiar to me, this need to be dominant or submissive in various encounters, and I'm sure the pussy hounds were getting exactly what they wanted too.
I guess I just felt like this is one of the few books that tells it like it is, by someone not sugarcoating anything or trying to be liked. It was fascinating how she just laid it all on the line.
In the end we're left wondering if she is a lucky or unlucky person, a happy or sad person, a sadist or a masochist, a person wiser than us all or a person who totally doesn't have a clue. That's the magic of the book in my opinion. She's writing this, trying to figure herself out, and we're reading it, trying to figure HER out, but also applying her insights to ourselves too. (at least I was)
I think in society, with marriage, monogamy, and "traditional" sexuality, we try to control and shape ourselves to fit society's boxes, but deep down we all have these wild urges and sexuality, lust and need for many types of love, and this impulse cannot be controlled, only hidden or given in to. She finds some semblance of peace for a while in anal surrender, but as the book ends we also know that she's still searching.
If you have ever ruminated about sexuality outside of traditional and monogamous confines, you will probably find something to enjoy or relate to in this book. I gave it five stars for engaging me so much mentally, although there were parts of it I didn't like.
I read this book because it was this month's selection for my erotica book group. I almost didn't read it because it's not available in ebook format but I finally caved and bought the dead-tree version and I'm glad I did.
First of all, let me say I felt a particular affinity with the author, having a background in dance, daddy issues, and a pre-existing love of anal sex and all things explicit. So, take this review in that light--I am okay with the base material. If anal sex and explicit prose is a turn off for you, run screaming the other way.
Let me also say that I disagree this book is about anal sex...the anal sex doesn't come until halfway through the book. This book is about self-exploration and obsession, and I think the book's ultimate conclusion is that we never really know the mysteries of ourselves and our sexualities. We do all these things to steer, control, manage our sexuality but in the end it's a force too powerful for us. I thought that was the deeper message of the book and the reason I liked it so much. I've been involved in obsessive love affairs. I found her depiction of her obsession with A-man painfully familiar and depressing at times, but also healing in a way that I realized I was not alone and that other people (at least one, lol, but I suspect many more) have had these types of experiences.
Like other reviewers, there were times I didn't like what she had to say. For instance, when she delved too deeply into the connection between her childhood and her current sexuality I was kind of icked/bored/unconvinced. Sometimes her self-analyzation got a little overbearing. Yes, she is certainly a selfish/narcissist type but her story still had a lot to offer regarding sexuality and obsession, and the feelings that dredges up.
Her descriptions of her sexual experiences and her encounters with A-man were extremely well written. I also liked the way she analyzed her sadism vs. her masochism, her dominant and submissive sides. I felt turned off by the way she ordered around her "pussy hound" friends but as a member of the BDSM community this all sounded familiar to me, this need to be dominant or submissive in various encounters, and I'm sure the pussy hounds were getting exactly what they wanted too.
I guess I just felt like this is one of the few books that tells it like it is, by someone not sugarcoating anything or trying to be liked. It was fascinating how she just laid it all on the line.
In the end we're left wondering if she is a lucky or unlucky person, a happy or sad person, a sadist or a masochist, a person wiser than us all or a person who totally doesn't have a clue. That's the magic of the book in my opinion. She's writing this, trying to figure herself out, and we're reading it, trying to figure HER out, but also applying her insights to ourselves too. (at least I was)
I think in society, with marriage, monogamy, and "traditional" sexuality, we try to control and shape ourselves to fit society's boxes, but deep down we all have these wild urges and sexuality, lust and need for many types of love, and this impulse cannot be controlled, only hidden or given in to. She finds some semblance of peace for a while in anal surrender, but as the book ends we also know that she's still searching.
If you have ever ruminated about sexuality outside of traditional and monogamous confines, you will probably find something to enjoy or relate to in this book. I gave it five stars for engaging me so much mentally, although there were parts of it I didn't like.
November 13, 2019
Reading the first 30 pages, one is persuaded that Bentley is a gifted author, capable of writing about crap and still tempt one to propel reading. No content, yet a novel point of view. This doesn't last long, so she tries to add some Freud stuff, and Buddah stuff so that she can offer a psychological and spiritual cuisine! I am sorry Toni, you are just making a fool out of yourself.
