When we smell another’s body, it is that body that we are breathing in through our mouth and nose, 
that we possess instantly, as it were in its most secret substance, its own nature. Once inhaled, the smell is the fusion of the other’s body and my own. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre 

The power of scent influences our human responses during attraction and mating. Love at first sight just may be love at first smell. Perfumes have been created for centuries, as ancient of a practice as we can trace back. Oils, unguents, elixirs, and the like were made for perfuming during and after bathing rituals, anointing one’s body to attract and entice. Our own pheromones are nature’s chemical concoction to attract, allure, and bond us with our mate. Sexual attraction and desire are fueled by scent, along with other contributing factors. But the natural scent of a lover is everlasting in our olfactory memories.

The scent of my lover intoxicates me with desire. When I nuzzle my nose against his skin, I am flooded with emotion. As we kiss, the scent of his upper lip makes my body tingle with a strong sense of devotion for him. I feel this awareness zing through me from his face to my nose, through the bones of my face, down into my breastbone, into my belly, like electrical current into the bones of my hips and down my legs to my toes. It is so powerful, like a magic spell cast over me. The skin of his neck and just near his ear smells so indescribably good and masculine that I feel gravity pull me into him. It’s so strong, I can’t resist. His scent causes a swell of longing to surge through me. When he leaves his clothing behind, I hold it to my face, close my eyes, and remember his embrace. I am obsessed with my lover’s scent.

Gustave Flaubert waxed deliriously with desire over his lover’s scent that lingered on her gloves and slippers. Poet Robert Herrick’s desire for his lover’s intimate scent, whose “breast, lips, hands, thighs, legs … are all richly aromatical,” made him wild with want for her. Napoleon Bonaparte, upon returning home from a long absence due to war, sent a message to his lover Josephine: “Home in three days. Don’t wash.” Washing and cleanliness decrease the musky scent that lovers crave of one another. I must admit, although I do love to bathe and enjoy feeling clean, I also love it when my body smells like sex after making love, because it reminds me of my lover. I feel possessed, scent-marked. But like animals do, marking their scent and licking the scent of others, I want to be scent-marked by my lover’s body. I want to be claimed by him. I inhale the scent of his skin during lovemaking, just his natural scent, without perfumes or deodorant. With my face buried into his armpit, there is nothing like the scent of him, so I breathe him in. It arouses me beyond measure. Kissing his mouth and inhaling my lover’s scent during sex is the most compelling combination of sensory pleasures.

Walt Whitman said the sweat of a lover was “aroma finer than prayer” and I must say I agree. In fact, I’ve discovered that I’m becoming a little fetishistic about the scent of the man I love. He leaves behind a necktie and immediately I smell the narrow part that keeps itself nearest around his neck. I am transported to the warmth of his skin there, the place where my face seeks when we are embracing. I recall the scent of him, remembering the smell when I burrow my face against his warm neck. I hold the thin black fabric to my face and caress it with my cheek. Inhale. Searching for the scent of him, I give the tie another smell along the strip of its silky fabric. Smell again. I discover a hint of his scent. My eyes flutter with the memory and instantly I understand the romantic cliche of smelling handkerchiefs and jackets where the memory of one’s lover exists. There, his white undershirt is draped across the chair. I gather the softness to my face. I smell the faintest scent of his body and take another deep inhale to find his odor at the armpit. His body odor is so delicately fragrant that I have to bury my nose. We recently both discovered our mutual love of each other’s smell, so when he is on top of me during sex, he generously offers his armpit to my face. I delight, savor, and relish him then. It drives me near to orgasm and I’m ecstatic with the fragrance of his underarm, his cock deep within me, his breath near my ear.

We both recently learned about how much we have been enjoying each other’s scent— the lingering scents of our bodies and sexual blending of our odors after lovemaking. He admitted to inhaling my sexual musk from behind, burying his nose in between my bottom cheeks, tonguing me there, and then tasting my sex, breathing it in, the femaleness. Even the remaining odors of my sex upon his, as it lingers the following day, he takes pleasure in. I admit my own renifleur delight of his body, the many areas of his body I love to smell, and even more when it has been a day or two after he has washed. Underneath his arms, his upper lip, his cheek, neck, the sultry musk of his sex, the creases in between his legs, and down underneath his balls, the area around his ass, and further. His feet smell good, and when I massage his toes, I am tempted to either suckle them or smell them. I can’t decide. The inner arch of his foot, the in between of his toes. I want him in a way that I have never known before. You see, I have never desired a man this much, and this may just be my first fascination with a lover’s scent. If pheromones are the cause, then it really was love at first smell.

“Masculine exhalations are, as a rule, stronger, more vivid, more widely differentiated than those of women. In the odor of young men there is something elemental, as of fire, storm, and salt sea. It pulsates with buoyancy and desire. It suggests all the things strong and beautiful and joyous and gives me a sense of physical happiness.” ~ Helen Keller

From Diane Ackerman’s book A Natural History of the Senses there is a plentitude of information on scent and smell. I found many curious and interesting facts about pheromones and desire in her book about the senses:

“Pheromones are the pack animals of desire (from Greek, pherein, to carry, and horman, excite). Animals, like us, not only have distinctive odors, they also have powerfully effective pheromones, which trigger other animals into ovulation and courtship, or establish hierarchies of influence and power.

Animals would not be able to live long without pheromones because they couldn’t mark their territories or choose receptive, fertile mates. But are there human pheromones? And can they be bottled? Some trendy women in Manhattan are wearing a perfume called Pheromone, priced at three hundred dollars an ounce. Expensive perhaps, but what price aphrodisia? Based on findings about the sexual attractants animals give off, the perfume promises, by implication, to make a woman smell provocative and turn stalwart men into slaves of desire: love zombies. The odd thing about the claims of this perfume is that its manufacturer has not specified which pheromones are in it. Human pheromones have not yet been identified by researchers, whereas, say, boar pheromones have. The vision of a generation of young women walking the streets wearing boar pheromones is strange, even for Manhattan. Let me propose a naughty recipe: Turn loose a herd of sows on Park Avenue. Mix well with crowds of women wearing Pheromone eau de cologne. Dial 911 for emergency.”

