Our spaceship Earth endured the most horrific acts this past year. Happily, however,

hands down,

in 2014, the most used “word” on the planet was the heart emoji.

It was globally emoted over a billion times. If we truly desire the story of Love on Earth to change…we have to emit more than emojis…an all out effort of #Love #making must #commence! (Note that “Hashtag” was the most second most used “word” followed by “vape.” Clearly we desire to happily connect!)

“I’ll have what she/he’s having.”

Creatures coveting comforts are crashing the gender-defined realms of aphrodisiacs from clothing to vape flavors. In light of that, we are happily proffering 9 gender-mixed gifts and life-defining experiences for this Valentines Day.

Note to sensitive readers: In honor of bedside, general lady and gentlemanly manners, this post is brutally honest, certifiably Feng Shui compliant, (curtesy of my vigorous training in the Tibetan Tantric Black Hat Sect ) and God and Goddess inducing. Even more revealing, I share the top erotic, sacred, conscious love-makin’ books that have graced my night stands. Because there are 100,000 preceding books of erotic literature infinitely more interesting than that ubiquitous, ho-hum “grey” volume.

Anticipating February’s Valentine’s Day began this year like the best adventures of desire…with an alluring, enticing and surprise message from a friend on their way to Paris. Andrew Joseph, flying to Maison d’Objet, invited me to choose 5 special objets from The High Boy, the online marketplace for antiques & fine art, celebrating its first anniversary. That, plus 4-Ultra, One-of-a-Kind Experiences I have been waiting to share here with readers, c’mon! Celebrations. Paris. Antiques. Art. Sex. Love. How could I resist? Just in time too, as I was already…

1   rubbing mutual unctions over form

Everything begins with scent! I once heard a legend that said scent formed the stars. How heady is that? I’ve been wearing men’s cologne since I was 14, but what if you could make your own signature scent that no one else on the planet had? “Girl, I already have my own!,” I can hear you say…

Non! Je suis speaking of that which will enhance one’s own manufactured terroir. aroma M is an indie-perfume company founded by Master Perfumer Maria McElroy, who in turn is inspired by the Geisha-tradition. If being ceremonially fussed-over like some sacred and arcane cup-o-tea in a moderne Dumbo atelier like a Queen or King – fragrance sketching, blending, fitting and application – sounds like a hella, once-in-a-lifetime Valentine’s Day gift for someone you love…or yourself…then click here to read more.

Remember Memoirs of a Geisha?  The book padded over and served up the childhood and lady memories of the translucent-grey eyed Sayuri, a notorious geisha of the 1930’s and 40’s. We felt her pain and pleasures, by the end of the book she concludes,

“our world is no more permanent than a wave rising on the ocean.”

O, noh, not that ole koan again! Always the temporality and infinity of LOVE! The choice to ride the waves of intentional acts of pleasure, by scent, individuality, and shared ritual is the best kind of transcendental meditation. Go, summon Maria and get yourself scented!

2  paired just desserts (aka paired unction holders)

Now that you both have your bespoke unctions, these paired Bohemian art-glass in lotus green creta glass, with a mottled iridescent Papillon decor from the 1950’s by Loetz of Austria, found at The High Boy, can sit on your nightstands, a symbol of a little bit of shared/each/other.

Fun with lotuses fills the time-honored Kama Sutra, (Love Threads) undeniably the Mama and Papa of love-making tomes. As for the pose below?

Do try this at home.

3  la lubricating las vegas champagne cooler

Looks like this Champion Tri-Play did not stay in Vegas. I’m a big fan of medals and awards, never in the bedroom, however, this champagne chiller’s 1970’s Vegas provenance adds the right note of Triumph and Silliness, both excellent bedroom manners.

You can find this Love Shack Cooler here on The High Boy. 

Las Vegas’ tangle of limbs, ringing machines and climaxing wins comes close to my discovery of the fruits of the erotic stories in Anais Nin’s Delta of Venus. Until then I had only tasted Love American Style via the conquesting, manly likes of Playboys and Hustlers, how expansive and freeing it has been to seek perfection in LOVE with Nin’s awareness!

“There is a perfection in everything that cannot be owned.”

4  more than a one night stand

Better than a one night stand are two night stands. These matching nightstands are so “x” and “y” chromosome balanced, very Feng Shui. I can almost hear the musical, elegant sound of anticipation in the soft, familiar click of the gold campaign-style handle returning to its well-crafted slot, after a passionate hand opens the drawer to procure a selection from the stash of play time toys.

Circa 1950, these stalwart portals in a storm of LOVE from The High Boy can be purchased (temporarily owned in the context of all time) …here.

A little Chinoiserie, the stands call to mind The Orchid Boat, the love poetry of women of China from the 16th century Ch’ing Dynasty.  Raise the red lantern and rock a night of Love with whispered, seductive verse from “courtesans, palace women, and Tao priestesses.”

5  bed, bath and beyond

For sure, nothing is rotten in the state Denmark!