I was doing a parallel read, reading both Bentley's memoir and Hawking's last book. Bentley's hip is damaged and this ends her professional career as a dancer, on the other hand, Hawking who is totally paralyzed. The physical damage is a milestone in their lives. There were times I wanted to DNF this, figuring out that Toni Bentley's memoir is a New York Times Notable Book, I didn't give up to the last word to remind myself what a fucked-up world I am living in!
I was doing a parallel read, reading both Bentley's memoir and Hawking's last book. Bentley's hip is damaged and this ends her professional career as a dancer, on the other hand, Hawking who is totally paralyzed. The physical damage is a milestone in their lives. There were times I wanted to DNF this, figuring out that Toni Bentley's memoir is a New York Times Notable Book, I didn't give up to the last word to remind myself what a fucked-up world I am living in!
November 16, 2009
I hope there's a class on 21st-century women's memoirs being taught somewhere that pairs this with
Eat, Pray, Love
. It's essentially the same book, just with more up-the-butt action.
February 12, 2014
I once had a professor who offered this advice: When one’s topic is hot, one’s writing should be cool. Toni Bentley clearly has no use for this advice. Her memoir is about erotic submission in general and anal sex in particular, and her writing is even more inflammatory than her topic. There is, here, a superabundance of metaphors, a euphoric overflowing. (And if you flinch when you see the word “overflowing” in close proximity to mention of the excratory orifice, you might not want to read this book, but maybe you should.) Bentley kept a diary of the encounters that make up the heart of her story, and her telling isn’t so much chronological as cumulative. Knowing comes in waves—for the author, and for her reader. Bentley writes in the register of ecstacy, and this should be no surprise, because this memoir resembles nothing so much as a saint’s vita.
In her discussion of her early life, Bentley mentions a youthful interest in female saints. Although she decided as a young woman that sainthood wasn’t for her, her experience of surrender should seem familiar to anyone who can see past cultural taboos about sex. When Catherine of Siena drank pus from an open sore, she freed herself from the world by subverting its norms in submission to God’s will. When Bentley allows herself to open an aperture that she has been taught to keep shut—to keep secret—and invites her lover in, she triumphs over conventional sex. Her submission heals the wounds inflicted by sex that was obligatory, sex that was unsatisfying, sex that was demeaning, sex that was boring. For a feminist, (full disclosure: I am one) this may seem a paradoxical victory, but so would Teresa of Avila’s.
Maybe the best way to understand The Surrender is to read it as a conversion narrative. How you react to it may well depend on whether or not you’re already a believer. Either way, though, this memoir is worth your time. You might find your lack of belief challenged, or you might find new ways to understand what you thought you already knew.
In her discussion of her early life, Bentley mentions a youthful interest in female saints. Although she decided as a young woman that sainthood wasn’t for her, her experience of surrender should seem familiar to anyone who can see past cultural taboos about sex. When Catherine of Siena drank pus from an open sore, she freed herself from the world by subverting its norms in submission to God’s will. When Bentley allows herself to open an aperture that she has been taught to keep shut—to keep secret—and invites her lover in, she triumphs over conventional sex. Her submission heals the wounds inflicted by sex that was obligatory, sex that was unsatisfying, sex that was demeaning, sex that was boring. For a feminist, (full disclosure: I am one) this may seem a paradoxical victory, but so would Teresa of Avila’s.
Maybe the best way to understand The Surrender is to read it as a conversion narrative. How you react to it may well depend on whether or not you’re already a believer. Either way, though, this memoir is worth your time. You might find your lack of belief challenged, or you might find new ways to understand what you thought you already knew.
May 9, 2008
That this abominable memoir was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year does neither writers of explicit material nor their audience a favor. It is difficult to critique this book without being explicit myself, but suffice it to say that this pun-filled, psychologically-shallow, factually-untrustworthy, and insight-vacant book does not deserve the acknowledgment it received. Not that you were interested in the subject, of course.
Some puns she thought clever went along these lines: a look within what she can't live without, the inner secrets of her exit chamber, an up-front scoop on the back end, the truths that come out from what goes in. Get the picture? Now wash your eyes.
Some puns she thought clever went along these lines: a look within what she can't live without, the inner secrets of her exit chamber, an up-front scoop on the back end, the truths that come out from what goes in. Get the picture? Now wash your eyes.
June 13, 2012
Warning: This book is not for prudes! It's a naughtier version of "Eat Pray Love." Am torn between three and four stars, so let's say it's a 3.5. Bentley is a solid writer, but if you can't deal with graphic language -- well, this isn't the book for you.
