Erotica ~ Aphrodisiacs from A to Z

Readers, please note that my Adult Content warning was never yet so merited as it is today.

Forewarned (twice, now) is fairwarned.

Erotica is a term I've struggled to understand. As a once-very-frequent, then not-at-all-frequent, then once-again-regular reader of romance novels, I've read a lot of sexy sex-scenes. I latched onto romance novels when I was in about fifth or sixth grade, as the nuns in my grammar school supplemented the classroom's library with Harlequins and Silhouettes. (I know, it's weird the gals woulda put that stuff out there, but what they made accessible to us would now be termed "sweet" romances, with kissing and broody male posturing, but not much in the way of nookie.) From there, I graduated to other 80s romance fare and received an education, boy. Ahem.

III Polly Philips and the Young Italian
by Édouard-Henri Avril

Anyway, I've since read loads of romance novels and the ones I've read in the last, oh, 15 years, give or take, have lots of sexy-sex in them. So I'm not really sure what distinguishes them from erotica, except that some say romance novels are courtship tales which may/may not have sex in them, whereas erotica will always have sex at the core of the protagonists' relationship(s). Readers, if you can provide me with a better definition than this, I'd love to see it, please.

Y U SO SEXY?
I'd say, "Duh," but I like to think I'm a bit more elegant than that. You know, you read about what this dude's doin' to that gal and how homegirl reciprocates in ways which are illegal in some of the 48 contiguous, you might get a little turned on, right? (Moreover; duh.)

RECIPES*

• Memoirs of Fanny Hill by John Cleland
• The Story of O by Dominique Aury
• Alt Sex Stories Text Repository

*All links lead to extremely explicit sites. If you are under 18 or easily freaked out by frank discussions and fictional tales about sex, stay the hell away from those sites and don't give me a hard time 'cause you went and clicked on the link(s) anyway, jeeeeeeeez.

Click here to learn more about erotica (and see primary Source material for this post).

Blogging from A to Z April 2013