Chapter 4

INTOXICATING MOOD
ENHANCERS

Everything takes on greater beauty at night: our attire, the décor of a room, or the magnificence of ceremonies . . . at night perfume and music most fully reveal their exceptional attributes.

from Idle Hours by Urabe Kenko (ca. 1330–35)¹

The sun rose as the third-century warrior empress Jingo Kogo rode her stallion through the cold, white, snow-covered Kitayama cedars to meet her lover. Or did she fly by magic over a profusion of red, red maple leaves rustling in the warm wind? Or, in a moment of passion, lie with him amid the delicate flutter of falling pink cherry blossoms? All three scenes evoke different yet sensuous moods. In this chapter, you will learn how to involve all of your erotic senses to create the perfect romantic atmosphere.

If you fancy the James Bond type complete with English accent and Oxford education, make the room elegant and refined with pale hues of ivory, taupe, mauve, and gray, along with faux marble, nickel-finish brass, Tuscany accessories, and tapestry fabrics. If your imagination leans toward Indiana Jones, earthy, environmentally aware, and sophisticated, decorate your bathroom and bedroom with green. Use plants and naturally woven wood accessories, and interesting, exotic accents from foreign cultures. If you look for quirky and fun “frat-types,” mix turquoise and marine blues with yellow, orange, and red, and use tropical designs for decoration—like you in a hula skirt with a lei around your neck and wearing nothing else.

Setting the décor is only the beginning. Let’s get down to the basics of mood. Way down. Chemistry, smell. Human pheromones. These odor-rich substances are made up of certain chemicals that are similar to male and female sex hormones and that trigger distinctive brain activity when sniffed by the opposite sex. Scientists believe that a part of your brain involved in regulating sexual behavior lights up when you are exposed to a substance similar to testosterone. The same brain area in your man lights up when he is exposed to a substance similar to estrogen. This shows that the right scent is essential to seduction.

The Japanese know how important scent is to creating a mood, especially in your home. Geisha teahouses were cleaned daily, the futon aired out, and the rooms dusted. This tradition was wise. Particles and gases in the air can irritate your lungs as well as smell unpleasant. Be mindful of dust, mold, and household chemicals, including heavily perfumed toiletries, and rid them from your home. A seductive, romantic mood begins when you get to work and literally clear the air: Slip your hands into something comfortable such as linen polishing mitts. Use all-natural cleaning tools such as silk dusters, china twill cloths, flour sack towels, turkey feather dusters, horsehair brushes, and corn brooms. These steps reduce your exposure to indoor and outdoor air pollution.

And don’t forget the bathroom. It doesn’t have to be a dirty job, not with toilet cleansers and dish soaps scented with plant-derived essential oils that smell like jasmine-lily, lemon verbena, and rosemary-grapefruit. These products cost much more than those using synthetic fragrances. However, in addition to being healthier, they are pretty; the translu cent emerald, amethyst, and amber-colored liquids in clear plastic bottles make charming window-ledge decorations. Your home is clean and smells good, too. Let’s decorate for a sensual mood.

Décor

Arriving at an elegant geisha-ya, geisha teahouse, the visitor was escorted to tatami rooms graced by the relaxing sounds of a trickling fountain and decorated with low tables. He was asked to sit upon silk cushions with his back to an alcove called the tokonoma, the position of honor. The elegant guest would appreciate the hanging scroll or floral display, and have the manners to say so, as well as comment on the choice and arrangement of art objects. The hostess would bow and offer tea; it was correct etiquette to accept a second cup.

What does this have to do with décor? Simple. Everything in the geisha-ya had a proper place and meaning to ensure the correct outcome of the visit. When you invite that special man to your home, you also wish to ensure the desired outcome: lovemaking.

Furnishings and Accessories

If an interior designer arranges your home,it is called “styling.”“House-fluffing” is the name given to the art of perking up your home by being your own interior arranger.² Give your home a makeover by changing the look of a room using only the things you already own and love; after all, these are the things that best express you. Move your piano (or have him help you, a lot more fun), rehang your artwork, and throw away dead plants. Hang beautiful old kimono on the walls; make a collage out of your favorite movie posters and party invitations. An interesting environment is a sexy one.

Keeping Him Cool on a Hot Night

Geisha tolerated, even savored summer heat, by creating an illusion of coolness to divert their senses. A cast-iron wind-bell with a slip of stiff paper dangling from the clapper caught the slightest breeze in the doorway of the teahouse. Entry curtains, noren, made of crisp, gauzy hemp or other bast fiber, often light in color, moved gently. Paper butterflies added whimsical charm. The sound of water splashing on green bamboo leaves in a stone basin suggested coolness.