I, on the other hand, enjoyed Bentley's honesty. And in fact, she has a few moments of inspired prose (e.g., "If heaven is a taste of eternity in a moment of real time, then hell is an eternity of loss in a moment of real time"). Girlfriend admits herself that she has daddy issues (and mommy issues, and body issues, and control issues, blah blah blah), and a fair bit of the book harps on herself. But then again, it IS a memoir.
I, on the other hand, enjoyed Bentley's honesty. And in fact, she has a few moments of inspired prose (e.g., "If heaven is a taste of eternity in a moment of real time, then hell is an eternity of loss in a moment of real time"). Girlfriend admits herself that she has daddy issues (and mommy issues, and body issues, and control issues, blah blah blah), and a fair bit of the book harps on herself. But then again, it IS a memoir.
September 3, 2012
well, just put this on hold at the library. quite sure i'll be getting some eyebrows at EGL.
***************
thoughts:
2.5 stars?
i liked that it was such a bold topic (SODOMY), but.... meh?
let's talk about how i almost didn't even finish the book. the beginning chapters are TERRIBLE. 20 billion different and "clever" ways of writing the exact same thing. let me show you:
"This is the backstory of a love story. A backstory that is the whole story. A second hole story, to be entirely accurate. Love from inside my backside. Colette declared that you couldn't write about love while in its heady hold, as if only love lost resonates. No hindsight for me in this great love but rather behind-sight - cited from the eye of my behind. This is a book where the front matter is brief and the end matter is all. After all, my end does matter."
shut. the. f*ck. up.
at least it gets less clever and more direct going forward.
some interesting ideas and utterly fucked up vignettes:
- that the pussy is too PC
- that sodomy realigns the balance for a woman with too much power
- a LOT of daddy issues
- and a box full of used, full, and tied-off condoms
this woman is crazy. seriously, she's got some insane issues.
***************
thoughts:
2.5 stars?
i liked that it was such a bold topic (SODOMY), but.... meh?
let's talk about how i almost didn't even finish the book. the beginning chapters are TERRIBLE. 20 billion different and "clever" ways of writing the exact same thing. let me show you:
"This is the backstory of a love story. A backstory that is the whole story. A second hole story, to be entirely accurate. Love from inside my backside. Colette declared that you couldn't write about love while in its heady hold, as if only love lost resonates. No hindsight for me in this great love but rather behind-sight - cited from the eye of my behind. This is a book where the front matter is brief and the end matter is all. After all, my end does matter."
shut. the. f*ck. up.
at least it gets less clever and more direct going forward.
some interesting ideas and utterly fucked up vignettes:
- that the pussy is too PC
- that sodomy realigns the balance for a woman with too much power
- a LOT of daddy issues
- and a box full of used, full, and tied-off condoms
this woman is crazy. seriously, she's got some insane issues.
June 19, 2011
THIS was a New York Times Notable Book? The writing was good, but the subject matter? I'm not a prude, but in her homage to anal sex Bentley tries to make the act a metaphor for life, love, religion and/or happiness - seems like a little much, and I think I would have enjoyed it more if she took herself a bit less seriously.
July 26, 2012
A witty and clever rhapsody on the Joys of Anal sex. For you men who are looking for some well-written pornography of the anal variety...look elsewhere, this is not it. For you women who are hoping to glean some kind of understanding and perhaps some technical pointers on the practice of anal sex...look elsewhere, too. It is explicit emotionally, but actually not very explicit in terms of sexual description, so I can't describe this as pornography. I wasn't titillated or aroused necessarily by the physical activity described. My interest was, I think, the author's interest, as well. And that is ...the question of Why?
This book is about anal sex, but not about how to have anal sex. It is actually about Why she has anal sex. And the why has many psychological and emotional contours, all of which are framed and encapsulated by the primary physical one--penetration of one's asshole.
What I got from the book...? That this particular woman gains an emotional (and apparently spiritual) freedom, ecstasy, and sense of fulfillment from the surrendering of her entire being, which is represented by her letting a man fuck her in the ass. The eponymous "Surrender" in the title, apparently.
I liked this book because the author actually is quite witty and funny to read. She's obviously enjoying what she's doing and has some distinctly comic turns of phrases. Good writing and an absolutely interesting subject (it's anal sex, come on) made this an enjoyable, if not peculiar read.
This book is about anal sex, but not about how to have anal sex. It is actually about Why she has anal sex. And the why has many psychological and emotional contours, all of which are framed and encapsulated by the primary physical one--penetration of one's asshole.
