“The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clearing, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in the abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.” ~ Kate Chopin, The Awakening
Aphrodite awakens in us, born from the sea of our soul. She is symbolic of erotic dreams and desires. The ocean, saline, amniotic, the primordial sea, womb of life. We are made of stardust and seashells, and all of the yearning that stretches beyond our bodies. The erotic within us is that yearning, the coming together and ignition of our souls. We are longing to feel that magical passion for life when we seek the erotic, as Eros was spirited away by his love for Psyche.
From Wikipedia:
The story of Eros and Psyche had a longstanding tradition as a folktale of the ancient Greco-Roman world long before it was committed to literature in Apuleius‘ Latin novel, The Golden Ass. This is apparent and an interesting intermingling of character roles. The novel itself is picaresque Roman style, yet Psyche and Aphrodite retain their Greek parts. It is only Eros whose role hails from his part in the Roman pantheon.
The story is told as a digression and structural parallel to the main storyline of Apuleius’ novel. It tells of the struggle for love and trust between Eros and Psyche. Aphrodite is jealous of the beauty of mortal Psyche, as men are leaving her altars barren to worship a mere human woman instead, and so commands her son Eros to cause Psyche to fall in love with the ugliest creature on earth. Eros falls in love with Psyche himself and spirits her away to his home. Their fragile peace is ruined by a visit from Psyche’s jealous sisters, who cause Psyche to betray the trust of her husband. Wounded, Eros leaves his wife, and Psyche wanders the Earth, looking for her lost love.
In Apuleius’s The Golden Ass, Psyche bears Cupid a daughter, Voluptas (“Pleasure, Desire”).
“Anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves. So anyone who’s in love gets sad when they think of their lover. It’s like stepping back inside a room you have fond memories of, one you haven’t seen in a long time.” ~ Haruki Murakami
I could say that I’ve been asleep. Dreaming, for how long I’m not sure, perhaps years. My soul has been caught in the tide of reverie and longing. There are layers of my being that I do not reveal that are sediment, deep within. Places within me that I didn’t know existed. Just as grains of sand are eroded rock and shell, thousands of years have created it— our souls have mysteries like that. When the light sparks and the glimmer of something beautiful is discovered, then that is the moment. It is a memory. So I have been going along this current of memory, like the ocean waves, lost in it, not caring where it takes me. I have had many lovers in my life and many erotic experiences. All fragments of my erotic landscape. It’s all there to use as a palette, along with the imagination. Writing about the erotic is really an adventure on the soul level.
“Writing is a process, a journey into memory and the soul.” ~Isabel Allende
You might say I’ve been in the mood for love. I’ve been dormant, sleeping within. But there has been a marvelous phenomenon happening inside of me lately, an awakening of my soul. This awakening has been sparked, like Sleeping Beauty, by a kiss of life, and now I am vibrating with passion. Like any birth, there is blood involved, and pain, and things that I had not known about myself. All this time, I think I have been sleeping. Now it’s all fire and passion and living in every moment. I haven’t had much time to sleep. My mind is restless, and I am hyper-aware, even my flesh is alive with sensitivity. My soul is awake and my heart is full of passionate fire. Awakening.
“Erotica is using a feather; pornography is using the whole chicken.” ~Isabel Allende
I’ve been writing stories, erotic love stories, but in the process of writing, I am learning something new about myself. I make discoveries. It’s like sifting through soil, finding fragile treasures, tiny shells, whorls of prismatic layers and inner pearly chambers. Inside oneself is the treasure. My erotic self is tender within and soft. I am beginning to see the beauty of this process, searching through my memory, finding things that I never realized until the writing revealed it to me. When I say “erotic” what I am attempting to say is “passionate nature” and thus, we are naturally erotic and passionate beings. Passion is about life. And life is about sex and love, and all the complexities of being human. It is our instinct, to love. Longing is the yearning, to discover what lies within.