A sensuous décor is about the curve of your furniture, soft, luxurious fabrics, flattering lighting, and pleasant but evocative scents. Surround yourself with serenity, harmony, and beauty. The clean lines and modular design of traditional Japanese furniture have a minimalist, uncluttered look that blends well with many styles, but any style you prefer is fine, so long as it is done well. To create your sensual décor, train yourself to recognize quality and tasteful placement of furnishings by doing as the geisha did when she entered a banquet, noting the teahouse decorations, the artwork, and the food. Texture, color, pleasing lines and proportions, accents, lush wood finishes, and patinas add up to a subtle, suggestive environment.

Create a Sensual Décor Tips

• Balance and proportion are paramount. Strive for unity to prevent a cluttered look, but don’t be boring. Surprise his eye. A contemporary room will do well with a few antiques, and a Japanese motif will find visual relief with a few contemporary accents. Mix and match to add richness and sexiness to your décor.
• Pick a room’s focal points, then add color and texture. There is great power in the number one, as in one great thing brought to life in a stage-type setting. It could be anything that commands attention. One large picture will unify an area busy with individual chairs and tables, or balance a window. Take a piece of beautiful crystal and display it on a pedestal, lighted to advantage. The backdrop should not interfere with your display. Busy wallpaper distracts. Most often a soft, solid color serves best as a background—though a bold color is in order if the object is pale.
• Group accessories for visual impact. Hang up several pairs of funky old sunglasses, arrange your favorite CD or book jackets, frame a collection of postcards from past trips, or mount old earrings on a silk-covered board and you have instant art. Odd numbers are more interesting than even. • Choice of wood sends a message: weathered, dark-stained, and natural grains signal a homey, fire-in-the-hearth feel. Maple parquet and detailed door and window moldings provide elegance suggesting tradition and long-lost craftsmanship. Sleek-looking bamboo flooring, a natural, sustainable material, is modern and slightly exotic.
• Surfaces play a role. Stainless steel gives a cool, modern motif. Velvet, silk, and nubby textiles, twisted cords, and fabric walls covered in rich colors create a warmly sensual environment.
• Textured objects make delightfully evocative accents. Shells from the beach, a craggy rock, a rough piece of driftwood, the sleekest glass paperweight, a smooth marble egg, furry toss pillows, chunks of crystal—all naturally awaken the sense of touch.
• Black, very much a part of traditional Japanese décor, is a dramatic accent that can help anchor other elements in the room. It always works better than white, mixing well with textures and with natural materials like stone, copper, and iron. It fits in anywhere, from traditional to cutting edge. And it is very sexy—imagine draping your shimmering nude body over a black-lacquered coffee table. Is there any doubt?
• Avoid clutter. Don’t have all your favorite pieces, artwork, and mementos out all the time. Traditional Japanese décor is sparing and changes with the seasons. You can do the same, storing what you don’t need between times. It shows you pay attention to your surroundings and keeps them interesting, like you.

MIRRORS

Geisha teahouses were designed to turn out toward nature. In the warm season, shoji and wooden outside doors, amado, as well as sliding wall panels, fusuma, can be entirely removed, opening the rooms directly to the surrounding foliage, flowers, and trees. You can achieve a similarly open effect with mirrors.

Mirrors are wonderfully versatile. They bring light from the windows into dark interior spaces, creating the illusion of a more expansive, brighter area. Their reflections eliminate the sense of separation between rooms, visually enlarging a space. Mirrors add sparkle and life. You can raise the erotic pitch of your favorite sitting nook with a gilded mirror, a Japanese screen, and a sensually soft chenille throw in velvet.

JAPANESE SCREENS

Japanese screens are more than decorative fixtures. They can transform interiors. The sliding fusuma is both door and wall-like room divider. A byobu, folding screen, provides space definition and privacy, and is also used for ceremonial backdrops. Taken outdoors, it makes a temporary enclosure—wonderful for those nights of moon viewing and other sensual, nocturnal activities. Put a screen in front of your window. That way you can open it for some breeze and still have privacy during intimate moments.

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Japanese folding screens can be used to
control light and intimacy in a room

The sudare, a curtain of reeds, is a popular summer screen. Or, hang up long lengths of thick bamboo joints and crystals strung on threads. The waving of these strings and their tinkling sound suggest the freshness of the stirring breeze; the crystals here and there are reminiscent of cool raindrops slipping down the bamboo stems.³ Try walking through the curtain with your hips swaying. A definite turn-on for both of you.

YOUR BEDROOM

You will spend almost a third of your life in bed sleeping, unless you are otherwise engaged, so your bed and your bedroom are important. Evaluate the elements of your room for different sensual shapes and tempting textures. Add some organic element, a natural piece of beauty (besides you), such as fruit or flowers in a bowl or a glass vase, or mix them together for a succulent look. Look for interesting pieces to use as art, such as fans or pieces of kimono fabric. Place a minimum of three lamps or candles for flattering light. Think of what suits you and create a room that expresses it, whether it feels like a refreshingly cool sea breeze, or a warm and inviting cocoon.

Consider what you are sleeping on (not to mention whom you are sleeping with). Many mattresses need turning at regular intervals to keep their firmness and contour. Your mattress should smell and look invitingly fresh. Vacuum away accumulated dirt and lint. If there is a stain, use a mild soap and a small amount of cold water and rub gently to remove it.