What I got from the book...? That this particular woman gains an emotional (and apparently spiritual) freedom, ecstasy, and sense of fulfillment from the surrendering of her entire being, which is represented by her letting a man fuck her in the ass. The eponymous "Surrender" in the title, apparently.
I liked this book because the author actually is quite witty and funny to read. She's obviously enjoying what she's doing and has some distinctly comic turns of phrases. Good writing and an absolutely interesting subject (it's anal sex, come on) made this an enjoyable, if not peculiar read.
June 29, 2012
Make no mistake, Toni Bentley is an insane person. It is precisely because she is completely bonkers that she has written such a weird and captivating saga. This is one of the boldest and most fearless memoirs I've ever read. It is so intense that it's almost political and it revolves entirely around the joys of anal sex. Bentley's rhapsodic elegy about her D/s relationship that primarily focused on anal penetration is fascinating. No one has ever written so ecstatically on the subject. And while most people will probably be shocked by that fact alone, I was in awe for a different reason. I was astonished by her candid ability to talk about her deepest desires, her exotic elaborate fantasies, her ritualistic behaviors surrounding sex and her theories on the psychological underpinnings of her sexuality. I spend a lot of time contemplating my own sex life and it was interesting to see behind someone else's curtain. It made me think about the stories I've never told anyone and the ways in which I've surrendered or held myself back. It also inspired me to spend $250 at Fredericks of Hollywood, so this was a win all the way around.
January 26, 2016
Best read for laughs and quotes. Some of the most bonkers lines I have ever read in my life.
June 12, 2017
(3.5 stars/rounding up)
The Surrender is Toni Bentley's "erotic memoir" about transcendence/anal sex/submission, and despite the fact that there were things in the book that bugged me, I quite liked it overall. To start with the things that bothered me: I could have done with a lot less Freudian psychologizing, though at the same time, it feels somewhat unfair to criticize the book for its emphasis on something that is apparently a very big part of Bentley's subjective experience of her life and sexuality. Like, even though for me the appeal of being called a "good girl" feels like it has zero relationship to anything about my childhood or parents, I can't speak for anyone else's feelings or experiences; while I may not be able to relate to the way Bentley connects her childhood experiences of shame or humiliation, particularly related to her relationship to her father, to her adult sexuality, I can't disbelieve her experience of the relatedness of those things. I also feel like Bentley and I have quite different takes on gender and male/female relationships, but, again, her experiences and feelings are hers, so it's sort of neither here nor there except to the extent that I, as a reader, want a memoir to be "relatable" in some way: I sort of do, but I also see the value in reading memoirs that come from different perspectives. That said, I was annoyed that Bentley wrote these two sentences and that her editor didn't talk her out of them: "I reckon every woman wants a cock between her legs, ultimately. The question is: Does she want one of her own, or can she tolerate one belonging to a man?" (43). Ugh, really?
Those complaints aside, Bentley is smart and funny, and I appreciated this book's combination of intensity and humor, and how wide-ranging it is. It includes sections about such disparate things as being an atheist who had wanted to find God/faith for a long time and crotchless underpants and the various styles thereof; it's got sexy threesome/foursome scenes and philosophical musings about non-monogamy and stories about the experience of jealousy. At its heart, really, is a whole lot about the experience of letting go—the surrender of the title. For Bentley, that surrender comes mostly via anal sex (though not entirely: there's a section where she writes about learning to go down on her lover in just the way he likes that also has a fair bit of surrender/submission in it). The sections about that experience of surrender and submission were probably my favorite parts of the book, and I think not just because I do find those bits relatable—there's something so pure and intense about the way Bentley writes about the experience of letting go of her "desire to know, control, understand, and analyze", about how that makes room for her to experience "openness and vulnerability" (7). Also, I love that Bentley writes about laughing during sex—and not like, oops-we-fell-off-the-bed laughter or oh-bodies-are-weird laughter, but a laughter that's tied to that experience of letting go. My other favorite bits are the writerly parts—as someone who also feels the impulse to write things down, I really liked sections like this:
The Surrender is Toni Bentley's "erotic memoir" about transcendence/anal sex/submission, and despite the fact that there were things in the book that bugged me, I quite liked it overall. To start with the things that bothered me: I could have done with a lot less Freudian psychologizing, though at the same time, it feels somewhat unfair to criticize the book for its emphasis on something that is apparently a very big part of Bentley's subjective experience of her life and sexuality. Like, even though for me the appeal of being called a "good girl" feels like it has zero relationship to anything about my childhood or parents, I can't speak for anyone else's feelings or experiences; while I may not be able to relate to the way Bentley connects her childhood experiences of shame or humiliation, particularly related to her relationship to her father, to her adult sexuality, I can't disbelieve her experience of the relatedness of those things. I also feel like Bentley and I have quite different takes on gender and male/female relationships, but, again, her experiences and feelings are hers, so it's sort of neither here nor there except to the extent that I, as a reader, want a memoir to be "relatable" in some way: I sort of do, but I also see the value in reading memoirs that come from different perspectives. That said, I was annoyed that Bentley wrote these two sentences and that her editor didn't talk her out of them: "I reckon every woman wants a cock between her legs, ultimately. The question is: Does she want one of her own, or can she tolerate one belonging to a man?" (43). Ugh, really?
