Delta of Venus

An undercurrent of darkness runs through these stories. Despite the copious amounts of outrageous sex being had (it is erotica after all), every one of the characters seems to be fundamentally unfulfilled, indulging in sexual exploits in a desperately doomed attempt to ease some deep-seated suffering or neurosis. It's less about sex than about power, and for every beautiful description of wild adventure between mutually-consenting adults, there are several that are squicky and/or triggering (featuring various sorts of rape, emotional abuse, pedophilia, incest, bestiality, etc.) and many more borderline cases of subtle manipulation. Any and all of which might be your thing, and that's cool, but it doesn't do a lot for me.

I love it for that strangeness and for its astonishingly nuanced portrayal of human relationships, but for me, that undercurrent makes it function poorly as erotica... while the stories don't have enough narrative solidity to function well as anything else.