Torn Shapes of Desire

The first collection of erotic fiction and poetry by Mary Anne Mohanraj — order it from Amazon.

Reviews

“These tantalizing stories delight in confounding expectation, making them all the more compulsive.” — San Francisco Bay Guardian

“Sexual content has certainly received a disproportionate amount of the attention paid to the Internet. What sometimes gets overlooked in the discussions, however, is that the Net has indeed provided an outlet—if not exactly a market—for writers attempting artistic and literary treatments of erotic themes. One writer who earned online celebrity status for her posts of literary erotic fiction is Mary Anne Mohanraj—a writer of powerful voice and impressive range. Her fiction takes many forms and frequently strays from traditional narrative. There are letters, stories told in e-mail exchanges, poems, and stream-of-consciousness musings. The selections, though, are always well-defined characters, no matter how short the writing. Although Mohanraj may take the voice of man or woman, and portrays a variety of sexual orientations, her characters come across as believable individuals, with true-to-life thoughts and—in most cases—behaving in likely ways. Even the exceptions to believability are clearly intentional, as in a comical tale of passion between a beautiful professor and her handsome jock student, which is as much satire of erotica as it is erotica itself. Accompanying the writing are the gorgeous, sensuous photographs of Tracy Lee. Also worthy of note is that the publisher sought out this book as part of the battle against Internet censorship. Portions of the profits are being contributed to organizations working to protect free speech.” — Amazon Review

“Genuinely moving…pulls no punches when it comes to graphic sex and raw emotion…a voluptuous rhythm…characters and situations as startlingly original and varied as one might find in any anthology of modern literature.” — Paramour magazine

“Mary Anne Mohanraj has been publishing literary erotica on the Internet for five years, with more than 500,000 ‘hits’ (visits) to her web site in one year. Her work has appeared in a score of magazines and anthologies. Torn Shapes of Desire contains forty of her best short stories and poems, some of which have never been in print before. Her mix of style, genre and setting is evocative—with stories to suit many tastes and orientations. Torn Shapes of Desire also includes an interview with other writers of Internet erotica and essays discussing healthy sexuality and free speech on the Internet. Torn Shapes of Desire is a benchmark publication, representing as it does, what the new media of the internet can generate for the reading public.” — Midwest Book Review

“Mohanraj is an Internet legend. Intelligent and seductive, she not only writes well, she writes with a purpose, and her stories leave a lasting impression.” — Carnal Knowledge magazine

“Mary Anne Mohanraj is unique not simply because her stories are invariably well written; Mary Anne’s uniqueness lies in the extraordinary range of subjects about which she can write a good erotic story. Her stories cover the entire range of topics from the humorous to the tragic, and from stories that serve the immediate needs of the reader looking for masturbation material to those for people pursuing philosophical insights into the meaning of life. Although they all contain sexual activity to some degree, I can think of none that I would label as primarily about sex. They’re just plain excellent stories by a person who views sexuality as an important part of life.” — Celestial Reviews

“Classical Internet literature” — Danny Yee’s Book Reviews

“Wow, this is good.” — Luko’s Internet Book Reviews

Contents

NOTE: The list is long, but many of the below are poems; the book is 128 pp. Torn Shapes of Desire was published in 1997; currently, most of these pieces are available somewhere on this site.

• Editor’s Forward
• Tracy Lee’s Notes
• Mary Anne’s Introduction
• Was It Good For You?
• Jinsong
• Memory Tears Upon Close Examination
• Season of Marriage
• Meditation on Human Relations
• Charlie
• Turning Bodies
• Paint
• Sleeping With His Best Friend
• Blind
• Mango
• Summer
• Memory’s a Traitor
• Morningsong
• Attraction
• Diana
• Dialogue
• Interview with a Panel of Internet Erotica Writers
• Reunion
• Lady
• You’ll Understand When You’re Older, Dear
• Feather
• Dreams of a Lover
• The Ongoing Adventures of Gorgeous Gracie
• Hymn
• A More Congenial Spot
• Dreams of a Distant Lover
• Letter Found Near a Suicide
• Unabashed Paean
• Japanese Garden
• Renewal
• Radhika and Matthew
• Letter
• The Devouring Night
• Composition in Cream and Chocolate
• Orange after Midnight
• Chantal
• Torn Shapes of Desire
• Fleeing Gods
• Cobalt Blue

Excerpt from the Introduction

“…So I write these stories as part of my own attempt to change the
world. I write stories with strong consenting women, to remind people
that strong women are sexy and that consent is crucial. I write stories
with characters of various sexual orientations and genders, to spread a
little awareness. I write stories dealing with taboo subjects. Mainly, I
try to write stories with real people — people who love and hate and fear
and sometimes have sex for all the wrong reasons; people who have lives
and hopes and dreams beyond the immediate sex act. I’m trying to shape a
healthier world…”

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For more of the introduction, and all the stories and poems that follow
it, purchase a copy of Torn Shapes of Desire today! 🙂