Those complaints aside, Bentley is smart and funny, and I appreciated this book's combination of intensity and humor, and how wide-ranging it is. It includes sections about such disparate things as being an atheist who had wanted to find God/faith for a long time and crotchless underpants and the various styles thereof; it's got sexy threesome/foursome scenes and philosophical musings about non-monogamy and stories about the experience of jealousy. At its heart, really, is a whole lot about the experience of letting go—the surrender of the title. For Bentley, that surrender comes mostly via anal sex (though not entirely: there's a section where she writes about learning to go down on her lover in just the way he likes that also has a fair bit of surrender/submission in it). The sections about that experience of surrender and submission were probably my favorite parts of the book, and I think not just because I do find those bits relatable—there's something so pure and intense about the way Bentley writes about the experience of letting go of her "desire to know, control, understand, and analyze", about how that makes room for her to experience "openness and vulnerability" (7). Also, I love that Bentley writes about laughing during sex—and not like, oops-we-fell-off-the-bed laughter or oh-bodies-are-weird laughter, but a laughter that's tied to that experience of letting go. My other favorite bits are the writerly parts—as someone who also feels the impulse to write things down, I really liked sections like this:
He presented me with the first sex I'd ever had that I thought about in words, that I wanted to describe and preserve in words. And so the scribbling began. Every time he came, and left, I went straight to my notebook and wrote it all down. I was experiencing an impossible pleasure, and having it on paper would prove that the impossible existed. (29)
September 17, 2012
I like the saying my irreligious partner uses sometimes: "God likes fucking". In this book, Toni Bentley is saying that "God likes anal fucking", too. If you agree with the premise that God does want people to get turned on in a multitude of ways (thereby producing more little Godlets to glorify His/Her-Big-Wonderful-Self)then just about any act that turns people on of a consensual variety must have a tinge of celestial/cosmic purpose.
For those who abhor the thought of ass sex, or those that have tried it and found it painful or "so,what", I think Bentley's premise will sound ludicrous, but she makes a convincing case for her own acceptance (and relish) for the supposed taboo.
Even though I have anal sex somewhat infrequently, I have had some of the biggest orgasms of my life when the conditions and man are right. I haven't seen God through that keyhole Bentley describes but some heavenly lightning goes off in my head at times.
Bentley is a weird, high-strung duck. I don't think I'd like her as a friend, but I'm not in the high pressure world of top-notch ballet as she is. She writes extremely well, her honesty about herself is admirable, and she gave me lots to think about -- three qualities all good readers should look for in their authors. Just because you find her subject distasteful (so was "Angela's Ashes" and child neglect), does not mean she shouldn't be read.
For those who abhor the thought of ass sex, or those that have tried it and found it painful or "so,what", I think Bentley's premise will sound ludicrous, but she makes a convincing case for her own acceptance (and relish) for the supposed taboo.
Even though I have anal sex somewhat infrequently, I have had some of the biggest orgasms of my life when the conditions and man are right. I haven't seen God through that keyhole Bentley describes but some heavenly lightning goes off in my head at times.
Bentley is a weird, high-strung duck. I don't think I'd like her as a friend, but I'm not in the high pressure world of top-notch ballet as she is. She writes extremely well, her honesty about herself is admirable, and she gave me lots to think about -- three qualities all good readers should look for in their authors. Just because you find her subject distasteful (so was "Angela's Ashes" and child neglect), does not mean she shouldn't be read.