“Writing is like making love. Don’t worry about the orgasm, just concentrate on the process.” ~Isabel Allende
When I first started writing erotica, I had no idea what path I was choosing. It is easy to say, “Oh, yes, I will write about sex,” as if doing so automatically makes it something delicious to write about. But what ends up happening in the process is an unearthing of one’s psyche and all the contents. It’s a veritable Pandora’s Box. Sex is life. So I’m writing about life. Yes, even creating fiction is writing about life. Creating characters that are part of one’s self, so you really cannot get away with hiding it all. Sooner or later, it all comes to surface. As a painter, I thought of my paints and brushes as my language. Writing poetry and erotica were secondary. I kept it secret like a diary. It revealed too much of myself. Painting, on the other hand, was pure expression, all color and light. I didn’t have to explain my reasons or confess my darknesses and shadows. I just had to apply the paint to the canvas and allow the feeling to come through.
“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” ~Anaïs Nin
I love Anaïs Nin’s “Delta of Venus” and “Little Birds” out of all her writings. I admire her use of dream-like imagery and poetic layering. I like that her characters are imperfect and human. When I read various writers’ works in erotica anthologies, I enjoy some the modern stories, but in general, the lewd and formulaic writing is disappointing. I want to say I enjoy most of it, but, just like anything worth its weight in salt, most of the stuff our there sounds the same. I don’t want to churn out the stories full of “cock” and “pussy” and “cunt” and “thrust” without those words being used in a creative way, adding some juice to them; those names for our body parts that deserve more than being thrown about in between verbs and periods and paragraphs. Reinventing those “fuck words” with new life and energy, charging them with cosmic fuel.
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” ~Anaïs Nin
So, in the quest to write erotica, I have begun to discover, I am writing about life, love and human beings. Writing about being human, sexual and flawed, vulnerable, and other aspects. Fantasy, dreams. Romanticism, shadowy recesses and hidden corners of my erotic mind come into the realm of the written word.
I want it messy. I want it raw and real and vibrant. I want romance and longing. Passion. I know it may sound cliche or corny, but I want love. I want to be covered in the musky scent of sex. I want the stories I write to express something about human emotion and how life isn’t perfect. I want to create dreams and pleasure. I want to write about passion and the impermanent and sometimes heartbreaking beauty of life.
(painting by Gajin Fujita)
Henry Miller loved Anaïs Nin. She was married to Hugh Guiler. Her diaries, Vol.1, 1931–1934, were written when Anaïs lived a bohemian life with Henry Miller during her time in Paris. Her husband (Guiler) is not mentioned in her diary at that time. Henry and Anaïs remained lovers and kindled their passion for one another as artists, as writers, in love with each other; in love with life and the creative fire, passion.
Henry Miller to Anaïs Nin on March 4, 1932
“Three minutes after you have gone. No, I can’t restrain it. I tell you what you already know – I love you. It is this I destroyed over and over again. At Dijon I wrote you long passionate letters – if you had remained in Switzerland I would have sent them – but how could I send them to Louveciennes? Anais, I can’t say much now – I am in a fever. I could scarcely talk to you because I was continually on the point of getting up and throwing my arms around you.”
Anaïs Nin to Henry Miller on March 26, 1932
“This is strange, Henry. Before, as soon as I came home from all sorts of places I would sit down and write in my journal. Now I want to write you, talk with you. [...] I love when you say all that happens is good, it is good. I say all that happens is wonderful. For me it is all symphonic, and I am so aroused by living – god, Henry, in you alone I have found the same swelling of enthusiasm, the same quick rising of the blood, the fullness, the fullness … Before, I almost used to think there was something wrong. Everybody else seemed to have the brakes on. [...] I never feel the brakes. I overflow. And when I feel your excitement about life flaring, next to mine, then it makes me dizzy.”
Passionate souls and creative spirits, Anaïs and Henry wrote erotica together with other writers and artist friends, for a dollar per page commissioned by a secretive patron. The patron was a wealthy Oklahoma oil millionaire Roy Milisander Johnson. He commissioned these erotic manuscripts from writers like Anaïs and Henry. But. He wanted the poetry cut out. He just asked for the matter-of-fact details of sex.