When I saw this classic Swedish Biedermeier style birch bed from 1880 on The High Boy, I gasped…

…for there is an open mouth, gasp-inducing scene in the most famous livre of French erotica, The Story of O, which I envisioned took place on a day bed just like this one. At the end of a bed, this elegant chaise begs for…

6    O! magic bus/rug/oval/fleur/flier!

I want it, I want it, I want it, I want it …

When I was a young gal, I had a frequent flier dream set to this refrain in the song Magic Bus by The Who. I would fly up on a Persian carpet up high, and away from a crowd of grasping hands below. Was I desiring escape? To where? And who was desiring me below? Above?

Mysteries and flights of desire can clearly be shared on this Polish/Persian rug from the 1920’s found here at The High Boy. I love the rich red center, very passionate, very femme, very floral.

In my teens, me mom tried to hide her copy of Fear of Flying from me, but to no avail. “C’mon! I read Kama Sutra last year, Mom. I can handle it!”

Still-modern, brain-prickly lines from this Erica Jong book will lay one down, as wise-cracking as Rumi poetry. For a taste of Persian/Universal wisdom, laughter and blatant honesty is so perfect for teasing up magic carpet rides of LOVE.

“Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it’s cracked up to be. That’s why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.”

7  the art of love pillar

This one is for the boys!

This tower of power, a 19th century Danish cabinet from The High Boy could function as a Cabinet of Curiosities, a place to stash secret toys, silver erotic ornaments, and those erotic books, as Feng Shui advises that books should never be out in the open! Their spines are like daggers! 

I was (mostly) a good girl growing up. However, the daggers of books like Delta of Venus led me directly to banned books like Tropic of Cancer from “bad boy” Henry Miller and I did not stop from there.

 Oh Henry! How I loved your extended paragraph dives into flesh, divinity, drunkeness, desire, ecstasy, Paris, epiphanies, … and …, and … and
always St. Vitus’ dance!

 “Everybody says sex is obscene. The only true obscenity is war.”

8  magnified pursuits.

No complaints about reading the fine print with these horny, X-ray spec magnifiers.

It’s time to retire your favorite Tumblr porn Vine videos, and go forth into classic works of erotic literature, with a great list here.  Not just because all kinds of studies are coming out that nightly before-bed, I-pad pleasures disrupt our circadian rhythms. There’s just not one fun thing you can do with a tired, complaining, insomniac lover.

Solution? Read books! Nothing sexier than reading together or taking a hand to interrupt a bedside partner’s nose-in-book for the finer pleasures of love and soulful togetherness. I’m kind of glad I grew up influenced and inspired by non-digital, earnest, and earthy explorations such as my own copy of the 1970’s era Joy of Sex, or pioneer performances like John and Yoko‘s Bed-in’s.

A Note to The Frustrated, The Quarreling, The Entreprenurial, The Over-Hyper, The Driven Couples seeking a gratifying, creative career, perhaps even you reading this blog now, with your very own bedsheets all in a twist. Take Olga Granda-Scott and her husband Douglas Scott, they were just like any of you, art and antiques lovers desiring to curate their homes and frustrated by the pact of a high-tech, high-functioning online marketplace.

They magnified their pursuits! The longevity, sustainability, value and vibrancy of the antiques industry, is now their hot pursuit, thankfully resulting in The High Boy, where your next inspired conquest of desire can occur.

9  Per Suits of Bruce

Coco Chanel‘s borrowing Boy Capel‘s blazers and jodhpurs for horse riding. The personal, detailed, sex-friendly clothing made especially for the act of love worn by O. The above perfect Palm Beach bound, Liberty of London print, bespoke shirt from man-style blog, What James is Wearing. James’ shirt is made by my friend, bespoke clothier to stars and Savile Row’s Tommy Nutter-trained, Bruce Cameron Clark in his New York atelier. (Yes, he makes for women too.) (Visit Bruce. Measure Up + Pleasure Up.)

Wearing clothes with their private messages and intents creates a bonding between lovers. Matching suits and special tailoring for love-making is a couples’ own language of packaging and unwrapping, a gift that keeps giving, way more personalized than a singing bouquet of red carnations, Russell Stover chocolates from 7-11 or the finest meal at the Olive Garden. (don’t you DARE!!!)

Packaged love. I once owned a collectible copy of Madonna‘s mildly/wildly controversial, erotic book Sex, from 1992, except it wasn’t hidden in a special book tower and it lured a klepto who spied it gleaming on my coffee table.

Although the book was temporal, Madonna winds up this post for daring to deliver pioneering exposes. My personal Madonna experiences- from sharing concerts with thousands of others to sharing directly with HER, in-person, eye-to-eye, soul-to-soul, for a moment I will never, ever forget, in sum, capture the mystery of LOVE.

LOVE is transitory/soul-forever-marking, it is questioning/faith-making, it is funny-inane/serious, it is daring/trusting.
It is tiny, tiny/GARGANTUAN.
This is the magic.

*********

Warning! Ideas for strange or arcane Valentines Day rituals may be fostered from the above presented art, antiques, one-of-a-kind and life-defining experiences. I wish you happy flights, no matter what your boy/girl/gender-neutral/android self fancies!

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Drawing by Jade Dressler, some other photos by same,
black + white lovers pics by Helmut Newton,
others cribbed.

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