I recall the first day we met. He embraced me right away, and I swooned against him, my face fitting into his chest. We kissed and kissed, the warmth, the scent of his skin. Everywhere I met a new scent upon his body. The faint hint of shampoo in his hair, no cologne nor deodorant to hunt through for his natural aroma.

Unnameable fragrance, mysterious. I could not argue with instinct. I wanted him more than any other man in the world. He became the entire universe in the moment of his kiss.

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.

Silent, starving I prowl through the streets.

Bread does not nourish me, dawn disquiets me,

I search the liquid sound of your steps all day.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,

For your hands the color of the wild grain,

I hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,

I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your loveliness,

The nose, sovereign of your arrogant face,

I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

And I walk hungry, smelling the twilight

Looking for you, for your hot heart,

Like a puma in the barren wilderness.

Pablo Neruda wrote this poem about craving a lover’s mouth, with the last line, and I walk hungry, smelling the twilight, looking for you. The animalistic hunger of wanting a lover, searching for them in the scent of twilight, wanting to eat them from the intensity of desire. And like Jean-Paul Sartre said, Once inhaled, the smell [of a lover] is the fusion of the other’s body and my own. 

As I remember all the erotic moments I’ve had in my life, the ones that stand out as “the best” or “the one moment I cannot forget” are very few. I could count, but I don’t quantify; and I’m terrible with numbers. Besides, I’d rather not count. The one lover that has come along and, with a sweeping kiss, undone all of my notions of what “the best sex” is has done so without realizing it. Chemistry and all.

When I was a girl of thirteen, one of my aunts told me that sex was good and healthy to have when I’m ready. That last statement was added for precaution by my auntie, the hippie, the flower child— she had three boyfriends at the time she gave this advice. She then sealed her comment with “and it’s the best when you are in love.” So I thought that this magic combination would be waiting for me when I fell in love one fine day,  I expected it would happen like all young girls that age tend to do.

But falling in love wasn’t easily found, and, when I did have sex, the first time, I was fourteen. That was a year after my auntie gave me her words of wisdom. I wasn’t in love with the first boy I had sex with, of course. I wanted to have sex, and I was ready, or so I thought. The years that followed were explorations in sex and many a guy I wasn’t feeling anything for. I was searching for love and not finding it. I watched awful porn with my so-called boyfriend and thought I was suppose to act like those 80’s porn stars. I had no idea what the best sex was. I did whatever was required to get the approval of the boy I wanted to be loved by. I wanted to be loved, so I moaned and made lots of noise and even let him come all over my face. I swallowed, I sucked, and I fucked him wildly, but clearly this wasn’t the magical “best sex ever” experience I had in mind.

I wasn’t having orgasms during sex in my teenage sex life either. My boyfriend was older than me by a number of years, and he wasn’t very emotional or tender. I was lost in the act of sex. I had thought that sex would be as good as my auntie said. Especially so if I was in love, which I wasn’t. I wasn’t in love, and I was having lots of sex without feeling, straight ahead fucking without romance or sweet nothings. When he and I had sex in the back of his Chevy Impala, David Lee Roth was on the tape deck singing Jamie’s Cryin’ which taunted my young heart. While the lyrics said that Jamie’s been in love before, and that it should mean a little more than one night stands, I got the idea that it should mean more. It could mean more. But, I was fifteen year old girl, and my boyfriend wasn’t in love with me.

I knew I could orgasm by myself, but the mystery of sex was clouded with the idea that other women could orgasm so easily (as I’d seen in porn). But, I wasn’t having such an easy time doing it in real life. One scene I remembered watching was a couple fucking hard. The woman was being taken from behind in an all fours doggy style position— a moaning and gasping blonde porn star, her glistening buttocks shimmying like jello with every thrust as she was being fucked into a frenzied orgasm. Inspired, I tried that position with my boyfriend. He came right away. I didn’t.

The best sex evaded me.

As I entered my twenties, sex became much better. I knew my body, and I was familiar with toys and what worked for me to get off: vibrators, dildos, and anal play, mainly. I read Women on Top and My Secret Garden by Nancy Friday. I read Anais Nin’s erotica and Anne Rice’s erotic writings as A.N. Roquelaure, The Sleeping Beauty Trilogy. I was stripping down nude daily at a seedy club in the San Fernando Valley, affectionately called “The Ball,” and my best friend was a former porn star from the 80’s. She was dancing at the club and found love with a sweetheart of a man. They married, and I was her maid of honor. I wondered what exactly it was that she understood about sex and love that I didn’t. What was good sex with real love? During that time of my life, I had many girlfriends, mostly from the club. Finding a boyfriend or a serious lover was difficult when mostly what men wanted from me was to be had for the price of a table dance or a round of dollar bills around the stage. Men wanted to watch me dance naked. The loneliest time of my non-existent love life was when I was a stripper, in fact. It was a terribly lonely feeling to be sexually sought after day after day but have no one who cherished me once I left the club. The idea of someone taking me to dinner without paying me for my time was a silly notion. Who would just take me out to dinner, just because?

Not that I minded being alone. I preferred my solitude and enjoyed my beautiful apartment, my new car, and my growing bookshelf full of books. Most of the time, after a long day naked in high heels, I popped open a bottle of my favorite champagne, put some jazz on the stereo, and happily made myself a lovely dinner. I dined in candlelight on my patio alone with a good book. I had erotica to read. If the mood struck, I had my fantasies to help me along while using my vibrator. The thing was I still had no idea what the best sex was or how to imagine it happening to me.

I did figure out how to orgasm with a partner, finally. I had a sweet boyfriend who cared a little about me. Me, the young nineteen year old girl-woman. My clitoris was my best friend in that discovery. As long as I touched myself while he slowly went in and out, I came and came. It was good sex, but I wasn’t in love. We never said anything about love at all. Ever.