Anaïs Nin on writing erotica for the eccentric patron:
“I gather poets around me and we all write beautiful erotica. As we have to suppress poetry, lyrical flight, and are condemned to focus only on sensuality, we have violent explosions of poetry. Writing erotica becomes a road to sainthood rather than to debauchery…We have to cut out the poetry, and are haunted by the marvelous tales we cannot tell. We have sat around, imagined this old man, talked of how much we hate him, because he will not allow us to make a fusion of sexuality with feeling, sensuality and emotion, and lyrical flights which intensify eroticism.”
Anaïs could not continue removing the poetry from the erotic. The wealthy patron became an albatross to her creative juices, and, finding the arrangement intolerable, she and the other writers could not go on writing sex without the poetry of life. She wrote a letter which the patron never received:
“Dear Collector;
We hate you. Sex loses all its its power and magic when it becomes explicit, mechanical, overdone, when it becomes a mechanistic obsession. It becomes a bore. You have taught us more than anyone I know how wrong it is not to mix it with emotion, hunger, desire, lust, whims, caprices, personal ties, deeper relationships, which change its colour, flavour, rhythms, intensities…You are shrinking your world of sensations. You are withering it, starving it, draining its blood…”
And in the art of writing erotica, life is what it’s all about. Life and living passionately, as if every single moment was as precious as our breath. A great big “Yes” when we are lost in pleasure. A “Yes” when we are in the arms of our lover.
“All night I could not sleep, because of the moonlight on my bed, I kept on hearing a voice calling: Out of Nowhere, Nothing answered “yes.” ~ Zi Ye (6th-3rd century B.C.E.) Chinese poet
(painting by Gajin Fujita)
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Isabel Allende was born in Peru and raised in Chile. She worked as as journalist until she began writing fiction. Her first novel, The House of the Spirits (La casa de los espíritus) (1982), was made into a film.
When Isabel Allende worked as a journalist, she wrote an interview with Pablo Neruda, the Chilean poet. Neruda, during the interview, told her that she had “too much imagination to be a journalist” and suggested that she become a novelist.
I have admired Isabel Allende’s writing, having read The House of the Spirits, Portrait in Sepia, and my favorite, Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses.
I have loved Isabel Allende’s writings because she weaves such intricate threads with her words into tapestries of stories. Layer upon layer, the emotions and fragments of beauty come through like sunlight through a stained glass window, creating colors and shadows, and nothing is purely sunny nor is it dark. Her feminine intuition and wisdom comes through, as a deeper understanding of people as human beings.
Even her translation of love and eroticism within fiction has human frailties and passion within the pages.
Imagine how excited I was to find this erotic passage written by Isabel Allende in a Penguin Book of Erotic Stories by Women:
Our Secret (1989)
“She let herself be caressed, drops of sweat in the small of her back, her body exuding the scent of burnt sugar, silent, as if she divined that a single sound could nudge its way into memory and destroy everything, reducing to dust this instant in which he was a person like any other, a casual lover she had met that morning, another man without a past attracted to her wheat-coloured hair, her freckled skin, the jangle of her gypsy bracelets, just a man who had spoken to her in the street and begun to walk with her, aimlessly, commenting on the weather and the traffic, watching the crowd, with the slightly forced confidence of her countrymen in this foreign land, a man without sorrow and anger, without guilt, pure as ice, who merely wanted to spend the day with her, wandering through bookstores and parks, drinking coffee, celebrating the chance of having met, talking of old nostalgias, of how life had been when both were growing up in the same city, in the same barrio, when they were fourteen, you remember, winters of shoes soggy from frost, and paraffin stoves, summers of peach trees, there in the now-forbidden country. Perhaps she was feeling a little lonely, or this seemed an opportunity to make love without complications, but, for whatever reason, at the end of the day, when they had run out of pretexts to walk any longer, she had taken his hand and led him to her house. She shared with other exiles a sordid apartment in a yellow building at the end of an alley filled with garbage cans. Her room was tiny: a mattress on the floor covered with a striped blanket, bookshelves improvised from boards stacked on two rows of bricks, books, posters, clothing on a chair, a suitcase in the corner. She removed her clothes without preamble, with the attitude of a little girl eager to please. He tried to make love to her. He stroked her body patiently, slipping over her hills and valleys, discovering her secret routes, kneading her, soft clay upon the sheets, until she yielded, and opened to him. Then he retreated, mute, reserved. She gathered herself, and sought him, her head on his belly, her face hidden, as if constrained by modesty, as she fondled him, licked him, spurred him. He tried to lose himself; he closed his eyes and for a while he let her do as she was doing, until he was defeated by sadness, or shame, and pushed her away. They lighted another cigarette. There was no complicity now; the urgent anticipation that had united them during the day was lost, and all that was left were two vulnerable people lying on a mattress, without memory, floating in the terrible vacuum of unspoken words. When they had met that morning they had had no extraordinary expectations, they had no particular plan, only companionship, and a little pleasure, that was all, but at the hour of their coming together, they had been engulfed by melancholy. We’re tired, she smiled, seeking excuses for the desolation that had settled over them. In a last attempt to buy time, he took her face in his hands and kissed her eyelids.”
