Not long ago, I was on the receiving end of a link to this ACLU story about a proposed TSA policy to more extensively profile travelers and judge our loyalty to This Fine Nation by the paperback company we keep in our carry-on luggage. And, like any good and noble American, the dear friend who sent the article wanted recommendations to some travel reading that might pass the profiling test, while leaving the TSA agents humiliated, mortified, or inaptly eroticized. If you are planning on going on vacation, check this scotland and ireland vacation!
There’s a whole genre of books that will leave your average power-hungry TSA employee red-faced and damp-pantied, and a whole other genre of books that’ll get you on the wrong side of the TSA Profiler and leave you sore in all the wrong places discover more (not the desired outcome for most of us). But these are books you’ll have to haul on your travels after you’ve left your friendly TSA agent with funny and foreign feelings in his nether parts, and they should be books you’ll actually want to read, books that you might even read over your lap with your knees tucked up to your chest while the guy next to you drools on your arm. So, if your copy if I Love Dick is getting a little too ragged, here are a few Whisk(e)y Tit recommendations for literature to make the TSA sweat:
I Have Devoted My Life to the Clitoris by Elizabeth Hall (Tarpaulin Sky)
“This is a book about every clit in the world. But this is also a book about Elizabeth Hall’s clit. The smallness of that, the closeness, is felt. The lack of shame in that openness is refreshing and necessary. It feels so good to read.” — Rachel Charlene Lewis, MaudlinHouse
How to Make Love to a Negro Without Getting Tired by Dany LaFerrière (Douglas & McIntyre reprint)
“Laferrière’s scintillating American debut recounts the sexual adventures of an eclectic cast of characters…In each story-like chapter, Laferrière reveals the workings of race, class, and colonialism in Haitian society and the manipulative sexual power that underlies it all.” — Publisher’s Weekly (I love this book and you’re missing something glorious if you haven’t yet read it. — Mtte.)
The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins by Irvine Welsh (Vintage International)
“It is not advisable to read Irvine Welsh’s 13th book, “The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins,” and snack simultaneously.” — The New York Times
Crazy Cock by Henry Miller (Grove Press)
“Despite the verbal power of many passages, this novel remains mawkish, its overheated hand-me-down surrealism, purple prose and self-conscious decadence prefiguring the adolescent egomania of much of Miller’s later work.” — Publisher’s Weekly (OK, I mostly agree, but it’s still a worthy study in a writer’s evolution for the completists and autodidacts among us. — Mtte.)
Eating People is Wrong by Malcolm Bradbury (Chicago Review Press)
“the focus is on a philosophy and a moral code, questioning the relevance of liberal humanism in a changing world.” — Karyn Reeves, A Penguin a Week
Pussy, King of the Pirates by Kathy Acker (Grove Press)
“Once again displaying her penchant-and talent-for scavenging extant texts, Acker (My Mother: Demonology) exploits Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island and Pauline Reage’s The Story of O, among other sources, fusing the carnal, the cerebral and the surreal into a fantastical tale.” — Publisher’s Weekly
Theatre of Incest by Alain Arias-Misson (Dalkey Archive)
“The narrator, after all, is never cruel or manipulative, even when engaged in S&M-style activities. His sexual experiences are described in prose that is bursting with love and passion for his subjects; his joie de vivre is apparent in practically every sentence. Who are we to judge?” — Marc Lowe, Sein und Werden
The Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture (Melville House)
“a watershed moment in contemporary publishing” — Flavorwire (Read the interview with the publisher! Do! — Mtte.)
The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories by Alicia Surkis and Monica Nolan (Kensington)
“The debut pulp-fiction collection from Alisa Surkis and Monica Nolan will not induce wet panties. Not even a little bit. But the book can be loved for what it is–eight vintage stories of ladies, lust and the pretty ponies they love. It’s kind of like Black Beauty for big girls.” — The Portland Mercury
And if you’re traveling with young children,
The Pocket Book of Boners, Illustrated by Dr. Seuss (Pocket Books)