There are many kinds and combinations of mattresses according to your preference, but you may find a luxurious featherbed mattress with a thick and fluffy mattress topper to be your ultimate seduction tool. A featherbed is not all about superficial indulgence. By cushioning and cradling pressure points like your hips and spine, it also positions your body in a comfortable and relaxing manner. No more tossing and turning (not, at least, when you’re alone). Look for a filling of ninety-five percent feathers and five percent down, and a top layer of pure down. That “quill-proofs” the featherbed and achieves “loft,” the plump resilience that looks so yummy and sexy. This is something you and your man can really sink into at night. What you do next is up to you.

COLOR

Color triggers emotions. Heian ladies, well aware of its sensual power, turned the multi-layering of colors into an art of intricate detail called irome kasane.⁴ It has continued with variations and simplifications until recent times. This list of combinations is from the Ogasawara School of Etiquette.⁵

Make up your own chart matching colors that you like, traditional or modern: Electrified shades of watermelon, tangerine, and strawberry. A green more lime, less forest. Neon shades of blue, orange, pink. Mandarin orange and wild cherry. Cherry and plum blossom, wisteria from lightest to darkest purple, blue of iris, chrysanthemums of all colors, and the blood red of maple leaves. Use these colors in your décor accessories: hand-blown blue vases, notes written in passion pink ink, glass votive holders in go-go hues, accent pillows with splashes of color. The colors you like are the colors that describe you. Color makes you sexy. Don’t be afraid to use it.

Color Coordinating Your Décor Tips

• “Dressing your walls” with color creates a perfect foil for your artwork. A transparent complementary glaze over a base color gives a soft, warm glow.
• Neutrals can set a romantic mood. All vary widely in tone, especially white, which can run from a warm cream to icy bluish-gray. Anything from a sunbaked beach to a shady forest to a tranquil horizon at dawn is a turn-on to most men. A room with a beige undertone always conveys warmth, and warmth in your home invites him to snuggle up close to you.
• Put your personal stamp on a monochromatic scheme by adding notes of richness and comfort with accessories like luxuriously detailed pillows. Add pieces in color schemes based in yellows, blues, or greens for effect. Pulsating, neon chartreuse greens create a trendy and youth-oriented attitude. Take advantage of texture in fabric, wall finishes, etc. to add extra interest in establishing the predominant mood.
• Be careful of very feminine colors like brilliant pinks, which are seen as whimsical and trendy. Although bright oranges are seen as gregarious, fun loving, and high-energy, too much of this color can be stressful.
• On the other hand, go for vivid yellows, which are seen as active and sparkling with enthusiasm and youthful vigor.
• Don’t dilute the energy of the evening with subdued tones like lilac, sage, and periwinkle, colors seen as comforting, tranquil, and reassuring. You want to get him into bed, not put him to sleep.

Candles

The sight and scent of lighted candles infuse any room, especially your bedroom, with welcoming light and warmth, especially those with the fragrance of flowers: hyacinth and lemon grass, ylang-ylang and eucalyptus, rosemary, ginger, gardenias, or a wash of white roses. These are the aromas of dreams. Of desire. Candles summon the idea of romance and serenity. Fragrance candles come in jars, votives, wax potpourris, pillars, and tea lights. Pick your mood: vanilla or lavender for a peaceful atmosphere; pine and lime for an outdoorsy feel; or mango, pineapple, and melon for an island-like scene.

LIGHTING

In days of old, walking down tiny streets in the Gion district of Kyoto off the River Kamo, you were sure to see red paper lanterns painted with geisha names in black calligraphy swinging in the breeze outside the teahouses. Stop, and you could have seen rose-colored lighting behind the paper panes of the shoji and, using your imagination, its soft glow upon the faces of the beautiful geisha, the exposed napes of their necks, and their graceful hands moving through the air as they danced.

The right lighting is essential to setting a seductive mood. Shadows cast away from your face can add or subtract from your beauty, so evaluate your lighting well.

Lighting Up Your Room and Your Face Tips

• Direct overhead lighting is “monstrous,” casting downward shadows and giving a sunken-in-the-grave look to your face and body. Likewise, while blue is a calming color, the bluish tinge of fluorescent lighting is not flattering to your skin.
• Indirect lighting flatters. There are many options to suit any taste: wall sconces, table and floor lamps, controlled lighting such as inconspicuous low-voltage halogen recessed downlights and zenon linear cove lighting. All create wonderful layers of dramatic accent on your face and the rest of you.
• • Photographers use orange filters over their cameras to give complexions a warm, healthy, seductive glow. You can get the same effect by putting them over your lamps. Your flaws will disappear.
• Candles create beautiful, dramatic lighting accents, but only when several or more are used. Depending on a single candle will give you a Gothic pallor.
• Directed lighting gives special objects in your décor dramatic presence. You can light an object from above, behind, or underneath. Test various angles with a flashlight to get an idea of which way the light best serves the object.