This erotic passage read beautifully to me. It shows two people as erotic and human. There is no idealization of the erotic, no fixation of body parts or intentions. The passage felt beautiful, melancholy, and real.
The book I love of Isabel Allende’s the most is Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses.
“I repent of my diets, the delicious dishes rejected out of vanity, as much as I lament the opportunities for making love that I let go by.” ~ Isabel Allende
Aphrodite‘s non-linear form is a melting sensual pot of her romantic and culinary recollections. She blends in her stories like a chef in the kitchen, adding spices and herbs. The book has recipes, erotic excerpts, mythology, poetry, travel notes and stories, and aphrodisiacs. Aphrodite is “a mapless journey through the regions of sensual memory, in which the boundaries between love and appetite are so diffuse that at times they evaporate completely.”
“Appetite and sex are the great motivators of history … All of creation is one long interrupted cycle of digestion and fertility.” ~Isabel Allende
In Aphrodite, Isabel celebrates the aphrodisiacs of many dishes with given recipes and sensual suggestions for their uses. Caviar, for instance, is “the supreme stimulus for lechery” and tells the tales of caviar and its sordid history. When cooking omelets, like making love, “affection counts for more than technique.”
Allende describes her dream of swimming in a pool of creamy arroz con leche, her favorite dessert. She gives her precious recipe for the soul food of rice pudding at the finale of her book. She suggests that we can slather it on a loved one, and slowly lick it off. She notes that, in this instance, the calories would be justified.
Sensuality and food is explored, revered, and celebrated in this saucy book of erotica excerpts, personal stories, aphrodisiac ingredients, and orgies are mentioned along with possible menus for such decadent events.
Isabel Allende’s Works
“You, first parents of the human race, who ruined yourself for an apple, what might you not have done for a truffled turkey?” ~ Brillat-Savarin
“A seed hidden in the heart of an apple is an orchard invisible.”~Welsh Proverb
Apples, the fruit of Eve, the golden apple of Aphrodite, the symbol of love and seduction. Snow White was offered a poisoned apple. Red apples, golden apples. A symbol of the breast, female. Adam and Eve were tempted. Forbidden knowledge. Seduction.
Apples and Apple Blossoms are symbolic of love. Eve, the temptress, was the first to seduce with a round, juicy apple. Breasts. Inside the apple, seeds. Mating. Sex. Desire, with all its delicious seduction, is fruitful, its power manifest in fertile mouthfuls. Kisses, tasting of mouths, biting into apples. Love, in all its manifestations, exists within an apple. Cheeks, like apples. Breath of the lover is sweet: “Let thy breasts be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of thy breath like apples.”
The poet Robert Frost’s symbolic poem, After Apple Picking describes the ‘apple picking’ as metaphor for chasing human desires.
The Song of Songs mentions apples and pomegranates, and apples that refresh one’s love: “Sustain me with raisins, refresh me with apples, for I am faint with love” Song of Songs 2:5. To “sustain” or “hold” alludes to a lover’s embrace:
As an apple tree among the trees of the wood,
so is my beloved among young men.
