Bamboo Shoots - Some early Chinese writers suggested that this vegetable, eaten over a long period, had aphrodisiac effects.

Banana - The excellent nutritional qualities of what is botanically a berry may have rather less to do with its erotic reputation than its unmistakeable shape. The banana, and the closely related plantain, were delighting the European palate and imagination as early as the sixteenth century.

Bandha - A term meaning 'knot' which is used to describe Tantric lovemaking positions. Tantrists believe that they can channel and use sexual energy: many of the postures are analogous to electrical circuits, and are designed to contain the force within the couple. (See also Asana, Tantra)

Basil - Few herbs have as many associations with sex as basil. In the European folk tradition it was an important ingredient in many love charms; in Haitian Voodoo it is the sacred plant of the insatiable sex goddess Erzulie; and Arab writers mention it as one of the most imortant aphrodisiac herbs. Although none of the European herbalists speak plainly about it, there is a persistent implied suggestion that whilebasil inflames the passion in women it has quite the opposite effect on men. Culpepper's comment is typical: 'it helps the deficiency of Venus in one kind. So it spoils all her actions in another. I dare write no more of it.' As a culinary herb, basil is second to none: Whenever possible use the fresh leaves, although dried basil is also useful in sauces. Tomatoes sprinkled with finely chopped basil deserve the title 'love apples' and it is hard to imagine that the dish is an anaphrodisiac for men. No doubt the garlic, pine kernels and Romano cheese which are combined with basil in olive oil to make the famous pesto sauce for pasta, more than counterbalance any anaphrodisiac effect! Basil is also available as an essential oil and can be a fragrant additive to massage oil. In The Perfumed Garden Sheikh Nefzawi compares the delicate herb to a woman's body, explaning that both must be rubbed softly with the fingers before there can be any pleasure. (See also Erotic Cuisine, Essential Oils)

Bathing and Baths - Bathing is more than an important preliminary to lovemaking it is, in itself, an enjoyable sensory experience - or it should be. Immersion in water or showering involves stimulation of the largest sensory organ we possess - our skin. In addition to the sensation of water itself, which can be soothing or exciting, there are a variety of temperature changes to be enjoyed. The act of washing, lubricated by soap or other cleansing agent, is in effect massage which is also pleasurable. Bathing also stimulates other senses. Essential oils or perfumes added to warm water can stir every kind of association or memory, transforming the bathroom into anything from a pine forest to a bed of roses. Bathing also involves nudity. Our own nudity, glimpsed in mirrors, may or may not excite us according to taste. The nudity of others is always potentially exciting but again is a matter of taste and will depend upon who you are in the habit of bathing with. The Romans had baths dedicated to washing and conversation, and others where sex was the main objective. The same was true in Japan and the Ottoman Empire, and is still the case with contemporary saunas. The bonhomie of a communal bath after team sport, and the intimacy of lovers sharing the same tub may be very different, but much of the sensory experience is the same - as it is when you bathe alone. We should enjoy all our baths. Most lovers bathe together from time to time. It is rather more comfortable in a large sunken bath or jacuzzi, but equally rewarding when someone has to lean on the taps (the compensation is having the hotter water). Showering together probably leads more often to immediate sex, not only because there is more room and showering is invigorating rather than relaxing, but because the skin tension remains better as there is no long immersion. For the same reason it is better to wait a short time after a bath before making love - if you can. (See also Essential Oils, Perfume, Water)

Bay Laurel - (Laurus nobilis) An important culinary herb which has a long association with virility. The ancient Greeks crowned successful athletes with laurel leaves; the Romans decorated victorious generals in the same way. Arab and oriental authorities maintained that its regular inclusion in a man's diet ensured victories of a different kind. (See also Essential Oils and Wild Plants for methods and precautions.)

Beds - Although much attention is paid to beds as platforms for sleeping on, their other function is often ignored. It is generally accepted that harder, more supportive mattresses are better for our backs and they also provide a better surface on which to make love. But bed height and other factors are also important. In cultures where much of the time is traditionally spent on the floor (e.g. India, Japan) some joints will become more supple with use and some muscles more developed. Beds will also tend to be low platforms or at floor level. These are important factors to remember when studying the sexual postures of these cultures. India has more to teach us about sex than any other civilization but if many of these delights are to be accessible you must either take to the floor (and use Hatha Yoga or another regime to improve your flexibility) or give some thought to your bed. Adventurous lovers will in any case want and need to take to the floor sometimes. The bed should be firm, with no side panels to restrict or hard edges to bruise. It should be as wide as possible and solid. Noisy beds may be amusing in a hotel or someone else's house, but general rule can only lead to passion-killing inhibition unless you live in total isolation, have a hide like an elephant or feel that you have something to prove. If anything, the bed should be high rather than low. The traditional Madame's test for selecting beds for a bordello cannot be faulted. A man of average height should be able to penetrate a woman on all fours (he standing on the floor, she kneeling on the bed) without stretching or stooping. If you are discreet it should be possible to assess your 'bedside manner' in the shop without causing too much alarm. If that works, then the bed is the right height for all other postures and activities (e.g. Wheelbarrow; Reversed Crow or Cascade; Gamahuche), which it would be rather more difficult to mime without - in the words of Lady Bracknell - 'attracting comment'.