Playing with other women was exciting— observing how they pleasured themselves and how they liked it. One memorable moment was with a girlfriend that I lived with. We had one of those ‘papasan’ bowl-shaped couches from Pier One Imports that proved itself to be a sex chair of the deluxe kind for two nubile young women. We slathered some oil on each other’s pussies and scissored our legs together while holding each other’s hands. Grinding our pussies together allowed us to come in ways I had no idea existed. The slippery feeling of her pussy on mine was arousing beyond compare. We loved that chair for all its fabulous reasons. That was the best lesbian sex I had ever had. But did Jen care for me? I know she felt something like desire. I did feel a sense of something with her, too, but it was simply lust and sexual curiosity. She had two other boyfriends as well as me. She loved the way I went down on her and used toys to get her to come in a shaking orgasmic release. And it was Jen— the one who climbed on top of me and, with a naughty smile, she knew just what to do. She went down and licked my clitoris while slowly moving a vibrator in and out of me until I came. She also used toys in my other parts, both anally and vaginally penetrating me, while licking my clit and getting me so juicy wet. So far, it was Jennifer that gave me the best sex. And I was barely twenty years old then.

But the idea of romantic love and sex combining itself together into “the best sex” was still mysterious. My gal pal, Kristy, from the dancing days of The Oddball Cabaret, a.k.a. The Ball, was a piano teacher by weekend and stripper during the week. Kristy was a warm and wonderful redhead. She wore thigh high leather boots onstage and danced to Thomas Dolby’s She Blinded Me With Science. We spent most nights hanging out while mixing up Kahlua and cream in iced glasses, watching films, or soaking in her big round bath tub while listening to endless loops of Enya. She had a crush on Rutger Hauer in Ladyhawke, and, for the most part, she was closer to straight than anything. She was a sweet woman and yet .. . Sex with her alone was not really quite ‘it.’ Kristy was a flirt with all the men we knew, and finding boy toys to satisfy us was our specialty. We had one weekend long romp with a lovely guy we met and tired the dear man out between the two of us. But did I remember that as the best sex?

There were many other boyfriends until I had a year-long fling with a musician who didn’t mind that I was a stripper. We did have delicious sex, and I did orgasm every time. I began to discover that I was multi-orgasmic. I felt a slight tenderness for him, and I am sure he felt something similar. But there were no “I love you” moments from either of us, and we never discussed our relationship beyond a sexual one. He wasn’t my boyfriend. He was just a guy I had really good sex with. As far as the idea of love went, he compared me to liking a chocolate chip cookie rather than to a summer’s day. But he never admitted a darn emotion. Not once.

As the years went on, the best sex was hard to find.  Even while I was engaged to a chef, our best times were in the kitchen, cooking for our dinner parties, or traveling together to luxurious locales. In bed, it was vanilla and lukewarm. One hot steamy night in Kona, he was overwhelmed by my hungry need for good and lusty sex. It was too much for him— he rejected my intensity. I had a lot of sun that day. Sunning in the nude always makes me aroused. I had masturbated outside on the grass while at the house we were staying at. The scent of plumeria flowers, the ocean, the sun, and the relaxed Hawaiian air had me wriggling around in the island heat until I touched myself, feverish for some kind of passion. So I made it known that I wanted ‘it,’ but he just liked ‘it’ when I was sweet and demure, half asleep, with my legs spread open. It was a few thrusts, and that was that. I thought that perhaps the idea of ‘the best sex’ or even good sex was something I might just have to give up. The fantasy of having sex with a passionate lover that involved hair pulling and wild sweaty abandon may never happen to me, I thought. I was in my mid-twenties. I had yet to have that magical combination of amazing sex and loving emotions. Maybe the idea was just a dream?

But I wanted passion. I realized that it was something I could not live without. I hadn’t experienced true passion before, but there was a yearning deep within me that ached for it. I wanted passion, and I couldn’t get married unless I had that with my fiancé. But, we were more like good friends and less like lovers, and I wanted more.

He compared me to a diamond in the rough. If I could just polish you, he said, you’d shine. I coiled from the mere comparison, which suggested that I wasn’t good enough the way I was, just as me. So, that led me to a question. Wasn’t I enough for someone just as I am? Why couldn’t I have amazingly good sex with heaping amounts of love? Why was I labeled the ‘diamond in the rough’ and just a chocolate chip cookie?

All these years, I have waited for that mind-blowing orgasmic bliss with a man I am so very into— with passion, desire, and intense kissing. Wanting someone so much like this, I can’t embrace, kiss, and orgasm upon him enough. The desire to bite him out of sheer lusty want is my wild expression of intense affection. I feel so much desire, it’s animal. It’s almost cannibal. I want to eat him because I feel so much. And is it the best sex of my life? Yes.

Yes, years later, now in my forties, I am experiencing what I think is the best sex of my life. And yes, love has something to do with it. Passionate sex has found me. I’m getting close, and I’m coming… closer. I’m closer to that passionate experience I have been longing for. Yes. Finally, the universe has answered my heart, mind, body and soul. James Joyce couldn’t have written it better: And then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will yes. 

“Love is an attempt at penetrating another being, but it can only succeed if the surrender is mutual.” ~Octavio Paz

Surrendering to another person is an exquisite feeling. It is also terrifying. It’s been a part of my psyche and played its role in my soul’s growth. Being a submissive type of woman— only when I’m in control of that, mind you— I take pleasure in relinquishing all. In most cases, romantically speaking, I’ve been the one that’s sought after, desired, and taken. In the moment of the taking, I delight in the feeling of giving myself over to the passionate experience of love, lust or whatever you have in mind. Only once did I ever pursue and aggressively ‘take’ a man (to bed), and it was not exactly the kind of experience that suited my needs. You see, I love to surrender. (I do have a funny story about that moment, but that I will save for another time.) There is a deliciousness that builds from sexual tension. The surrender, then, is blissful, yielding, opening.

“This hunger of the eyes, skin, of the whole body and spirit, which made others criminals, robbers, rapers, barbarians, which caused wars, invasions, plundering and murder, in Djuna, at the age of puberty, alchemized into love. Whatever was missing she became: she became mother, father, cousin, brother, friend, confidant, guide, companion to all. This power of absorption, this sponge of receptivity which might have fed itself forever to fill the early want, she used to receive all communication of the need of others. The need and hunger became nourishment. Her breasts, which no poverty had been able to wither, were heavy with the milk of lucidity, the milk of devotion.

