Tag Archives: sex

BOOK: “A Thousand and One Limericks” Anthologized by Rosemary Gray

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A Thousand and One LimericksA Thousand and One Limericks by rosemary-gray
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Publisher Site

As the title suggests, this book consists of a thousand and one limericks (I didn’t count them, but at three a page, the math works -ish,) a few are well-known, most are groaners, but some are brilliant by virtue of being clever on multiple levels. I will offer two warnings by way of clarifying for whom this book is not. First, it ventures into all those corners of depravity with which the limerick is well-associated — i.e. it’s not a collection for prudes. Second, the collection shows the limerick’s unabashed joy in poking fun at the English language. There are many “misspellings” as poems use one spelling regime for all rhymes (i.e. highlighting English’s complete lack of phonetic consistency.) There are also a lot of slant rhymes and false rhymes… long story short, if you’re a grammar / spelling Nazi, this book will raise all the hackles.

Who is it for? Readers with a sense of humor who are not easily offended.

I have seen a few of these poems attributed to specific authors (e.g. Edward Lear or Ogden Nash) in other collections, but — oddly — this book offers no attribution or discussion thereof. The byline listed, Rosemary Gray, is actually in an anthologist / editor role. (She may have written some of the pieces, but I’m fairly sure I’ve seen a few published in earlier anthologies. Maybe these are all in the public domain, but — as I’ve said — I’ve seen some attributed (and I’m pretty sure some to individuals who died less than 70 years ago.) Long story short, if you can’t find a copy of this, it may be because there was a huge copyright infringement case or threat thereof.

I’d recommend this collection for limerick lovers.

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BOOKS: “The Romance of Lust” by Anonymous

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The Romance of LustThe Romance of Lust by William Lazenby
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Public Domain — Wikisource

This book is classed as a “Victorian Erotic Novel,” but I’d call it pornography rather than erotica. I don’t mean that as condemnation, but as an application of the criteria “without the sex scenes, is there anything left?” In this case, without the sex, there isn’t really a story. If one took the sex scenes out of any erotica it wouldn’t be erotic anymore (and would probably be much less interesting,) but it could still have character development, a discernable plot in non-sex events, or an overarching moral. This book doesn’t really have any of that beyond some expository mentions of life events outside the sack.

This novel tells the story of a well-hung fictional character named Charlie Roberts through his myriad sexual adventures, which stretch from schoolboy / adolescent sex acts with his governess and his sisters to his wife-swapping adult years. The approach reminded me of the Marquis de Sade’s The 120 Days of Sodom The book under review has none of the Sado-Masochism (beyond the odd spanking or consensual flagellation) of Sade’s work, but it is a series of episodes that try to gradually one up each other in terms of their perceived level of perversity. Unlike The 120 Days of Sodom’s dark cruelty, The Romance of Lust reaches its extremes by way of incest, bisexual [omni-sexual?] orgies, and sex involving youths of ages that are undefined but clearly under our current conception of age of consent — but consent / amicability is present throughout.

Not long ago, I reviewed Venus in India. This work has some things in common with that one. For example, both books are set in the same era defined by a highly repressive culture that spurred a covert highly perverse counterculture, and both books were anonymously published. [FYI: It is known that The Romance of Lust was published by William Lazenby, but the author is unknown — though William Simpson Potter and Edward Sellon are among subjects of speculation.] However, in other ways, I think the books were quite different. I would say that Venus in India is to The Romance of Lust as Justine is to The 120 Days of Sodom, which is to say that former titles had something going on besides the sex scenes, while the latter titles really didn’t.

If you’re looking for an erotic novel that would stand without detailed descriptions of one sex scene after the next, this probably isn’t for you. However, if you like porn pacing and the lack of intrusions by non-arousing happenings, you may find this book compelling.

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Locomotive [Limerick]

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Photograph of a steam engine locomotive taken in Tallinn, Estonia.
The man loved travel by locomotive.
 It was all of the time in the throat of
   tunnels, so dark and deep --
   one couldn't see a peep.
 He had night vision goggles... and motive.

Snail [Limerick]

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Photograph of a large snail shell taken near Simontornya, Hungary.
The snail's friends and family were critics,
 claiming -- despite being hermaphroditic:
    so, with two ways to coit --
    neither did it exploit,
 but read books in its shell, strange & cryptic.

BOOK: “Venus in India” by Charles Devereaux

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Venus in India or Love Adventures in HindustanVenus in India or Love Adventures in Hindustan by Charles Devereaux
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Available online – Wikisource

This novel is presented as the erotically-charged memoir of a British military officer stationed in India. While separated from his wife by his assignment, he has a couple major (and many minor) dalliances with other women, one with the loose wife of another officer and the other the daughter of his commanding officer — who he is charged with mentoring.

Compared with other Victorian erotica, this book does have more story and character development than other books with which I’m familiar. In other words, what goes on between the sheets (or in the grass or on a table) is not the sum total of the book. Interesting events happen outside the sex and there is at least the pretense of emotional arcs for important characters. This makes the book feel more like a true memoir rather than a collection of “Dear Penthouse” tales.