SKYLIGHTS

A favorite subject of many an ukiyoe is geisha and courtesans entertaining customers or playing games with each other on a teahouse open verandah. These women were well aware that natural light brightens your home and your mood. Make the most of natural light in your home by adding a skylight. Tucked into a vaulted ceiling or set atop a flat in a way that warms and brightens the space. Even rainy day interiors feel more inviting. Create a glass-domed ceiling or skylight in your bedroom, and when it rains it’s like making love under a waterfall.

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Floor lanterns fitted with candles or
bulbs cast a soft and seductive light

Skylights provide three basic types of light: area lighting, task lighting, and dramatic lighting. Just illuminating an area is not enough. The ideal skylight clearly transmits light, with glazing eliminating UV radiation. This makes for a comfortable, beautiful interior that will set you off to advantage. It is important to know the location of the sun, particularly at midday and afternoon—and of the moon for your late-night moon-viewing parties. Consider what suits your needs, and how much light will benefit you.

SOUNDS

The bubbling of a fountain and the murmur of a garden streamlet falling from a bamboo pipe into a pool greeted all who entered through the gable-roofed gateway into the graceful, tranquil world that was the geisha teahouse. There, the seasons were defined by the soothing images and sounds of nature.

For over a thousand years, water has mesmerized the women of Japan and their lovers. They know well the mystical power of gardens, ponds, waterfalls, and streams to transport us from the hectic, ordinary world. The soothing sight and sound of moving water calms the senses and speaks to the fundamental needs of the human spirit—peace, and harmony. Without water, there is no life. It rightly sets the mood for lovemaking.

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Japanese wind chimes have a delicate, resonant
ring that “cools” on a summer night

Music is also a powerful tool in the art of seduction. The geisha understood this, and she perfected her skill in the shamisen, three-string lute, and the thirteen-string koto, harp. What they knew from experience and instinct, science has now explained. Music rewires your brain, creating neural activities whose flashdance touches your soul. Your brain maps the melody and forms a pattern. This dynamic map may hold the key to why listening to a certain type of music makes you feel like dancing or making love on one occasion but elicits a different behavior another time: as when you sigh, remembering those moments. Use music in this manner so the next time he hears “your” song, he will think of you.

To forge this sensual connection, the music must be harmonious with the mood you have created. Bluesy music for red lights and sheer black stockings; Chopin for pink lace and champagne; your favorite rock group for spiked pink hair and low riders; and country music for fringe boots, a low-cut gingham shirt, and cut-off shorts.

And don’t forget the soothing, sensual music of the gentle wind chime, the furin. Geisha knew its clear, cool, otherworldly small sounds delight the senses. Its vibrations fill your soul with an enchanted, seemingly endless echo whose magical reverberations will remind you of an orgasm. Once you experience it, the memory never disappears.

Sensual Sounds Tips

• Sometimes silence is music. Don’t rule this out, especially if you are setting a romantic mood after you’ve both had a long day at the office.
• Music has the power of a mind-altering drug for a lot of people, but romantic or turn-on music is individual. find out his tastes before your big evening, what artists he listens to, and his sensual favorites. Or, consider what you know of his interests and life to help you make your musical choice.
• Eliminate everyday noises such as phone, fax, television, loud clock alarm or pager, computer hum, or printer. You want to enhance, not distract, from your web of seduction.
• Avoid loud music. You want your own sounds to be the most seductive and sultry of all, so don’t let the background music or noise overwhelm you.

SCENT AND TASTE

The famed poetess Sei Shonagon wrote in her Pillow Book, “Things to delight the heart: Sleeping alone in a room tantalizingly scented with incense.”⁶ Japanese women have always known the lure of perfume—wafting in the air or permeating layers of silken robes. The aroma of a woman, be she geisha, courtesan, or Heian lady, lingered in the minds of her lovers. As one gentleman wrote: “I’d never consider it just an ordinary adventure to spend a night with you and then to leave at dawn, still bearing the scent of your perfume.”⁷

The power of smell is one of your most important and evocative tools in the art of seduction. Many experts believe that smell has a more powerful impact upon your emotions than any of the other senses. A fragrance can transform your mood and make you feel sexy and romantic, sultry and naughty. It can transform his mood as well. Let’s take a closer look at smell and see how you can use its power to your advantage.

HOW YOUR SENSE OF SMELL WORKS

A vestige of your primordial animal origins, smell stands alone as a direct link to your instinctual responses as well as your emotional life. What this means is that odor molecules, such as from perfume, body sweat, or the smell of sex, can dash right into the space in your brain occupied by emotions such as love and hate, and by moods such as anxiety and pleasure. Smell may actually account for more than ninety percent of the sense we call “taste.” As you chew, tiny puffs of air containing odor molecules from the food follow a route that begins at the back of your throat and drift up the backward route to your nose. Add signals from the taste buds on your tongue as well as texture and temperature (something scientists call mouth feel), and you have “flavor.” This is what most people mistakenly call “taste.”