This hunger. . . became love.

While wearing the costume of utter femininity, the veils and the combs, the gloves and the perfumes, the muffs and the heels of femininity, she nevertheless disguised in herself an active lover of the world, the one was was actively roused by the object of his love, the one who was made strong as man is made strong in the center of his being by the softness of his love.

Loving in men and women, not their strength but their softness, not their fullness but their hunger, not their plenitude but their needs.”  ~ Ladders to Fire, Anais Nin

Surrender is ecstasy when you allow it. The loss of control, letting go of everything, and giving over to something or someone is a kind of freedom. When I gave birth the second time, I had to learn how to let go. Birthing is the biggest letting go one can do. My first childbirth experience was not like that at all. I refused to let go, and I suffered. So, the second time I gave birth I practiced the art of letting go. It was a psychedelic experience. My body knew what to do. The body itself has an innate and supremely ancient wisdom. Letting go is all about trust. Tension causes pain. I learned this the hard way the first time. The second and third time I gave birth, pure joy. By completely letting go and surrendering to the experience of childbirth, I saw everything sparkle. Colors were vivid, and I had a big “a-ha” moment. As I was about to give birth, I looked at my birthing doula and laughed quizzically, “I don’t know.” She smiled, seemed amused, and said, “What don’t you know?”

I laughed, “I don’t know.”

This was the funniest thing in the world, at the very moment of birth, I had no idea about anything. It was a riddle, and it was an answer. It was everything and nothing. It was complete surrender. Joy, of course, came after.

Soul meets soul on lovers’ lips. 
~Percy Bysshe Shelley

Kissing is surrendering to another. In the first moment of giving in to a passionate feeling, the kiss opens us. We are tender, full of emotion. There is an eroticism in being vulnerable. Surrendering to passion is giving in to the moment of desire, letting it sweep you away. Being taken by emotion, the yielding is what happens, opening ourselves— mind, body, and soul. Being psychologically penetrated is a kind of surrender. Opening one’s mind to another’s—sharing experiences, telling tales and stories about one’s life— is a form of surrender. Letting another into our metaphorical hearts, there is actual physical pain in the center of one’s chest. It’s not pleasant; it feels like standing on the edge of a balcony looking downward— falling in love— and just may be equal to the sensation of jumping out of a plane. For some. For me, at least.

The feeling of opening one’s self, whether it be all at once or over a period of years, is surrendering to love. And what if the parachute is broken? Then what?

“Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.” ~Albert Einstein 

Ah, the mysteries of sex. Like a labyrinth, the mystery of erotic love is an adventure that takes me deep within my soul. There’s no reasoning, no logic. Life takes on a mythical and magical quality. I discover and decipher. I feel fine-tuned for creative energy. I see things clearly; I feel intensely. Alive, full of fire, music and the elemental and invisible wonders of life. During a passionate moment, I have seen the most beautiful things within my lover’s eyes. The invisible becomes visible within the heart. Sweat from his body smells good. I can’t kiss his mouth enough, and I want him like nothing else in the world. I want him, desire him. I feel it deep in my bones. There are no words. Everything that comes out of my mouth sounds cliché. The only thing I can do is express this feeling with active affection and passion. Grasping his hair during sex, squeezing his body against mine, biting his shoulder, kissing his mouth— hunger, fire. I write poetry, I paint, I write. I am in the moment, and I feel alive. Inspiration comes from the darkness. From the invisible threads woven through my chemistry, the power of sex is the seed of creativity. Sex becomes a spiritual opening, a doorway to the mystery. A passage through the labyrinth with a thread of red fleece. The pleasure of yes is surrendering to love, surrendering to passion and desire.

“I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he
 asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first
 I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so 
he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was
 going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.”
 ~James Joyce

James Joyce wrote this letter to his beloved Nora:

My dear Nora,

It has just struck me. I came in at half past eleven. Since then I have been sitting in an easy chair like a fool. I could do nothing. I hear nothing but your voice. I am like a fool hearing you call me ‘Dear.’ I offended two men today by leaving them coolly. I wanted to hear your voice, not theirs.


When I am with you I leave aside my contemptuous, suspicious nature. I wish I felt your head on my shoulder. I think I will go to bed.


I have been a half-hour writing this thing. Will you write something to me? I hope you will. How am I to sign myself? I won’t sign anything at all, because I don’t know what to sign myself.

(James Joyce)

Passionate love overwhelms the senses. The lover is on fire. When in love, I can’t think. I can’t do anything but crave my lover’s touch, hear their voice, and, even in the daily routines of life, I am consumed by the flame of desire.

Love is like a friendship caught on fire. 
In the beginning a flame, very pretty, 
Often hot and fierce, 
But still only light and flickering. 
As love grows older, 
Our hearts mature 
and our love becomes as coals, 
Deep-burning and unquenchable. 
~ Bruce Lee 

Fire is a common thread among lovers past and present. When experiencing the feeling of falling in love, I have also felt the fire of passion wildly burning inside of me. Erotic love and all the colors of passion are full of fire and symbols of transformative yearning.

A letter by Napoleon Bonaparte to his lover Josephine:

I wake filled with thoughts of you. Your portrait and the intoxicating evening which we spent yesterday have left my senses in turmoil. Sweet, incomparable Josephine, what a strange effect you have on my heart!

Are you angry? Do I see you looking sad? Are you worried?… My soul aches with sorrow, and there can be no rest for your lover; but is there still more in store for me when, yielding to the profound feelings which overwhelm me, I draw from your lips, from your heart, a love which consumes me with fire? Ah! it was last night that I fully realized how false an image of you your portrait gives!

 You are leaving at noon; I shall see you in three hours.

 Until then, mio dolce amor, a thousand kisses; but give me none in return, for they set my blood on fire.
 (Napoleon Bonaparte)

Napoleon mentions that “a love which consumes (him) with fire” and that Josephine’s kisses “set (his) blood on fire” so he asks her not to give any kisses in return. He is already burning.