With great delight I sat in his shadow,
and his fruit was sweet to my taste.He brought me to the banqueting house,and his intention towards me was love.Sustain me with raisins,
refresh me with apples;
for I am faint with love.
O that his left hand were under my head,
and that his right hand embraced me!
The Spring Equinox, a sacred passage of time, especially to the Nordic Goddess Iduna, who kept “magical apples” as the Immortal Goddess of Spring. Her husband was the God of Poetry, Bragi. She welcomed the magical moment of her Spring Equinox with birds and apples. The apple represents nature’s rebirth. It reminds us of Aphrodite, and her birth from the sea foam.
Cider was considered magical, used in the orgiastic rites of the goddess. Strong cider is called “The Witches Brew”. And, if so, then… Eve was the “Great Goddess”. Witches, Goddesses, Aphrodite, the origins of Feminine Mysteries and Life, Birth. Pre-monotheism, the “Great Goddess” was the creatrix of the universe. The “Mother-Goddess” originated in Pre-Indo-European neolithic matriarchies.
The apple of love, lust, desire and seduction, a symbol of life and creation, its lore revealing its magical qualities and essence. Greek warriors threw apples to their desired ladies, hence “she was the apple of his eye,” and that apple was much like a engagement ring. As an aphrodisiac, apples are juicy, refreshing after lovemaking. Sweet, full of anti-oxidants, and wonderful temptations in pies and desserts. The simplest and most sensual combination to me is apples dipped in honey. We eat them especially for the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, to bring sweetness into the coming year. I find apples dipped in honey to be a very sensual experience. Perhaps those seductresses of Hebrew folklore used them to tempt their lovers?
PUTTING IN THE SEED (Poem by Robert Frost)
You come to fetch me from my work to-night
When supper’s on the table, and we’ll see
If I can leave off burying the white
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree
(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea)
And go along with you ere you lose sight
Of what you came for and become like me,
Slave to a springtime passion for the earth.
How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed, The sturdy seedling with arched body comes, Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.
I found a Harvard Classical Literature article by A.R. Littlewood, that mentions an essay written in 1899 by Benjamin Oliver Foster titled “Notes on the Symbolism of the Apple in Classical Antiquity” which dilgently traces the apple’s symbolism to Aphrodite.
After reading through the essay by Foster, I noticed through many passages where the “apple” is mentioned as a love token for mortals as well as Gods and Goddesses. The ‘love apple’ was used in Ancient Greek and Roman times, as an advance, a declaration, an engagement offering. Love notes were written upon them as declarations carved into the flesh of the apple. In this article, many ancient Greek passages, left untranslated by Foster, basically coming to the round-about conclusion that yes, the apple is the ancient connection between the ancient rituals of apple tree worship (fertility/fecundity) and the fruit of the tree, the “apple” being the symbolic breast of Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love.
Another essay by Anne M. Avakian titled “Three Apples Fell from Heaven” notes the phrase in numerous Armenian, Turkish, and Persian folktales that end with the saying, “Three Apples Fell from the Sky…” and variations on the same theme, its use in place of “Happily Ever After” to end the tale. It use was also to illustrate the attainment of desire.
For more on APPLE LORE, click the APPLE
“Ti kallisti” (“to the fairest” in ancient Greek)
BRAVA ITALIA for bringing back the CURVE.
The Hips, the Breasts.
Woman.
Soft, Strong, Warm, Fleshy
Venus of Willendorf, Primal Womb
Ripe, Juicy, Sensuous, Curves of the Cosmos
Primordial Sister Moon, Mother of Life
Breasts, Goblets of Milk, Elixir
Hips, Thighs, Buttocks
Beautiful Woman.
Feminine beauty for centuries has been based upon the round, soft hips, the swell and dip of breasts. Rubenesque. Zaftig. Curvy. Venus had them. Aphrodite, as she was called by the Greeks. Femme Fatales. Sirens. Seductresses. All of them had a powerful gift: femininity.