If you like stories of the historic ex-pat life and / or Victorian erotica, you’ll likely enjoy this book.

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The Oldest & the Last [Free Verse]

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Kipling called prostitution 
   The world's oldest profession.

Now, I'm pretty sure that it
    Will be the last, as well:

The last professional endeavor --
    The last profitable activity --
    That humans do better than
        Machines. 

Whores will be the last holdouts 
   To shift from being workers 
      To being Artists of Humanity. . .
       Or - maybe - they will be 
       The first in that, as well.

BOOKS: “Letters from a Seducer” by Hilda Hilst

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Letters from a SeducerLetters from a Seducer by Hilda Hilst
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher Site – Pushkin Press Classics

Release Date: May 27, 2025

This is an upcoming English translation of a 1991 novella from Brazilian author, Hilda Hilst, from what has been called her “obscene cycle.” It is mostly an epistolary novella in which a man, Karl, writes his sister, Cordelia, informing her about his recent sexual adventures and attempting to coax a confession out of her about her own activities long in the past. We never see any replies from Cordelia. (And that is part of what makes the book fascinating.) The only indication of her responses that we get are Karl’s references to Cordelia’s comments from her last letter in his present letter. However, we can’t necessarily be certain that even those occasional suggestions of dialog represent the truth.

To understand why one might have doubt, one must be aware of what else is going on in this book. There is one other narrative voice, and that is of Stamatius. Stamatius is in socio-economic terms the opposite of Karl. Karl being of the gentlemanly class — his behavior and letters to his sister notwithstanding — and Stamatius is a starving artist (a writer, to be precise.) The two men speak of each other, though always in deprecating terms. However, there’s reason to think the two men might be one. Stamatius, while condemning Karl’s sex obsession, also mostly engages in tales of his own sexual adventures as well as presenting those of others. In fact, the end of this novella is a collection of short vignettes of the nature one might see in a smutty letter magazine, only better (and sometimes poetically) written.

By the author’s own description, this novella is intentionally pornographic. While the same thing is said of Hilst’s The Obscene Madame D I did not find that book particularly graphic or sex-centric. This book, however, is quite graphic and if one took away references to sexual activities
nothing of substance would remain. (Not true of The Obscene Madame D.)

I found this book to be intriguing, despite the fact that it is quite sloppily arranged (presumably on purpose,) but it does present some splendid use of language (at least in this translation — the original is in Brazilian Portuguese) and character psychology.

I’d recommend this book for readers of literary fiction who don’t mind plotlessness and pornographicness.

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“I’m Happy to Be a Free Yogi” by Drukpa Kunley [w/ Audio]

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I'm happy to be a free Yogi,
   growing evermore into inner happiness.

I can have sex with many women
   as it helps them find the path of liberation.

Outwardly I'm a fool
   and inwardly I live a clear spiritual path.

Outwardly I enjoy wine and women
   and inwardly I work for the benefit of all beings.

Outwardly I live for my pleasure
   and inwardly I do everything in the right moment.

Outwardly I'm a ragged beggar
   and inwardly a blissful Buddha.

“I Sing the Body Electric” [5 of 9] by Walt Whitman [w/ Audio]

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This is the female form,
 A divine nimbus exhales from it from head
   to foot,
 It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
 I am drawn by its breath as if I were no
   more than a helpless vapor, all falls aside
   but myself and it,
 Books, art, religion, time, the visible and
   solid earth, and what was expected of
   heaven or fear'd of hell, are now
   consumed,
 Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play
   out of it, the response likewise
   ungovernable,
 Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent
   falling hands all diffused, mine too
   diffused,
 Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the
   ebb, love-flesh swelling and deliciously
   aching,
 Limitless limpid jets of love hot and
   enormous, quivering jelly of love, white-
   blow and delirious juice,
 Bridegroom night of love working surely
   and softly into the prostrate dawn,
 Undulating into the willing and yielding
   day,
 Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-
   flesh'd day.

This the nucleus -- after the child is born of
   woman, man is born of woman,
 This the bath of birth, this the merge of
   small and large, and the outlet again.

Be not ashamed women, your privilege
   encloses the rest, and is the exit of the 
   rest,
 You are the gates of the body, and you are
   the gates of the soul.

The female contains all qualities and
   tempers them,
 She is in her place and moves with perfect
   balance,
 She is all things duly veil'd, she is both
   passive and active,
 She is to conceive daughters as well as sons,
   and sons as well as daughters.

As I see my soul reflected in Nature,
 As I see through a mist, One with
   inexpressible completeness, sanity, beauty,
 See the bent head and arms folded over the
   breast, the Female I see.

Lover’s Limerick

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There once was a Shakespearean lover,
 Who, in darkness, crawled under cover.
   Much to his surprise,
   Having no use of eyes,
 He later learned 'tweren't his lover, but another.