Another love letter by Victor Hugo to his amor:

My dearest,

When two souls, which have sought each other for, however long in the throng, have finally found each other …a union, fiery and pure as they themselves are… begins on earth and continues forever in heaven.

This union is love, true love, … a religion, which deifies the loved one, whose life comes from devotion and passion, and for which the greatest sacrifices are the sweetest delights.

This is the love which you inspire in me… Your soul is made to love with the purity and passion of angels; but perhaps it can only love another angel, in which case I must tremble with apprehension.

Yours forever,

Victor Hugo 

The transcendent aspect of passionate love is an erotic exhilaration for the soul. The eyes, the voice, the smell, the taste, and every bit of the beloved sends the lover into a rapturous moment. Delicious passionate sex, open-hearted and orgasmic, bring two people closer to the gods and goddesses of myth and legend, to angels, to transform them into fire and blaze into ether, where they return into the stars and the universe.

“At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.” ~Plato

“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:

“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)

There are two books I am reading right now, and both are of the Chinese Taoist approach to sexual energy and vitality. After a blissful acupuncture session yesterday with Dr. Maoshing Ni, known as Dr. Mao, I am revitalizing my yin essence. Dr. Mao is known on Sex and the City as “Dr. Wow.”  He is a thirty-eighth generation doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine. I am reading his book, Second Spring, which contains a wealth of knowledge of natural secrets for women reaching their midlife transition. Regeneration and revitalization of a woman’s life force allows her to blossom into her potential. The Chinese call a woman’s midlife transition (perimenopause and beyond) her Second Spring. Dr. Mao explains:

A woman’s Second Spring is the renaissance of youthful vitality and sexual vigor she enjoys when she takes advantage of the secrets and natural powers of Chinese medicine. When the body begins to undergo the changes that take her through perimenopause, menopause, and beyond, in the Chinese perspective, this is a time for celebration in a woman’s life, when she is possessed of wisdom and graceful beauty. This positive outlook on aging stands in stark contrast to the Western stigma against growing old. Second Spring describes an important opportunity for self-discovery and renewal in women’s lives.”

Since I am now beginning my own Second Spring, I am inspired by the Chinese approach to women’s rejuvenation. The treatment I received yesterday begins my series of acupuncture with Dr. Mao, to revitalize my jing. “Jing” is our life essence. In Taoist philosophy, three aspects of our whole being are shen, qi, and jing. Qi or Chi, is our energy. Shen is our spirit. Jing is the juice, the mojo, the juicy life force that has to do with our sexual energy, reproductive, and also our life passion. I’ve been wearing a lipstick called “Jing-a-ling” lately. How serendipitous. Maybe my mojo is having a little jing-a-ling Second Spring?

Sexuality has everything to do with our energy and all that makes us. To bring awareness to our sexual passion can infuse a whole new perspective on life. To rejuvenate our love of life. The concept of food as medicine also enters the picture when revitalizing one’s sexual energy. Aphrodisiacs for our life’s passion, not just sexual potions or libidinal elixirs, are part of the path of rejuvenation. An active sex life is very important for our health and well being.

A few excerpts from SECOND SPRING:

• HEALTHY LOVING LENGTHENS YOUR LIFE SPAN

The second book I am reading is called The Multi-Orgasmic Woman by Rachel Carlton Abrams, MD, MHS

From the Introduction, Power of Pleasure:

A woman’s pleasure is as powerful and intoxicating as any force on earth. You may not yet feel it, but within you is a wellspring of vitality that can transform your sexual pleasure and illuminate your life. We often think of sex as separate from the rest of our lives, but nothing could be further from the truth. Our sexual life mirrors our general health, our relationships, and our emotional well-being at the deepest level. It is certainly true that who we are and what we have experienced affects our sexuality, but it is also true that making changes in our sexual lives can transform the other parts of our lives, including our relationships.

Taoism, an ancient Chinese system of healing and spirituality, has always understood the fact that sexuality is an integral part of our health and wellness. The ancient Taoist physicians would ask about desire and sexual activity as a routine part of assessing one’s health. They might even prescribe lovemaking at certain times of day or in certain positions to treat illnesses. In this book, Mantak Chia and I will combine this Taoist knowledge with insights from modern medicine to offer an effective program that will kindle your desire and magnify your sexual pleasure.

About the Authors:

RACHEL CARLTON ABRAMS, MD, MHS
Rachel Carlton Abrams, MD, MHS, received her Medical Degree at the University of California-San Francisco and a Master’s Degree in Holistic Health and Medical Sciences from the University of California-Berkeley. She is Board Certified in Family Medicine and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Practice. She is also Board Certified in Holistic Medicine and a member of the American Holistic Medical Association. Dr. Abrams co-founded and is the medical director of Santa Cruz Integrative Medicine & Chi Center in Santa Cruz, California (www.santacruzintegrativemedicine.net), a multi-disciplinary clinic which offers a dynamic and effective approach to healthcare by fusing the profound wisdom and ancient practices of the East with the cutting edge medical advances of the West. The Chi Center offers regular workshops and ongoing classes in the movement arts to complement the healing and energizing effects of its integrative practitioners.

Dr. Abrams has been a student and teacher of Taoist sexuality, with Taoist master Mantak Chia, since 1994. She and her husband have published three books on Taoist sexuality, the best-selling The Multi-Orgamsic Man, The Multi-Orgasmic Couple, and now the much anticipated The Multi-Orgasmic Woman. She teaches workshops regularly at the Chi Center (www.santacruzchicenter.com) and at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California (www.esalen.org) as well as teaching and lecturing throughout the country. Rachel loves the ocean and the redwoods and spends as much time as possible in each. She enjoys cycling, gardening, traveling and cooking. Most importantly, she is happily married to her husband and co-conspirator, Doug, and the mother of three fabulous children, all residing in Santa Cruz, California.