May 17, 2011
I rounded up to 4 stars, even though it's more like 3.5, due to the fact that there were more than a few parts that spoke to me. Those parts were less about the raunch and more about what it means to find something deeper within a sexual connection, and hey, don't knock it until you've been there. We women who've come of age through various stages of the contemporary women's lib movement (especially those, like myself, who were considered third wave), have been outright gifted, if not blessed, with the ability to dig deep within our core beliefs and look for meaning behind our actions. We have the luxury of acting with intention, be it in our careers or in between our sheets. Bentley is scary, damaged and self-indulgent. Newsflash: most women are, in varying degrees. I won't be documenting my perceived idiosyncrasies, desires and insecurities as they relate to my boudoir activities anytime soon (at least, not through a big publishing house like ReganBooks), but I'm glad Bentley did--there is a little something for everyone in here.
October 24, 2012
This is defiantly not a book many well dare to read it is very explicit. It is comparable to a Playboy magazine confession type story but longer. I was surprised after reading this that it was named one of the 100 best books of the year by The New York Times and Publishers Weekly. I'm thinking it must be because it is about such a taboo topic that women don't ever speak about. This didn't seem very realistic to me but it was taking it a step further than Fifty Shades of Grey ever thought of doing. This is a memoir so I was drawn to read it by that reason. I didn't think she would give so much about herself as she did but it was good that she didn't sugar coat it. It is what it is I guess. Brazen author to write about this but I could have lived without knowing as much as she shared and shared and shared over and over and over. Full of about every descriptive word used for the anatomy of the ass. Well I'm none the wiser but defiantly entertained and confused by this lifestyle choice.
October 24, 2012
In a one word review....VULGAR!
This was a challenge book for me and when I read the description, I admit I was curious. What would possess a woman to write this about herself and then share it with the world. I'm still left asking why. She can actually write, but after the initial shock wore off, it just became more and more of the same. I wanted to understand this damaged narcissistic yet completely insecure person but found it hard to endure her lifestyle and her choice of words. Finally at the end of the book, I got a glimpse of a real person. A sad, lonely person who found and then lost the love of her life. Call me crazy, but I think she could have chosen a different route with this book. It could have had depth...no puns intended! This could have been a love story instead of a sex story....it could have been engrossing instead of just gross!
It was however, infused with humor and for that it gets a second star.
This was a challenge book for me and when I read the description, I admit I was curious. What would possess a woman to write this about herself and then share it with the world. I'm still left asking why. She can actually write, but after the initial shock wore off, it just became more and more of the same. I wanted to understand this damaged narcissistic yet completely insecure person but found it hard to endure her lifestyle and her choice of words. Finally at the end of the book, I got a glimpse of a real person. A sad, lonely person who found and then lost the love of her life. Call me crazy, but I think she could have chosen a different route with this book. It could have had depth...no puns intended! This could have been a love story instead of a sex story....it could have been engrossing instead of just gross!
It was however, infused with humor and for that it gets a second star.
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November 21, 2018
The writing was excellent; I've come to love memoirs (pun well endowed, sorry, well intended)... a little too much God-love for me as was it slightly OTT on the self-confessed sadomasochism.
The author is either uber spiritual and ultimately loves people in ways (at-least at this point in my life - early-30s) I don't foresee myself experiencing to the same emotional extent, but, from this dramatic surge in emotion I felt myself sucked-in (again, pun intended) to her world temporarily.
I loved the many art/literature/historical references (e.g. Sir Richard Burton/Mecca) throughout, and would've given a 4 if there weren't so much - again - God-love...
Without sounding too self-lovingly hedonistic - ;) - I could/would/will read again in the next chapter of my life.
The author is either uber spiritual and ultimately loves people in ways (at-least at this point in my life - early-30s) I don't foresee myself experiencing to the same emotional extent, but, from this dramatic surge in emotion I felt myself sucked-in (again, pun intended) to her world temporarily.
I loved the many art/literature/historical references (e.g. Sir Richard Burton/Mecca) throughout, and would've given a 4 if there weren't so much - again - God-love...
Without sounding too self-lovingly hedonistic - ;) - I could/would/will read again in the next chapter of my life.
July 26, 2007
Toni Bentley semi-autobiographically surrenders her body, mind and soul to find god through intensely intimate sexual encounters.
I found the protagonist's courage inspirational, leading me to reexamine questionable attachments within and beyond the intimate and sexual in my own life.
Nevertheless, a wonderfully straightforward well-prosed erotic novel!