When your man snuggles up close to you and sniffs the freshness of your hair, bites on your ear, and tastes your skin, he also smells you. Each time he inhales, odor mol-ecules, moving at lightning speed,race through the gateways directly behind the bridge of his nose to reach the limbic lobe of his brain,also known as the “emotional brain.”Reaction to the smell comes first,even before he has identified the source of the odor.Scents also can affect your mood,sparking memories and experiences of memorable nights with memorable lovers.That is why a whiff of your perfume can send a lover adrift in a passionate paradise.

PERFUME

Your last date may not remember the dress you wore or your shoes, but he will remember your perfume. Perfume has that power to transform something ordinary, something everyday, into something magical. One drop can make you feel wrapped in the arms of your lover, transported back to a special moment you shared. Perfume is all about the magic of him catching his breath, of wanting to get closer to you, and keeping your memory in his mind.

From the Nara through the Kamakura periods (710–1333), small lacquer cases containing perfumes hung from a clasp on the kimono of an elegant woman. Later, the scent of a geisha was as personal as the stroke of her brush doing calligraphy. Well aware of how nature infuses flowers and plants with potent, seductive smells, she also knew the most important ingredient in choosing a fragrance was to capture the emotional essence and the spirit of the woman wearing it. Your scent should be just as personal, like your signature. Learn how to choose your scent, and use it to effect.

CHOOSING YOUR PERFUME OR FRAGRANCE

You are a woman and unique, and your perfume should convey that. Know the difference between an essential oil and a fragrance: An essential oil is the extract of a single flower, plant, or herb. Fragrances are chemical compounds. Good perfumes are made from combinations of the two. There are three main categories of perfume: floral, Oriental, and Chypre. floral perfumes are sweet, flowery, and suited to you if you tend to be happy-golucky. Orientals are powdery, sensual, and bewitching, and become those who like to show a little skin. Chypre perfumes are deep, oaky, and fit your style if you are sophisticated and tailored. In finding the right one, remember that subtlety and complexity are key to interesting scents.

To really know a fragrance, try it on your wrist, and wait ten minutes. The best fragrances are composed of multiple ingredients that “develop” on your skin, producing three effects: the “top note,” your impression at the first sniff; the “middle notes,” the blend of ingredients at the heart of the fragrance; and the “base note,” the “dry down” aroma that lingers. If the base note expresses “you,” this is your perfume.

Using Perfume Tips

• Don’t try a myriad of different perfumes with your lover. find the most provocative one or two, make them your only perfumes, and you, or at least the memory of you, will linger in his mind forever.
• Be appropriate. Warm weather enhances a scent, so switch to a lighter fragrance, like honeysuckle and jasmine with French lime blossom for spring, and to lime, basil, and mandarin grapefruit for summer. Use something light for daytime and save your heavy, musky concoction for nighttime seduction.
• To get the most out of your scent, put a small amount on your pulse points—the temples and base of the throat, as well as wrists, ankles, behind the knees (scent rises), the bend of the elbows, and between your breasts. Forget dabbing it behind your earlobes. The skin in that area produces an oil that diminishes the scent. He will never smell it when he is nibbling on your ears.
• Use restraint when applying a strong scent. No one should be aware of it beyond an arm’s length from your body.
• Put scents in your refrigerator. When you spray or splash them on, they feel as good on your skin as they smell.
• Eau de toilette, short-lived but strong, is meant to refresh you. Eighty percent disappears in three hours, so don’t reapply more often than every four.
• Perfume lasts twenty-four hours and has a softer smell. Even if you can’t smell it, he can.
• With the exception of lavender, do not use undiluted essential oils on your skin and keep them away from your eyes.

INCENSE

The alluring sight of the beautiful Heian lady burning incense, ko, in her chamber intrigued the man spying from behind the lattice partition. He dared to come forward to watch closer. Using a rare koro, incense burner, she played the game of twenty perfumes with him: first, she sprinkled little black nuggets of incense in the shape of leaves, blossoms, or characters on the glowing coals, scattering green particles, brown particles, and grayish ones. Then she showed the gentleman how to catch the ascending column of pale blue smoke in his bent hand, closing his fingers upon it, and conveying it to his nose. The nobleman could not tell which he preferred, nor remember which dried particle gave forth a particular fragrance. Why? The incense, simply gums and resins in stick or cone form that give off scented smoke when burned, bewildered his nose with the commingled odors.⁸ Bored with the game, he took leave of the lady for a rival. Use incense sparingly, lest your admirer become overpowered by the scent and take his leave as well.

