The study shows why contemporary fiction represents a definite step forward and a social critique in its exploration of ethical and political questions related to the impact of Eros on identity and its links to gender, power, violence, race and politics. Former taboos have been shattered by an aesthetics of the obscene, and the romantic utopia of love has been deconstructed by feminist gender theories. Literary narratives have foregrounded female sexuality and unstable borderline and homosexual identities, binding together sexual alterity and aesthetic innovation.