MANTAK CHIA
Mantak Chia is the world’s best-known teacher of the Taoist arts, from Tai Chi to Taoist sexuality. He is the co-author of the bestsellers The Multi-Orgasmic Man and The Multi-Orgasmic Couple as well as the twenty other books, including the self-published classics Taoist Secrets of Love and Healing Love Through the Tao. He lives in Thailand and teaches in throughout the world. You can order other books by Mantak Chia or view his workshop schedule through his website www.universal-tao.com.

With Chinese medicine and Taoist philosophy, a woman can become a goddess of sexual vitality. Couples can benefit from the wealth of knowledge out there to help them stay loving and enhance their sexual relationship.

To enhance my sexual rejuvenation, I cannot wait to watch the erotic film SEX & ZEN…

3-D SEX & ZEN is a HONG KONG made erotic 3-D film that was released this past April 2011. As mentioned by The Huffington Post: ”Sex and Zen” is a remake of a 1991 Hong Kong movie by the same name – features full nudity and camouflaged lovemaking scenes but does not show actual sexual intercourse, as is common in pornographic films. The movie, which stars Japanese porn stars Hara Saori and Suo Yukiko and Hong Kong actress Vonnie Liu, tells the story of a sexually frustrated scholar in ancient China who loses himself in the harem of a duke he befriends.

[Click the Sex & Zen Poster above to watch the You Tube trailer]

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.

• Almonds a symbol of fertility throughout history. The fragrance is believed to inspire a woman’s passion.
• Anise According to Greek and Roman history, sucking on anise seed stimulates desire.
• Arugula Since the early ages, arugula and pistachio are known aphrodisiacs.
  
• Asparagus An aphrodisiac because of its phallic shape.
• Avocado The Aztecs believed avocado was a symbol of sexuality.
  
• Bananas One glance at a phallic banana, and you know why. Also rich in potassium and vitamin B which help hormone production.
• Basil Basil is said to increase libido and fertility.
  
• Beetroot: With its passionate red color, beetroot is a rich source of the mineral boron which helps produce sex hormones.
• Carrots: Men who wan a stronger libido should add carrots to their diet.
  
• Cayenne pepper: This fiery spice is known to heat the sexual drive.
  
• Chili peppers: Eating these causes the release of endorphins which are natural painkillers, and also cause the same high as extreme physical exertion. Chili peppers increase heart rate, which quickens the pulse and makes for an exciting evening.
• Champagne: A symbol of celebration, because of champagne’s tiny bubbles, the intoxicating effect of the wine is carried more quickly into the blood stream. The aromas of dry champagnes are also said to replicate the scents of female pheromones.
• Cherries: A classic symbol of love, cherries’ rich red color and burst of performance-enhancing nutrients make this a perfect fruit to have on hand for a romantic evening. Certain cherries are believed to stimulate pheromone production.
• Chocolate/cacao: The Aztecs referred to chocolate as “food of the Gods”. Chocolate contains the aphrodisiac phenyl ethylamine, which releases the same hormone as sex. It also contains the feel-good hormone serotonin and caffeine to race things up. It has more antioxidants than red wine. To really inspire your passion, you can have chocolate and red wine together.
  
• Cranberries: These little crimson berries are full of vitamin C and fiber to keep you feeling frisky.
• Garlic: The ‘heat’ in garlic is said to stir sexual desires. Used as an aphrodisiac since the Egyptians, the Romans consecrated it to Ceres, the goddess of fertility.
  
• Nutmeg: Nutmeg was highly prized by Chinese women as an aphrodisiac and Hindus used it to raise body heat and sweeten breath. In general, it evokes the warmth and comfort of home. Dangerous in large quantity as nutmeg can produce a hallucinogenic effect and health hazards. Just use it sparingly.
• Nuts: Nuts are packed with protein and a healthy source of fat, which helps produce testosterone. Nuts are cholesterol free – the perfect natural aphrodisiac.
• Pomegranate: A bright, passionate red, the pomegranate’s color suggests desire. Pomegranates were a symbol of Aphrodite. In ancient Middle Eastern cultures, this aphrodisiac fruit’s many seeds were considered a visual symbol of virility. The fruit was even recommended as a natural aphrodisiac in the Kama Sutra.
• Raspberries and strawberries: Both of these little fruits are called ‘fruit nipples’ in erotic literature and are perfect for hand feeding your lover. Strawberries were considered an aphrodisiac in ancient Rome, where they were a symbol of Venus.
• Tomatoes: Once banned by the Catholics for fear it would evoke lust in the young members of its church, the tomato was nick-named the ‘love apple’ when it arrived in Europe from South America. With its bright red color, soft flesh and sweet yet tangy flavor, maybe the tomato isn’t so innocent after all.
• Vanilla: Its power is in its aroma – before vanilla can hit the tongue, the hypothalamus, the gland that controls memory and emotion, jumps into action, evoking feelings connected with vanilla’s powerful scent. Both the scent and flavor of vanilla is believed to increase lust.

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.

“Spring quickly passes,

everything perishes.

I cry out loud

whenever your touches

tingle my breasts.”

Yosano Akiko

(1878-1942)

Yosano Akiko was a goddess of poetry. She was also an educator, a feminist, and an anti-war critic. I did not know until recently that she was also a mother.

Yosano Akiko had 13 children (11 children survived). She was pregnant for nearly a decade or more. The amount of laundry she must have had (hand washing, no washing machines back then). She had to hand wash all the cotton (sarashi) undergarments beneath her kimono, and, lest we forget… diapers.  No local supermarket or CostCo in existence to buy a package of disposable diapers (though she’d probably enjoy buying in bulk) in her day. Still, with all the laundry, diapers and babies, nothing dampened her creative passion and erotic spirit. She was a formidable goddess of poetry. Hers was a life of passionate literature, many children, a love triangle, and much laundry.

“Press my breasts,

part the veil of mystery,

a flower blooms there,

crimson and fragrant.”