Benedictine - Although it is produced by monks, this excellent liqueur - with its carefully-guarded formula - has long had a reputation among gourmets as an aphrodisiac. (See also Alcohol, Essential Oils)

Bergamot - It is bergamot (Citrus bergamia) which gives Earl Grey tea its distinctive scent. A strongly feminine aroma, bergamot has been credited with the ability to excite both men and women and is an excellent addition to the bath or to massage oil. (See also Bathing and Baths, Essential Oils, Massage)

Bird Finding Nest - A Chinese sexual posture in which the woman reclines on a table or high platform with her legs raised. Her partner supports her legs and moves in long strokes, erratically at first and almost completely withdrawing, very gradually working towards shorter strokes and a regular rhythm.

Bird's Nest Soup - This oriental delicacy is made from the nests of swallows which yield a gelatinous substance which is then flavoured with other ingredients and spices. Traditionally the Chinese regard bird's nest soup as a powerful aphrodisiac.

Black Bee - One of the classic Indian lovemaking positions translated here from the Ananga-Ranga: 'If you lie flat, with your lover astride you, her feet drawn up and her hips revolving so that your penis circles deep within her sex, it is Bhramara, the black Bee'. In China this popular posture has the delightful name of 'Shouting Monkey'.

Blackberry - (See Dewberry)

Bone Marrow - This highly nutritious substance appears regulary in aphrodisiac recipes from most times and cultures. The poet Horace records that its use as an erotic stimulant was widespread in Rome during his time (the first century BC).

Borage - Pliny called this beautiful herb 'Euphrosinum' and styled it 'Ego borago gaudia semper ago' which means 'I, Borage, bring joy always.' The young leaves of borage can be eaten in salads and its madonna blue star-shaped flowers added to long drinks or frozen singly in ice cubes. Most of the great herbalists refer to borage as an erotic stimulant. Gerard wrote: 'the leaves and flowers of borage put into wine make men and women glad and merry, driving away all sadness, dullness and melancholy.'

Bordellos - The reason for including an entry on places where you are more likely to find lack of self-esteen and despair than Susie Wong and happiness is that some of the trade practices and skills employed in traditional bordellos are of considerable interest. Although most 'houses of ill repute' are very far from being human and well-run places, a few are and always have been. A guide compiled in the same manner as the myriad which now report on restaurants worldwide would probably indicate much the same incidence of mediocrity and flair (and if the food guides ever concerned themselves with waiters and kitchen staff, similar amounts of exploitation and misery). As with restaurants only a few bordellos have ever achieved real immortality through excellence. In the East the 'flower boats' of ninteenth-century Canton, and the exquisite 'green-houses' of Japan's Yoshiwara ('floating world') are legendary. In the West, eighteenth-century London had the lavish Pantheon and 'Mary Wilson's' which catered for women. In the early twentieth century the Chicago club run by the indefatigable Everleigh Sisters (not to be confused with the Brothers) was world famous as was Polly Adler's New York 'Mansion' in the 1920s. Pre-War Paris had the only Western bordello which paid homage to the superior erotic legacy of the East. This was the Akropolis near the Opera, which had a Chinese salon, a Desert Room, as well as Persian and Turkish chambers. In each the sexual confectionery was as genuine as the decor. The traditional working furniture of western bordellos - chairs and mirrors - are dealt with elsewhere, as are beds. There are also entries on the erotic art and literature which have always been available in the best establishments in both East and West. Massage is also dealt with elsewhere, as is masturbation both as a performing art and as a learning technique. All mainstream sexual practices warrant individual entries. A bordello trick which might be omitted if not included here is where the woman rides the man and at the right 'dramatic' moment covers his head with her knickers effectvely blindfolding him. Although it suffers more than most sexual techniques from sounding absurd in cold blood, the mixture of cassolette and the dissociation techniques used for more sinister purposes, produces an almost delerious orgasm in some men which has made it a favourite bordello trick since time immemorial. (See also Cassolette, Courtesan).

