The Jamaican-Gleaner has a column this week from Dr. Alverston Bailey, in <a href=”http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20081011/talk/talk3.html”>which he discusses</a> “pornography and the pros and cons regarding its usage“.

Although that sounds like a conversation designed for a …ahem..specific purpose, Dr. Bailey goes on for a lengthy discussion of porn, from the different types, to the response rates to sexy films from men and women.

He also discusses the history of porn, to growth into a multibillion dollar industry, and it’s acceptance (or non-acceptance) in modern society.

We come across so many erotic books and erotic stories that we’re compelled to list that even though a book may be erotic in intent, it still needs to have the same things that make a non-erotic book great.

Erotic ebooks must have a believable plot, the characters should be interesting and have depth, and situations that would never occur in real life should not be introduced (unless you’re dealing in genres like horror or science fiction, of course.

It seems that even as we are in the second decade of the Internet Age, some people still have figured out that anything posted online is publicly available. Consider the twelve people outlined here who all had their lives severely damaged by posting racy photos of themselves online:

Teachers, principals, firefighters, mayors, university presidents, and everyday people have all discovered the dark side of putting the wrong photos and videos on social networking sites. Sometimes they paid the price in embarrassment. An unlucky handful lost their jobs or landed in jail.

The list includes a mayor, a high school art teacher and two tennis players.

Even though we’re partial to erotic ebooks, there’s nothing wrong with adding a little love spice in your life, and in this case, actual culinary taste:

“Anything visually erotic automatically sets the brain in motion.” In fact, scientific tests have also proven certain aromas cause a greater effect on the body than the actual ingestion of foods. Perfumes made of natural foodstuffs like almond, vanilla, Chinese herbs and spices acted as a pheromone to communicate emotions by smell.

It makes so much sense. Why do people have business meetings over lunch or dinner? It’s not because people want to work right through their meal time. People get relaxed over food, feel more comfortable, feel better. Food makes us feel good, sometimes too good, and so it makes sense to add food to another thing that makes us feel good.

Nothing conjures up images of erotic adventures like…crude oil.

Government officials in Denver and Washington, D.C. have been busted over some wild partying, and back scratching on a level usually seen in movies:

Government officials handling billions of dollars in oil royalties partied, had sex with and accepted golf and ski outings from employees of energy companies they were dealing with, federal investigators said Wednesday.

Reading further, the department is described as having a “fraternity house atmosphere”, with a “culture of substance abuse and promiscuity” by a small group of individuals “wholly lacking in acceptance of or adherence to government ethical standards”.

Sounds just like your job, right?

Okay, while not exactly erotica, this is ridiculous:

Last night in Hong Kong, the police received a disturbing call from a man in trouble.

Xing, a 41 year-old man, was calling from LanTian park in the middle of the night. The lonely and disturbed man had apparently thought it would be fun to have sex with one of the steel sit-up benches around the park.

Belly dancing in the minds of most Westerners conjures up erotic images of lusty, sensuous movements and suduction. However, Marisa Christensen explains that belly dancing is not what most people think:

No, I don’t give lap dances and no, I don’t take my top off. Not until I’m changing out of my costume in the privacy of a dressing room, at least. When I tell someone what I do for a living, I usually brace myself for their response, which often goes something like: “Oh, kind of like a stripper?”

Belly dancing has it’s place among other types of dance where actual study is involved, including terminology, style and practice.

Interesting article from Publishers Weekly about erotica e-books:

Sex sells—and always has—so why, in the realm of erotica, has sex sold surprisingly more during the past few years? Is it the ho-hum economy? The war on terror? It’s the Internet, stupid: empowering readers, writers and publishers of erotica, and offering instant access to a lively, diverse and ever-growing community. Only in the past few years have major romance publishers taken notice.

It’s a widely held belief in the West that the Kamasutra is a vaunted sex guide, filled from cover to cover with acrobatic erotic sexual positions, many of which should only be tried by couples willing to injure themselves. But the Kamasutra was never just a sex guide – in fact the sexual descriptions are primarily in a single chapter.

Artists and publishers have produced works illustrating Chapter 2 to an extent that this provocative imagery is the primary representation of the text. However, Little India has an articledelving into this idea and then discussing the ‘rest’ of the Kamasutra:

To put it bluntly, Kamasutra is not a book on positions in sexual intercourse. It is a book about the art of living – about finding a partner, maintaining power in marriage, committing adultery, living as or with a courtesan, using drugs – and also about the positions in sexual intercourse.

An interesting part of the discussion at Little India is the mistranslations in various editions.

J.R. Ward, a lawyer turned erotic tale spinner (okay, romance, but it’s paranormal and erotic), has created a series that is popular and different, and she stays down to earth and honest about her accomplishments.

When asked during this interview about how she had the confidence to write her first novel, J.R. was blunt that the artist always has a nagging self doubt:

” It wasn’t confidence at all. It was compulsion. It’s never been about confidence for me. Every day, I sit down and I’m like, “Is this going to be good enough? Am I going to be able to take this scene far enough? Is the line-by-line writing correct? Did I get the images sharp enough? Does the dialogue fly?” Certainly, I have more confidence than I used to because the books have been very well received, for which I’m very grateful, but it’s a compulsion. I’ve got to do it. I’ve got to get these stories out of my head. I have to figure out where they go. I have to be with these characters.”