Photographer Steven Meisel has captured, and only with his lens, the magnificence of the curve, the way we women are supposed to be. Enough of this dieting, the maniacal efforts to be slim, to squeeze into a size too small, for our true beauty is built in. Honor the curves, don’t fight them, as we have for decades now. What have we been doing? It’s like trying to control a tidal wave. A natural force. Corsets to control our tummy, “body shapers” and “tummy tamers” and contraptions to bind our curves? Enough of them. Unless you enjoy wearing a corset along with your garters and stockings to accentuate the positives of your curves.
Tara Lynn, Candice Huffine and Robyn Lawley are on the June issue cover story of VOGUE Italia, portrayed by Steven Meisel.(Interestingly, Steven Meisel was also obsessed with models such as Twiggy, Veruschka, and Jean Shrimpton at 12 years old. To meet famous model Twiggy, the 12-year-old Meisel stood outside waiting for her to appear). But, here we have curves like never before. Unlike Twiggy, these curvaceous beauties are bringing back the bounce, the boom boom, and the vavoom. Or the… abbondanza!
The Renaissance of Feminine Beauty, Power, and the Goddess. Real Goddesses. The Archetype of Woman.
And VOGUE Italia is fighting the war against Pro-Anorexia websites with their buxom beauties.
PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION
“On learning that Facebook is considered today the culprit of anorexia, and since I believe it is impossible that a social network alone may be held responsible for the spreading of such phenomenon, I did some research and found that there are countless pro-anorexia websites and blogs that not only support the disorder, but also urge young people to be competitive about their “body shape”.
Vogue Italia, the magazine par excellence that deals with and promotes aesthetics and beauty, has decided to make use of its authority and its readers on the web (over one million of contacts per month), to battle against anorexia and collect signatures with the final goal of shutting such sites down.
Fashion has been always blamed as one of the culprits of anorexia, and our commitment is the proof that fashion is ready to get on the frontline and struggle against the disorder.”
~Franca Sozzani
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The first food I remember tasting and feeling an overwhelming sense of pleasure from was rice pudding. It was evening when my grandparents arrived home from a dinner out, and they thought to bring a pint of rice pudding home. I may have been about six or seven at the time. The container was treated as a magical vessel, the way my grandfather spooned the pudding out into a small bowl for my dessert. Plump raisins speckled the pudding among the creamy rice, scent of cinnamon and vanilla. The raisins burst in my mouth with juicy surprise, and the heavy cream, so voluptuous and decadent on my tongue. Such sensuality was intensely memorable, particularly at such a young age.
Rice pudding was my first sensual food experience, and then there was the bowl of fresh strawberries, chopped up and swirled into sour cream with heaping amounts of brown sugar. Such were the beginnings of my culinary taste buds. As a girl, one with wonder about magic potions, and spells cast by witches and wizards in fairy tales, the idea of an aphrodisiac captivated me.
The potion that makes one fall in love seemed the most appealing. Whether it was made by a witch or concocted in the kitchen, that concept of creating something to evoke a strong desire, and love. Inspiration and seduction, the spell cast by pots and pans, by stirring exotic spices into a pot of soup, or blending a secret ingredient into your amour’s drink, the outcome would be unbridled pleasure.
The desire for pleasure is something that is deeply embedded in human longing. We seek out pleasure in food, drink, and love. There are many aspects to pleasure, of course, from having our hair washed at the salon, feeling the warm sun on our skin, stretching our body out in a comfortable bed after a good sleep, to making love, perhaps, in that morning or any other moment, and tasting something we truly enjoy. The idea of food as a magical substance that enhances our desires, that makes our love interest want us intensely, that inspires lovers to greater moments of passion, is an idea that has existed for centuries.
In New Orleans I knew a Voudou Priestess who had a little shop (botanica) where she gave tarot readings and dispensed love potions, spells, candles, and magical oils to her believers. I danced on Bayou St. John in celebration of the famous New Orleans Voudou Queen, Marie Laveau’s birthday. Erzulie was honored into the sacred space for the ceremony. Erzulie is the Voudou goddess of love, romance, art, passion and sex. Beauty and love are her creations. People came in seeking help with their love life. The Voudou “orisha” or “goddess” Erzulie is their version of Aphrodite, and she is called upon for love spells in particular.