Bottoms and Buttocks - As a visual aphrodisiac, a man's bottom is of almost equal interest to a woman as her buttocks are to him. Women will tend to value neatness and compactness whereas roundness and ampleness are the qualities more likely to excite a man. As with so much of our sexual behaviour (some would say most) this is an inheritance from our primate ancestors for whom buttocks were the primary sexual stimulus. In The Naked Ape, Desmond Morris suggests that as Man evolved and became more upright, female breasts enlarged to replace buttocks as the primary focus - there being no mechanical reason for them being much larger in female humans. As a result we can now enjoy both. Although bottoms are less sensitive than breasts they are an important erogenous zone in both men and women. The perineal area below the buttocks and between the legs, (from anus to testicles in men and anus to vulva in women) is often ignored but extremely sensitive. In Tantra this is the seat of Kundalini, the almost limitless sexual energy waiting for release within each of us. Caress or massage are ways of stimulating this forgotten area, as are most of the rear-entry positions. The anus itself is sensitive but taboo area for some people and for others not. Freud is amusing on the subject: 'I hope I shall not be accused of partisanship when I assert that people who account for this disgust by saying that the organ in question serves the function and comes into contact with excrement ... are not much more to the point than hysterical girls who account for their disgust of the male genital by saying that it serves to void urine.' (See also Feuille de Rose, Postillionage, Tantra)

Bouillabaisse - The wonderful fish soup from Marseilles which contains a wide variety of fish and shellfish depending on availability. Venus herself is said to have created the recipe in order to stimulate the fire god Vulcan to some suitably volcanic lovemaking. Certainly Apuleis attempted to seduce a Roman widow with a spicy fish stew in the second century AD. Very similar dishes have the same erotic reputation in India and other parts of the world. (See also Eating and Food, Erotic Cuisine, Seafood)

Bread and Baking - French bread is a descendant of the penis-shaped loaves baked and consumed as part of phallus worship in the Pre-Christian period. In ancient Syracuse vulva-shaped bread was more popular, as it was among the German-speaking people of the North. Interestingly, bread is rich in vitamin E which is associated with fertility. The worshippers of Ceres, goddess of the harvest, and other fertility deities, ate the sacramental bread of their gods and copulated in the newly-planted fields to encourage the fecundity of the grain crop. The custom is still practised in some pre-industrial societies and vestiges of it were reported in Europe as late as the nineteenth century. It is not surprising that bread and baking have aphrodisiac connotations. Contemporary New York confectioners who produce outrageously erotic cakes are carrying on a tradition dating back to the Stone Age. (See also Phallus, Sex Magic)

Breast and Nipples - The sucking of nipples as foreplay - or as an end in itself since women can have an intense orgasm from this alone - is a reminder of how the urges and memories of infancy and childhood continue to resonate in our sexual behaviour. Men also enjoy having their nipples sucked. There is nothing effeminate aboute it, or abnormal either on the part of the sucker or the sucked. Men's nipples are erectile and well-served with nerves. They offer additional sensory possibilities for both partners, a fact sometimes overlooked by women. Far more often overlooked, and with far less excuse, is the enormous importance of breasts to women. Not only does the sucking, nibbling and palming of a woman's nipples and the gentle kneading of her breasts create a complicated and profound psychological response in which sexual and maternal instincts are all mixed up, there is a magical - but very real - connection between her nipples and her clitoris. The importance of breast stimulation for women cannot be exaggerated. The best method of stimulation is to imitate, or remember, the actions a child makes when sucking. Not all lovemaking should be gentle, but this aspect of it always should. Aggressive 'maleness' will destroy the special mood and the pleasure. As a general rule men should spend longer stimulating the breasts of their lover. When her need is too urgent, or you have outstayed your welcome, you will soon be directed elsewhere. (See also Pearl Necklace, Pregnancy and Lactation)

Bride Cakes and Wedding Food - Apart from the cakes which form part of the wedding feast in a great many cultures and are remnants of ancient fertility cults (see Bread and Baking) there are some foods given to the bride and groom which are specifically intended as aphrodisiacs to ensure that despite their bashfulness the wedding night is all it should be. In many European countries in the middle ages the couple were given highly.spiced 'bride cakes' soaked in alcohol before going to bed. Nuts of all kind, especially chestnuts and hazelnuts, were another popular wedding night stimulant. In France a soup containing chervil and tarragon is still popular in some regions. An aphrodisiac specifically intended for the bride consisted of bruised marigold petals in glass of mead. (See also Alcohol, Chestnut, Hazelnut, Honey)

Burnet - (Sangiusorba minor) The Salad Burnet rather than the Great Burnet (sanguisorba officinalis) enjoys a good reputation as a general stimulant with some aphrodisiac qualities. The leaves and young shoots should be gathered in the spring before flowering and eaten in salads or added to soups. They can also be added to wine or brandy. Before the advent of the hop burnet was often used to flavour beer. (See also Wild Plants for methods and precautions)

Butterfly Kiss - A technique of using the eyelashes to stimulate sensitive parts of the body such as nipples or upper lip and philtrum. Not for those who have short eyelashes or cannot blink rapidly. As it is in fact the minute hairs on the surface of the skin which are stimulated, feathers can be a useful substitute. (See also Feathers, Pattes D'Araignees)

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