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Incense comes in stick or block form
and can freshen up any interior

Types of Incense

The fragrance of incense can reduce stress, ease depression, repel mosquitoes, and enhance meditation. Rosemary is often added to love incenses. It has long been known to increase memory, concentration, and even creativity. Modern research conducted in Japan confirms that it is a brain stimulant. An aroma session of rosemary and lemon will improve two lovers’ concentration on what’s most important. Here are some other types of incense to improve concentration and get you both in the mood:

• Aloeswood, one of the most highly prized fragrances in Japan for its enrapturing aroma, is used to enhance meditation. The sensations gradually change from a faint, sweet smell to a feeling of peace and relaxation.
• Citrus of any kind is energizing and promotes an optimistic attitude.
• Cloves are an aphrodisiac and improve mental abilities, eyesight, and mood.
• Frankincense is spiritually uplifting.
• Patchouli promotes sensuality and a cheerful, peaceful attitude.
• Pine is a clean and refreshing scent.
• Rose promotes warm, loving feelings and peacefulness.
• Sandalwood promotes peaceful relaxation, is an antidepressant, and is spiritually protective.
• Vanilla is recuperative, physically energizing, and emotionally calming.
• Violet increases emotional sensitivity.
• Ylang-ylang is sexually stimulating and relaxing.

Arriving in Japan around a.d.500, the art of mixing and burning incense has a long history in formal entertainment, religious ceremonies, games, and no doubt in the art of seduction. Cinnamon, ground conch-shell, sandalwood, cloves, powdered herbs, plum pulp, seaweed, charcoal, and salt were among the ingredients mixed into pastes, then pressed into cones, spirals or letter-forms, and burned on beds of ashes. During the Kamakura period, certain woods were discovered to have more pleasing aromas and varying emotional effects when burned. Later eras saw an incense-stick clock that changed its scent as time passed, and another that announced the time according to one of several chimneys from which the fragrant smoke issued.

Scenting Your Personal Spaces Tips

• Scent the air with candles, a metal oil burner, a hanging ceramic container, cone and stick incense, or a copper lightbulb ring. When the lamp is on, the heat of the bulb perfumes the air.
• Create a fresh aura in your room by choosing from an array of new, refined aromas, such as citrus, herbal, woody, or garden varieties, including geranium, lavender, honeysuckle, and old rose.
• Make your bedroom more glamorous and appealing with the fragrances of heaven, romance, and sex: Patchouli, clary sage, heliotrope, geranium, rainforest, and English garden.
• Avoid “fragrance abuse.” Scent should whisper, not call out across the room. Measure how much fragrance you use with your brain, not your nose. A little will entice, too much will send his senses reeling.

TASTE

Taste and smell, known as “the chemical senses,” are far less developed in humans than in animals. Scientists believe this is because vision and hearing, which are processed through the rational side of your brain, the cortex, are more important in human society. In the strict sense, taste is limited to your perception of saltiness, sourness, sweetness, and bitterness, and the glutamate-inspired, deliciously savory sensation the Japanese call umami. All the other subtleties of flavor are combinations of these basic qualities plus your sense of smell. Perhaps that is why the enjoyment of food is such a many-layered thing.

A geisha never ate at banquets, but if she became an okami-san, teahouse owner, it was her responsibility to make certain the food served was of the highest quality both to satisfy the hunger and entice the eye of her gentleman guests. Japanese banquet food is more than rice and raw fish artfully arranged. It is more than simply the freshest and most perfect ingredients. It is redolent with meaning, of the season, the occasion, a poetic or erotic moment. Fortunately, our custom is to share a meal with a lover. We can learn from the geisha that a meal can be one of life’s great sensual experiences, and a prelude of more pleasures to come. Isn’t this the message you want to send to your man?

SEXY CUISINE

Imagine a meal that begins with a scoop of toro tartare, moist, raw, deep red tuna, topped with glistening, gray-green beluga caviar, awaiting you in a gleaming glass bowl. You spread the mixture on dominoes of bread, fragrant from toasting on the hibachi. The warm toast, fat-rich tuna freshly smelling of the sea, and the cool, salty caviar are a sensual, suggestive encounter of mingled flavors, texture, scent, and vision. This is a moment worthy of the most extravagant geisha banquets of the past, the ozashiki.

You can create your own banquet for two in your own home. All it takes is some preparation time, a few changes in your dining area, and a willingness to experiment. Let yourself go!

SENSUAL FOODS

While it is true that many Japanese foods border on the exotic, such as gold-flake-dusted diced shrimp artfully placed atop a tubular piece of white marble, learning the artful arrangement of food as well as its preparation is key to creating that sensual dinner for him. Invoke a new sensuality in your presentation, and you will inspire the romantic lure of the geisha serving him the finest cuisine with elegance and a sensual panache.

Bento

A bento is a “box lunch.” It comes in a four-compartment, lidded lacquer bento box—the Japanese version of the picnic basket. The compartments offer so many interesting tidbits: meat, seafood, vegetables, rice, and pickles, selected according to the season and presented with artistry. He will love the bento you prepare for your alfresco adventure to restore his weary soul in the bosom of nature. Whether you want to luxuriate in the scent of pine needles, new-mown grass, and swaying willow trees, or just listen to the roar of the ocean, you and your partner can enjoy a meal with that special sharpness and savor you’ll only find outdoors. The preparation is already done. All you have to do is sit back and enjoy the romance of dining en plein air.