I found the protagonist's courage inspirational, leading me to reexamine questionable attachments within and beyond the intimate and sexual in my own life.
Nevertheless, a wonderfully straightforward well-prosed erotic novel!
August 4, 2024
Hmm... what am I rating The Surrender on? Certainly not literary merit as, after having read it, I can't imagine Bentley would seek that kind of judgement. How about importance? In that regard, it's hard for me to say or to actually say even if I can say because... who am I to say? Just a man who read her personal feelings about events in her life and so... shut up. Well then, boldness and uniqueness? Closer - it was certainly bold and new to this reader. Let's go with plain old enjoyment - I enjoyed TS. If it was a little too long for what it sought to do, that's a minor complaint because in her repetition lie the naked details that made it what it was
I'm not expecting a reread in this lifetime but I enjoyed the time I spent with it
I'm not expecting a reread in this lifetime but I enjoyed the time I spent with it
March 20, 2025
Provocative, interesting, not profound generally but a self-examination of some interest, on a topic that has a frisson that won't quit. Meike and others have talked about it better. Worth reading.
August 1, 2024
Toni Bentley is anal about her anal sex. She kept track of exactly how many times and kept all the used condoms as souvenirs (ick!) I found this book interesting and often humorous, though I often found things funny that I don’t think were intended to be so.
January 31, 2009
maybe it's just because i'm a dancer, maybe it's because i'm curious about other people's take on sensuality, sexuality, and related experiences, maybe it's because i like most everything else toni bentley has written (both in books & journalism)-but i liked this, a lot. it reads quickly, fluidly, and while sometimes she seems like she's reaching a bit too far for some extra depth and meaning (especially the spiritually-related content), it is nonetheless fascinating and she is earnest in her tale-telling.
a dancer's connection to her body is like no other. it is similar to, but different from that of an athlete, who is not judged on aesthetics as much as route competition, winning versus losing. analyzing every movement, justifying every miniscule movement of the body is not analyzed and dissected as it is in any one dance class. to know your body as a dancer is to have an internal map, and to almost have two personalities, which occasionally merge and feel like one, and sometimes feel separate and distant from one another. in toni bentley's exploration of anal sex, she discusses the potent connection of mind, body, & soul which belongs to a dancer alone, and how this related to her pushing her boundaries in the bedroom.
this book is about far more than anal explorations, as bentley faces the facts of her own take on men and her relationship with them. via her relationship with 'mr. x,' her ultimate and most satisfactory lover, she realizes her loathing of cowardly men, and how their attitude reflects itself in the bedroom. i knew exactly what she was talking about when she discussed men who were afraid-afraid of powerful women, afraid of women who think for themselves, who know what they want....
the ultimate fascination i had with this book was the revolving theme that via surrender and in giving oneself over, one is giving fully and subsequently gains a type of power-not that this is to be the main focus or thrill of the adventure. whether or not one engages in anal sex, this can be manifest in numerous ways, even in makeout sessions, and in non-sexual aspects of relationships. by one's choice to be submissive in some form, to give way, to be part of the give and nto the take, one is, in a sense, taking control.
a dancer's connection to her body is like no other. it is similar to, but different from that of an athlete, who is not judged on aesthetics as much as route competition, winning versus losing. analyzing every movement, justifying every miniscule movement of the body is not analyzed and dissected as it is in any one dance class. to know your body as a dancer is to have an internal map, and to almost have two personalities, which occasionally merge and feel like one, and sometimes feel separate and distant from one another. in toni bentley's exploration of anal sex, she discusses the potent connection of mind, body, & soul which belongs to a dancer alone, and how this related to her pushing her boundaries in the bedroom.
this book is about far more than anal explorations, as bentley faces the facts of her own take on men and her relationship with them. via her relationship with 'mr. x,' her ultimate and most satisfactory lover, she realizes her loathing of cowardly men, and how their attitude reflects itself in the bedroom. i knew exactly what she was talking about when she discussed men who were afraid-afraid of powerful women, afraid of women who think for themselves, who know what they want....
the ultimate fascination i had with this book was the revolving theme that via surrender and in giving oneself over, one is giving fully and subsequently gains a type of power-not that this is to be the main focus or thrill of the adventure. whether or not one engages in anal sex, this can be manifest in numerous ways, even in makeout sessions, and in non-sexual aspects of relationships. by one's choice to be submissive in some form, to give way, to be part of the give and nto the take, one is, in a sense, taking control.