The word “aphrodisiac” derives from the Goddess of Love and Sex, Aphrodite. She herself was born of the sea, emerging on a clam shell, created from sea foam. The “clam shell” has vaginal suggestions, and the sea, amniotic fluid, birthing from ‘sea foam’, which makes one think of semen. At least I think of semen when imagining sea foam.
Oysters are a known aphrodisiac, and the shells that glimmer with their opalescent promises of sexual stamina and male virility. Perhaps, then, sea cucumbers and geoducks might suffice for an obvious male aphrodisiac? Why oysters, with their feminine sexual offerings? But time has given meaning to these myths of aphrodisiacal qualities, and we don’t question the powers of the mysterious rites of sex.
Abalone, acai berry, apples, apricots, and even arugula are thought of as “aphrodisiacs”. Asparagus with its phallic spear, Avocado with its feminine vulva and center (pit) like a womb of green fecundity. Bananas are all too suggestive when eating. Basil was a Roman symbol of love. Champagne, bubbling and effervescent, inspires delight and tastes of romance, celebration. Yes, chocolate, for a multitude of reasons, is considered an aphrodisiac, without any doubt its mood-enhancing power is scientifically proven. Cherries are juicy and red, sensual to suck on, bite, turn the pit around in one’s mouth.
One key aphrodisiac: Cinnamon.
Cinnamon, the scent, beguiling for men in particular, and used in the greatest aphrodisiac scents: pumpkin pie and cinnamon buns.
At the top of “sexy smells” according to recent studies was both pumpkin pie and cinnamon buns. Yes, baking a pumpkin pie could be considered seduction.Want to spice up your sex life? Make homemade cinnamon buns.
There are fabulous resources available for aphrodisiac seekers like myself— one of the best books on the subject of “hunger and the psyche” is Bunny Crumpacker’s book “The Sex Life of Food” — this is my favorite book to bring along when dining alone. Imagine the curious looks I get from other diners when they observe me reading this at the table.
There is a wonderful book by Amy Reiley and Juan-Carlos Cruz called The Love Diet :
“A lifestyle plan for a healthy sex life for life, The Love Diet shares ingredients and recipes known to sustain a healthy libido as well as promote energy, mood, glowing skin and cardiovascular health.
The Love Diet is not a starvation program or crazy fad. No one food is off-limits on our plan. We just help readers understand how to reduce unhealthy ingredients and pack the diet with desired nutrients and more sustainable ingredients at the same time as delivering sensual textures and taste bud tittlating flavors.”
Figs are also an aphrodisiac. A symbol of a woman’s sex, figs are sensual, exotic.
Explore some aphrodisiacs, enjoy with your lover, or inspire yourself in the kitchen. Aphrodisiacs don’t need to apply to just romance, they can also uplift our mood, giving us a sensual experience of life and living. Create recipes using figs and other aphrodisiacs that appeal to you.
Papayas are also amazing for one’s sexual health: papaya has compounds that act as the female hormone estrogen. It has been used as a folk remedy in promoting menstruation and milk production, facilitating childbirth and increasing the female libido.
But in Guatemala, men eat papayas as an aphrodisiac. Aside from all the sexual reasons, papaya is incredibly good for our health: The milky juice that comes out from unripe papaya fruit is a good digestive aid. It stimulates the secretion of gastric juice, and is used in cases of stomach discomfort like dyspepsia. Commonly used as a cooking ingredient. the unripe or green papaya also has a digestive enzyme called papain which tenderizes meat. Papain is also used as a digestive aid and is said to have anti-inflammatory benefits.
Being healthy is sexy. We feel sexier when we are healthy also. And cooking for our lover can be an adventure, gathering the “magical” ingredients to woo our beloved, taking the time and putting love into what we make. Like Water For Chocolate is a favorite film of mine based on the novel by Laura Esquivel. My favorite scene is when Tita makes her famous “aphrodisiac” dinner of quail in rose petal sauce:
“Tita’s strong emotions become infused into her cooking and she unintentionally begins to affect the people around her through the food she prepares. After one particularly rich meal of quail in rose petal sauce flavored with Tita’s erotic thoughts of Pedro, Tita’s older sister Gertrudis becomes inflamed with lust and leaves the ranch making ravenous love with a revolutionary soldier on the back of a horse before being dumped in a brothel and subsequently disowned by her mother.”