Yosano Akiko created. A “creatrix” in the supreme sense, she wrote a prolific amount of poems and letters, eventually eclipsing her mentor husband, Yosano Tekkan, in the art of writing. Her power as a poet was tremendous, and quite revolutionary for her time. She was birthing babies, caring for her children (with some help from relatives and hired nannies thankfully), involved in an intricate love triangle between her husband and her close friend, and writing a new style of  Japanese Tanka poetry. She possessed a brilliant, erotic mind that flowed with passionate force. Her poetry expressed the restrained passions of an experienced, sexually liberated woman, even as a young girl.

It was a pivotal moment in her awakening desire when she met Yosano Tekkan (also named “Hiroshi”, his pen name “Tekkan”). He was first her mentor, and then became her ‘married lover’, as Tekkan was into a second marriage. He continued to love his second wife, never wavering from his devotion to her, regardless of divorce (The second wife’s father disapproved of Tekkan, and demanded they divorce). Soon after, Akiko and Tekkan married. Because of Akiko’s love for Tekkan, her expressions of sexual love evolved into intensely erotic writings.

Midaregami (Tangled Hair) was her first poetic collection of Tanka. 399 poems, among them, 385 are love poems about her desire for Tekkan, and also about her complex relationship with her close friend Yamakawa Tomiko (1879-1909). They were both involved in a love triangle with Tekkan. Akiko and Tomiko were both intertwined emotionally as close friends, both poets, and both in love with Tekkan. Tekkan maintained love relations with all his women, but Akiko demanded to be the queen bee.

“I whisper to you, “Stay in bed”

as I tenderly shake you awake

my dishevelled hair now

up in a Butterfly…

Kyoto morning!”

みだれ髪を京の島田にかへし朝ふしていませの君ゆりおこす

She was just twenty-two years old when Midaregami published, as an emerging poet. Akiko efficiently declared her love and sexual fire using “pillow words” such as “soft flesh” and “throbbing blood” to describe the emotions of sexual vitality and ripe eroticism.

For a woman in her time, late-Meiji era, her poems were full of potent juice, dripping with longing and passion. This was the new style of Tanka. The Tanka of the ‘Old School’ (Poetry Bureau School) faded, their style of tanka having been the most popular form of poetry after the New Meiji era began. The period of this style had been in existence for twelve hundred years in Japan. It was a style written in thirty-one syllables arranged in the 5-7-5-7-7 pattern. In 1887, Tanka poetry was changing with new voices, new expressions! For Akiko, she was a fresh voice, writing shockingly bold poetry that expressed pure sexual desire. In doing so, strong-willed Akiko defied her role as a conventional woman. This, in a sense, challenged the patriarchal system of Japan. Women of her day did not speak out about anything, especially of their blazing breasts and red flowers, suggestively illustrating their emotions and desires.

“Are you still longing,

seeking what is beautiful,

what is decent and true?

Here in my hand, this flower,

my love, is shockingly red.”

Following in the footsteps of the great female poets and writers of Japan before her, such as Lady Murasaki Shikibu (The Tale of Genji), Ono No Komachi, and Izumi Shikibu, namely, she did not adhere to social convention. Akiko illustrated women’s sexuality with words that described women’s desire as free, vibrant and independently their own. Women’s desire was raw and real, not passive, not waiting for men to seduce and court them. Akiko’s raw poetry caused a great sensation, and of course, great criticism.

“A thousand strands

of glistening deep black hair

in tangles, tangles,

all intertangled

like my dreams of you.”

Yosano Akiko was born in Sakai City in the Osaka Prefecture (Osaka). Her birth name was Shoko Ho. She changed her first name, as it carried the Chinese character, which could be used as either “Sho” and “Aki”, “ko” being the diminutive version given to girl’s names. She was the daughter of a merchant who loved art and literature, and owned a famous confectionary shop, Surugaya. Akiko’s mother was her father’s second wife. Akiko had two older step-sisters. She also had an elder brother, but he died young. Akiko’s father was very upset when his son died for many reasons. Of course, he mourned his son, but also, he was left with daughters. In Japanese families, sons, who inherit the family name, were very important. He was angry and rejected Akiko entirely, sending her away from their home. Akiko’s mother secretly visited Akiko, hiding her motherly love for her daughter. Eventually, feeling unloved by her parents, Akiko absorbed herself in books. She was secretive about reading books until late at night; stolen books from her father’s library. She read many Japanese classics, including The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki Shikibu (she was the equivalent of Shakespeare in Japanese literature). She also indulged in The Pillow Book, and Utsuho Monogatari, opening her erotic mind to the romantic world of love.

“Hair unbound, in this

hothouse of lovemaking.

Perfumed with lilies,

I dread the oncoming of

The pale rose of the end of night.”

She joined some literary circles and soon after, met Tekkan. Akiko admired Tekkan as a writer, and respected his work. Tekkan was the editor of a magazine, Myojo (Morning Star), in which Akiko contributed her writing. Her admiration for Tekkan started to grow into love. Tekkan had a wife and a child already, but this did not deter Akiko at all. Her passionate feelings for him were imminent, and describes the effect it had on her sexual awakening in one of her writings, titled “My Conception of Chastity”: “By an unexpected chance, I came to know a certain man and my sexual feelings underwent a violent change to a strange degree. For the first time I experienced the emotion of a real love that burned my body”

Real love that burned her body—– her statement echoed a poem by another  femme fatale Japanese poetess, Ono no Komachi:

“You do not come

on this moonless night

I wake wanting you

my breasts heave and blaze

my heart burns up”

(Ono no Komachi)

And another version:

“I long for him most

during these long moonless nights

I lie awake, hot

the growing fires of passion

bursting, blazing in my heart.”

(Ono no Komachi)

Akiko eventually married Tekkan in 1902. Akiko and Tekkan continued their love affair, while things between the three of them (their involvement with Tomiko) became more complicated. Tekkan loved the two women. As part of an erotic triangle, many of Akiko’s poems expressed this ongoing affair, her tangled emotions, jealousy, and her friendship with Tomiko:

“I can give myself to her

in her dreams

whispering her own poems

in her ear as she sleeps beside me.”

And this one alluding to the threesome:

“Without a word

without a demand

a man and two women

bowed and parted company

on the sixth month.”