How to Make a Bento Box Tips

• A bento box is practical and quick. Do most of the cooking the night before: Cut the food into bite-size morsels so the only utensil he needs is your fingers.
• Start with the food that will take up the largest amount of space, such as rice, pasta, or sushi. You can use molds for shaping rice into manageable finger or chopstick size..
• Next, around the edges and stacked against the rice or pasta, add some green such as broccoli or asparagus, and then some red, such as tomato, to give the bento box appealing spots of bright color.
• Keep vinegary foods such as pickled ginger and salad apart from everything else, using cupcake liners, foil, or lettuce leaves.
• A plastic container with a tight-fitting lid is the best way to avoid spillage. Carry the box upright. Use wicker, wood, lacquer, or paper boxes.
• Don’t forget the pretty, bright tablecloth with matching napkins, silverware or chopsticks, glasses, and other tableware.

Cook your food with a Japanese inflection. Try a panko-crusted fried pork cutlet served with a dense sweet-and-sour sauce. Panko flakes are much lighter and crunchier than the ordinary breadcrumbs. Steaming bowls of noodles are hard to resist, swimming in a delicious elixir flecked with sweet fried onions and mushrooms sliced so thin they look like reflections in the tawny vegetable broth.

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Sliced fresh fish for your menu: as sensual
to look at as it is to offer your lover

Be daring and a little messy. Whip up tempura and let him watch you whisk the batter, gossamer thin for vegetables, thicker for succulent shrimp. Then suggest he lick the spoon or whatever else his heart desires. Or have a naked fondue party and skinny dip yourself in your favorite sauce, one body part at a time. Play cool jazz in the background as you grill chicken, beef, and vegetables on your outdoor barbecue. Vegetables undergo a magical transformation on the grill, turning from mere vegetables into tempting treats. It’s interactive eating that leads to interactive lovemaking.

Be inventive with what you serve. Include dishes that fuse a Japanese aesthetic with touches of chili, garlic, caviar, and you. Instead of gold flakes, sprinkle kisses upon his lips and tell him you are offering him omakase, a tasting menu. This philosophy is a very Japanese sentiment and requires him to leave the decisions up to you. He doesn’t tell you what he wants, just when he wants you to stop. It works in reverse as well. Just think—you don’t have to ask him, you just tell him when (if ever!) to stop. Delish. He’s hungry for dinner, then dessert: you. Don’t disappoint him. Keep him under your spell by serving him a wonderful, delicious meal.

Sensual Food Tips

• Salads: Adjust the seasonings according to your taste—and his. He’ll love the way the intriguing textures—crispy, crunchy, and crumbly—excite his taste buds.
• Beef: The merest whiff of beef sizzling on the grill drills straight through to the primitive part of his brain, making him hungry not just for steak but for you.
• Fish: For a special treat, prepare sweet shrimp with spicy lemon garlic sauce or shrimp tartare with truffles, caviar, and gold leaf on white daikon radish. Make sure your shrimp are perfect, tight skins on the outside with sweet, juicy flesh inside.
• Desserts: For a different taste treat,make a dessert with yuzu, one of the most popular citrus fruits in Japan.Its sweetly fragrant,slightly bitter zest is used to garnish dishes. You can use lemon or lime instead. Like you,citrus has complexity,a jazzy interplay of tart and sweet. Puddings can be sensuously rich,with the intensity of a dark chocolate truffle.Strawberry lime coolers are a refreshing and sensual delight. Use fresh strawberries,sugar, and the juice and zest of one lime. Purée strawberries,sugar,and lime juice until smooth,then serve over creamy ice cream.
• Cap It Off: You can sip a warm mug of fragrant green tea as a finale to a meal and a warm-up to the cozy activities you’ve planned for later on in the evening.

ALCOHOLIC SEDUCTION

Enjoying Western or Japanese wine, like making love, is an art, from looking at the liquid against a white background to judge the color, to swirling it in the glass to aerate it and send up a pungent burst of aroma, to taking the last sip. The scent should be pleasant. Swill or chew it about to give the wine a moment in your mouth as you evaluate its body. Body is a textural sensation. Focus on it. Savor the aftertaste, what is called the “finish.” With a good wine—as with a night of good sex—the finish will pleasantly linger.

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Citrus fruits like lemons and limes add
a jazzy interplay of tart and sweet

No meal served by a geisha or courtesan was complete without the drink of the gods: sake. Sake is an ancient elixir. first brewed in China nearly seven thousand years ago, it was introduced into Japan about two thousand years ago. There it became the delight of connoisseurs. In ancient times, beautiful young virgins made sake through a primitive process of chewing rice and spitting it into a large tub, thereby assuring its purity. The wine was aptly named bijinshu, “beauty wine.”