Another book that inspires is by Isabel Allende: Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses—- “In this bawdy memoir-cum-cookbook, Allende has put together an apothecary of aphrodisiacs, from snake’s blood and rhinoceros horn to the more commonplace and more palatable oysters, “those seductive tears of the sea, which lend themselves to slipping from mouth to mouth like a prolonged kiss … can be purchased in bottles, but there they look like malignant tumors; in contrast, moist and turgid in their shells they suggest delicate vulvae–a prime example of food that appeals to the eye.”
“If cookbooks make up part of your library,” Allende notes, “books on eroticism should, too.”
Love magic and spells are part of ancient history.
“Eros spells” were mainly practiced by men and prostitutes in Ancient Greece. Eros spells were used to instill lust and passion into women, leading them to fulfill the man who invoked the spell.
“Love magic” was also practiced during the Renaissance period (14th to 17th centuries) and was both Christian and Pagan. It was taken quite seriously and sometimes hidden in pseudo-religious acts of candle lighting and prayer. It was also cast upon those of wealth and status, and used carefully due to the social and physical dangers involved in casting “love spells” during the Renaissance of Europe.
Tristan and Isolde is a tale that involves a “love elixir”: After defeating the Irish knight Morholt, Tristan travels to Ireland to bring back the fair Iseult for his uncle King Mark to marry. Along the way, they drink a love potion that causes the pair to fall madly in love. The story is told in many ways, and the effects of love elixir vary from tale to tale.
There was a chef I once was completely enamored with. He was the most beautiful man I had ever seen. A handsome, strong, tall Korean man with a sweet disposition, very shy, and a talented sushi chef. I dined at his restaurant just to eat whatever he decided to make for me. Being vegetarian, perhaps this illustrates my desire. I ate any kind of sushi, sashimi, and anything else he conjured. It was exquisite, the mystery. He served me at my table, rather than at a “sushi bar”. Kneeling at my eye level before my table, he looked at me with his penetrating eyes, and softly asked me, “What would you like tonight?” My answer could have been lusty and direct, but that would have ruined the magic. He flirted with me through food. It was as delicate as his sweet shrimp and baby lobster roll, as luxurious as his creamy sauces.
I will never forget the rainy night when I entered the warm candlelit interior of the restaurant, damp with rain. I was hungry. I had just spent several hours in my Japanese language class, and drove across the city, stomach grumbling, dizzy with hunger. The restaurant was quiet that night. Just the few waitstaff, the bartender, and me at my table. I was alone with my chef. I could see him from my table through the open space of the kitchen, in his indigo dyed yukata, his broad shoulders, his head wrapped with the same color “hachimaki” (head bandana). His face was illuminated by the indigo dyed fabric, smiling at me from the kitchen. He came out and asked me if I was especially hungry. Of course I was about to faint. Swooning. He said, “I know just what to make for you.”
As he bustled around the kitchen, he was a magician. There was something unusual going on. The sound of the rain, droplets on the windows sparkling with the lights from neon signs, the busy street, the interior candles. glimmering. The sounds of clanging pans and stainless steel bowls. He was not wrapping rolls or cutting fish, but using the stove. I noticed the shape of his body far off in the kitchen, doing something with a pan.
He returned with a plate of the most fragile lacy crepes, pahjun, or “pajeon”, made with scallions and other julienned vegetables inside a warm thin pancake. They are also known as authentic Korean “boochoo jun” (chive pancake). They arrived by his hands before me, the glorious scent, his hands near me, our eyes met over the dish, his gaze spiced with heat. He explained that I use my hands, gesturing to my hands, a slight touch to my skin, and his fingers to his luscious mouth, he said, “just dip and eat.”
The pajeon came with a dipping sauce that was fragrant and sweet— he had made it himself. He told me it had ginger, sesame, garlic. Something sweet also. Love? Desire?
An unforgettable aphrodisiac dinner, and the memory of that rainy night.
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