(This was written after Tomiko tragically died of tuberculosis)

“Pressing my breasts

I softly kick aside

the curtain of mystery

how deep the crimson

of the flower here.”

Breasts, lips, skin, shoulders, and hair described feminine sexuality.

In the poem, she touches her breasts, exploring sexual mystery for the first time, perhaps. Breaking all convention, she rips the clothes off of societal rules, and bares her body to the reader.

“Amidst the notes

of my koto is another

deep mysterious tone,

a sound that comes from

within my own breast.”

Before Japan’s New Meiji era, a woman’s beauty and sexuality were considered to be in the realm of courtesans and geisha. She rocked upon the pivotal point of her time like a cowgirl in the saddle, bareback and in full control of her horse. She did not seem to care about what people thought: she wrote out her passions without restraint.

Breasts tend to come up as one of her main symbols of expression. Breasts that represent feeding babies and motherhood, became sexual breasts of lovemaking and desire.

Akiko’s poetic line says it best: “my powerful breasts”

“Spring is short

what is there that has eternal life

I said and

made his hands seek out

my powerful breasts.”

Hair is another symbol of femininity and power. Long black hair has been admired as a symbol of great beauty for centuries in Japan. In the world’s history of art and literature, a woman’s hair is her “crowning glory” and her power, akin to the story of Samson and Delilah (and the destructive force of Medusa). It is part of women’s beauty, a graceful expression of identity in Japan.

In ancient court poetry of Japan, for instance, hair was used to show the inner complexities of women’s emotions. Izumi Shikibu, a female poet, 11th century:

“My black hair tangled

as my own tangled thoughts,

I lie here alone,

dreaming of one who has gone,

who stroked my hair till it shone.”

Tangled hair explains the confusions of her romantic heart. Its erotic description alludes to the sexual intimacy of lovers.

“A thousand lines

of black black hair

all tangles, tangles –

and tangles too

my thoughts of love!”

The flood of emotion and overwhelming feelings of love are expressed through hair.

As Akiko’s fame as a poet grew, she eventually gained power in her notoriety. She became the sole support of her family, leaving Tekkan to feel like a has-been and a good for nothing. He even wrote a poem, calling himself a “good for nothing”, fanning his own wife (the metaphor of being her servant, perhaps). Soon after, Akiko noticed her husband’s self-degrading misery. She suggested they move, which they did. They gave lectures together on The Tale of Genji. But soon they clashed on their interpretations of the classic epic “monogatari” (story-telling). They began to quarrel.

Akiko was overworked, having to support all their children by the income her writing produced. She was lecturing, writing, and putting up with her good for nothing, womanizing, has-been of a husband, and bringing home the bacon to take care of their 11 children. She considered divorce, another brave thing to do, but she knew that would drive the stake into Tekkan’s heart and ruin his life completely. She thought to suggest that they live separately, but that would create gossip, which would also harm Tekkan.

So she did a very sly thing—- she knew that Tekkan had always desired to live abroad. She raised enough money for Tekkan to travel to Europe. She wrote her poems on folding screens, selling them to create the funds. She received an advance from her books, and sent Tekkan to France in 1911. Tekkan felt as though he was being exiled for his “laziness” and so Akiko joined him in France for six months. They returned to Japan, never again to part.

She wrote of her complicated love and her desire to make it simple:

“Not speaking of the way

not thinking of what comes after,

not questioning name or fame,

here, loving love,

you and I look at each other.”

Yosano Akiko wrote about the emancipation of women and sexual freedom.

“Tangled Hair” Midaregami was her symbolic tour de force that well described her own complex life.

As a mother of three children, I greatly honor this majestic goddess of the pen. I have young children, I work full time as the sole support of my own family. I find at times my mind is tangled, and my life, complicated. Tangled by my own emotions regarding motherhood, motherly duties, responsibilities to my three young children, my sexual intensity and erotic desires, my longing, to write, to paint, to create—– all of these strands of long dark hair, in disarray. My own life as a woman in the modern day is complex. Marriages, ex-husbands, divorce, moving, always moving, where to belong, what to do for the children. Romantic feelings and erotic life take a back seat when life’s mundane issues become complicated, and daily demands call upon a mother. Just getting my two restless little girls to go to sleep so that I could finish this piece was a laborious task, irritating me as I could not attend to my own needs until they were tucked in and snoozing away. The multitude of feelings as a creative and artistic mother, like Akiko was, must have also complicated her life. As I sat in my girls’ room a while ago, I also soaked in their sweetness, marveled at the softness of their cheek as I caressed their faces, petting their silky heads, hair damp from the bath. As both of their breathing patterns regulated, I meditated on my good fortune as a mother. How lucky I was to have these beautiful, vibrant, healthy children. My oldest child, my son, sat in his room, reading a book. He enjoys his solitude and takes pleasure in reading. I realized that as frustrating as it was to put myself aside for the moment, sometimes the day, and sometimes an entire week— I felt that joy inside to be their mother.

I can only imagine, then, that Yosano Akiko was a loving mother, despite her creative force burning forth from her breasts. It is interesting to note that there isn’t much mention of her children and her life as a mother.

I would like to honor this glorious lady of the pen by writing this piece for a Mother’s Day post. As I read more about her life, I realized that her soul was crying out for love. She gave herself completely.

Also, the symbol of disheveled hair, Midaregami, is a multi-faceted metaphor: in Japan, women who had “tangled” or messy, uncombed hair were considered immoral, loose women. It evoked erotic freedom and perhaps made disheveled from an afternoon or evening of passionate lovemaking.

Lastly, I must mention the sexual energy it takes to create and birth just one child.

Akiko gave birth 13 times, lost two children, and raised 11 children, all while growing within her soul, a writing career.

The energy to manifest life— our “chi” is the purest source of sex. Erotic life of a woman also goes hand in hand with a woman’s sexual energy, her fertility. Her fertile mind, body and soul is made palpable by her desire. This erotic desire propelled her energy, her zest, and her sensual and sexual passions, blazing with the poetry and beauty of life itself.

“This autumn will end.

Nothing can last forever.

Fate controls our lives.

Fondle my living breasts

With your strong hands.”