The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir [Hardcover]

Toni Bentley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 12, 2004

This NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK is a stunning story of sexual and spiritual awakening.

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 CATHERIN 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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"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." Bentley is writing of her rhapsodic experience with sodomy. So some will call this memoir blasphemous, others spiritual; some pornographic, others erotic. What it is, is wonderfully smart and sexy and witty and moving, a tale of unbounded passion that leads to transcendence. The tale is paradoxical in more ways than one: aside from Bentley's ass leading to heaven, she finds that submission leads to freedom—a freedom she had never known as a dancer with the New York City Ballet (about which she wrote her first book, Winter Season), nor in her failed marriage, nor in any of her other polymorphously perverse sexual experiences. While deeply serious, Bentley is also hilarious as she describes the delights of crotchless panties ("they come in many different styles—each with its own je ne sais quoi") and touching in an imagined obituary for her lover, A-Man ("He was the only one who took time to be friends with my cat.... He was the one with whom I couldn't tell whose pleasure gave me more pleasure"). Bentley's honesty about the most intimate of subjects is daring and delightful for those willing to follow her to, so to speak, the end.
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Review

“Stylish and amusing.” (—Entertainment Weekly )

“Wonderfully smart and sexy and witty and moving.” (—Publishers Weekly starred review )

“A small masterpiece of erotic writing.” (—Leon Wieseltier )

“Revealing and witty.” (—Time Out New York )

“Brave.” (—New York Times Book Review )

“Plucky.” (—The New York Observer )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Ecco; First Edition edition (October 12, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060732466
• ISBN-13: 978-0060732462
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #147,590 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

121 of 135 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing memoir of thrilling sex, October 18, 2004

By 

Eileen Galen (USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (Hardcover)

I ordered this book with high expectations. Over the years I've sought out a variety of the classic and not-so-classic examples of the genre, both academic and just for fun. The expression of sexuality Bentley promotes is neither shocking nor abhorrent (millions can attest to this) and her story deserves to be told.

Bentley is a former professional ballet dancer and competent writer and reporter. Her memoir about an intense affair that had as its centerpiece frequent, albeit compulsive (she kept count) anal intercourse seemed like something worth reading.

Instead of "showing," though, Bentley tells - and you understand pretty quickly that Bentley has told her story and explained herself many, many times in many, many therapy sessions. She offers some nuggets of self-analysis that sound very much as if a mental health practitioner came up with them. Her father was cold and difficult to please, pain became a friend, she early on became perfectionist, etc. One is led to believe that it is a given that an old psychic wound is necessary in order for one to enjoy anal sexuality.

The Freudian punning is unnerving.

There is little dialogue in this story and precious little deep feeling. The guy to whom she insists she surrendered is called "A-Man," a cutesy moniker and far cry from the grave dignity of the Stephens and Sirs of the genre.

This is less an "erotic memoir" than a series of descriptions - told by the way in the breathy prose of fashion-magazine reportage - of what she wore and how she looked, the state and the size of genitalia, and where to buy the supplies most cheaply (Costco), of an affair that while undoubtedly wonderfully physically intense and affecting, sounds surprisingly lackluster in the retelling. I was disappointed in this story.

57 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Graphic Confessional Memoir by this Dancer/Writer, October 11, 2004

By 

C. Hutton "book maven" (East Coast, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (Hardcover)

This is Toni Bentley's fifth book about either the world of ballet/dance or her own life. Now in her mid-40's, Ms. Bentley's formative experiences were with her distant father and her years with George Balanchine at the New York City Ballet. "Winter Season: A Dancer's Journal" was her painful account of establishing a new identity apart from the all-consuming world of the NYC Ballet. Now she writes of her quest to create a viable sexual identity for herself.

This focus upon issues of sexuality is nothing new for Ms. Bentley. She wrote a cultural history of a striptease known as the Dance of the Seven Veils in her "Sisters of Salome" (2002). She is an accomplished writer though she occassionally goes over the top.

The reader should be warned that this memoir is emotionally and sexually graphic as Ms. Bentley focuses upon her newly discovered obsession with sodomy. If the reader is uncomfortable with being a voyeur inside Ms. Bentley's bedroom, then this book is not for you.

For Ms. Bentley, she has finally found a form of sexual liberation for her masochistic and self-abasement tendencies. With her personal sexual surrender, she attributes a freeing up of a lifetime of inhibitions, releasing anger toward her father, and discovering a spiritual union with "Paradise."

"The Surrender" is a very intimate and searingly honest account of one woman's search for personal peace. It is difficult to be this honest about one's sexual neediness with a lover or with a best friend -- Ms. Bentley just published her sexual neediness for the world to read.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A paean to Anal eroticism!, August 9, 2005

By 

J. Rice "Jodi" (Walnut Creek, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (Hardcover)

This is a brazenly revealing first person account of a narcistic ex ballet dancer who, following her retirement and the end of an unfortunate marriage, sets out with huge energy and courage to fully explore all aspects of her libido and sensual proclivities.The graphic details she shares on active and passive oral sex, and ultimately on total submission to extended anal sex to achieve new orgasmic plateaus are wondrous to behold. The story is told with honest motivational insights and more than a little relaxed humor, and whether you approve the action or not, you will find Toni a hugely endearing woman,