September 27, 2017
…If you don’t fuck with death chasing you, you are mistaken…
Though I did enjoy reading it, The Surrender turned out to be a disappointment. Not sure what I was looking for in reading this title. I feel a great need to always learn something, and this book generally afforded me an opportunity to understand more about why some people are perhaps obsessed with the asshole. I never have been, other than to take a good peek at my pile from time to time after a healthy bowel movement. I am aware of how sensitive the anal area is, of course, but have no compulsion to have a finger, tongue, or prick inside it. Neither does my wife, though there was a time several years ago when we experimented a bit over what all the fuss was about. Not long after a few penetrations to her sacred hole, she announced to me that her ass would be forever-on just exit-only. But I do get the surrender and submission dogma Toni Bentley details in her well-written memoir of ass fucking. I suppose the void of intimacy regarding her personal relationships is where I found the book lacking. She certainly loves to prepare for sex, however. And that is a very good thing by my way of thinking. Bentley is definitely promiscuous, and I thought I might learn more about a behavior that so far has eluded the bulk of my relationships, and more specifically, my marriage. But Bentley is certainly intelligent, and a well-read writer. All of us get our needs met in different ways, and she is no exception. Bentley just seems to have a hunger impossible to assuage.
Though I did enjoy reading it, The Surrender turned out to be a disappointment. Not sure what I was looking for in reading this title. I feel a great need to always learn something, and this book generally afforded me an opportunity to understand more about why some people are perhaps obsessed with the asshole. I never have been, other than to take a good peek at my pile from time to time after a healthy bowel movement. I am aware of how sensitive the anal area is, of course, but have no compulsion to have a finger, tongue, or prick inside it. Neither does my wife, though there was a time several years ago when we experimented a bit over what all the fuss was about. Not long after a few penetrations to her sacred hole, she announced to me that her ass would be forever-on just exit-only. But I do get the surrender and submission dogma Toni Bentley details in her well-written memoir of ass fucking. I suppose the void of intimacy regarding her personal relationships is where I found the book lacking. She certainly loves to prepare for sex, however. And that is a very good thing by my way of thinking. Bentley is definitely promiscuous, and I thought I might learn more about a behavior that so far has eluded the bulk of my relationships, and more specifically, my marriage. But Bentley is certainly intelligent, and a well-read writer. All of us get our needs met in different ways, and she is no exception. Bentley just seems to have a hunger impossible to assuage.
January 25, 2011
I loved Toni Bentley's "Winter Season"--- her memoir of life as a corps de ballet member. That managed somehow to be quite sexy despite its focus on the psychological stresses of the ballet life. "The Surrender" is...a problem. Well written, yes. Sexy in parts, though hotter I think in concept more than execution. As a paean to anal sex and sexual surrender, it manages to get tangled up in New Age vapourings and psychobabble. Still, when Bentley does manage to actually talk about sex qua sex, she can be hot--- and she can sketch out scenes and scenarios that are hot. Not a bad read, but...a bit too close to Oprh and Dr. Phil to be really liked...let alone truly, powerfully hot.
June 7, 2012
I wanted to like Toni Bentley's book: She's clearly a talented writer and her subject is rather enthralling.
With that said, I really struggled with her incredible pretentiousness: It's really just sex. It is rather juvenile to build one's entire life around a single act. To turn every encounter into some sort of ritualized tantric nirvana-near-approach was laughable.
Bentley's tendency to typecast men was both ridiculous and sexist. Her penchant for puns often petered out into mediocrity :) Where was the editor to tell her "puns are effective if used sparingly..."
Overall, I have to say I was disappointed. Like the author, I could not wait to get to the end.
With that said, I really struggled with her incredible pretentiousness: It's really just sex. It is rather juvenile to build one's entire life around a single act. To turn every encounter into some sort of ritualized tantric nirvana-near-approach was laughable.
Bentley's tendency to typecast men was both ridiculous and sexist. Her penchant for puns often petered out into mediocrity :) Where was the editor to tell her "puns are effective if used sparingly..."
Overall, I have to say I was disappointed. Like the author, I could not wait to get to the end.
March 14, 2007
Tito sent this to me to cheer me up after the tsunami, and it took me 2 years to work up the courage and reason read it. An odd choice for inspiring holiday cheer, to say the least. As is the common flaw with most specialists, Bentley exaggerates her subject. This book is educational nonetheless on a not entirely unusual inclination.
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