But sake has always had a ribald, joyfully sensual side, as revealed in an ukiyoe print showing three men and three women sharing sake and delicacies amid the titillation of sexual exploits to come. Today customers at live sex clubs often hum along to the song Sake Yo, as they watch the action on stage and drink. Many drink so much at these raucous parties that sex is beyond their capabilities. They are, as geisha would say, more than horoyoi, “slightly intoxicated.” You can sip sake while you’re cooking a glorious meal or watching the full moon, but be careful not to have too much of a good thing. Instead of him staying over, you will have a hangover.

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Sake cups come in a variety of shapes for
cold, hot, and intimate imbibing

With a crisp, clean taste and very subtle fruit, sake is excellent with sushi and harmonizes well with other dishes, including lightly prepared pasta, soy, vegetables, fish, and white meat. Sake is available in several grades. Premium sake is aged for six to nine months and should be consumed within one year of the bottling date. When you drink, you should drink well: The best sakes are as delicate—and as expensive—as fine wine.

It has been said the geisha could, as she poured sake into a tiny porcelain cup, make a gentleman feel as if he were the only man in the world. So can you with your lover. Here are some tips to help you.

Sake Tips

• Sake is delicious when heated. On a cold winter’s night, it warms your hands and mouth, fires the spirit, and loosens inhibitions. Yukimizake is drinking sake while enjoying the snow—in an outdoor hot-spring or Jacuzzi with your man. Intense cold and heavy moist air make Japanese snow rich and frothy, like thick, ceremonial tea.
• Indulge in a sake party. Choose different kinds: Daiginjo is smoothest and lightest. Roughly filtered nigori appears cloudy. Infused sake contains fruit or other flavors.
• Regular sake, futsushu, often comes in a box and is the equivalent of box wine. This inexpensive brew is usually served heated. It is drinkable, but you wouldn’t serve it to someone special.
• Sake contains no artificial preservatives. Once the bottle is opened, it is good for about one week in the refrigerator.
• Connoisseurs insist that the cold beverage be chilled to forty-five degrees Fahrenheit and served in a special, small glass. Sake that is traditionally warmed to a little over a hundred degrees and served in tiny ceramic cups is called kan ⁹ and is popular among some Japanese in the winter. It is up to you—and your man—which you prefer.

Sake Recipes

Samurai Rock: fill a large glass one-third full of sake. Add ice and lime juice, stir, and drink.

Sake with Ice: Place sake in a glass with ice cubes and drink. Add a slice of lemon, if you wish. Lemon makes the taste milder.

Hot Sake: Place a container of sake in a pan of hot water and warm it to slightly more than your body heat. This is one of the best ways to drink sake, since at warm (but not hot) temperatures its qualities can be fully appreciated, especially if you’re snuggled up with him on a cold night.

ICE

On a hot night, there is nothing sexier than a cool sliver of ice slithering down your nude body into the most interesting places. Keep cool. In the eleventh century, Heian ladies enjoyed ice preserved in chambers dug into the mountainsides. It was a summer luxury for members of the imperial court, including Sei Shonagon, who recorded her observations and personal reflections in lists like “Elegant Things,” including “shaved ice mixed with liana syrup and put in a new silver bowl.”¹⁰

Chilled foods are automatically sensual. Be creative with how you serve cold drinks to set a cool, sexy mood. Ice-frosted glass bowls and plates can hold everything from chilled fruit to sashimi and noodles. Serve sweets with frozen iced tea, or chilled water. Try serving shaved ice “Japanese style” by sweetening it with flavored syrups, condensed milk, or the green, thick tea of the tea ceremony (chilled before pouring) and topping it with sweet azuki beans. If this is not to your taste, try your own version of shaved ice with cups of crushed ice drenched with syrups that range from erotic tamarind and mango to kiwi-strawberry. Add a scoop of vanilla or chocolate ice cream between shaved ice balls on an oblong dish for a sweet and creamy treat.

AMBIANCE

A kotatsu is an irreplaceable cultural symbol in Japan. The low, quilt-covered table with a heat source below is about creating a cozy space as it is about physical warmth. At the kotatsu, formality gave way to physical intimacy and unrestrained familiarity. As the only warm spot in the wintertime teahouse, it was where geisha gathered for meals, talk, gossip, laughter, and exchanging stories about their lovers.¹¹

Fireplaces are another welcome haven for you and your man to snuggle and make love. Place several soft, throw pillows or a furry rug on the floor; add a small low-tothe-floor table to hold drinks and snacks. Turn the lights low . . . and the rest is up to you.

You can create a romantic, sensual scene with the right kind of magic. It’s all in the details, from charming napkin holders and fresh flowers, to overhead lights shielded with amber glass shades, to discreet wood paneling, to wide-body comfortable chairs big enough for two to snuggle. Or be glamorous for your favorite night owl by hanging Chinese lanterns over a small outdoor bar and letting them sway in the breeze. Sit on a high bar stool in your backless dress, surrounded by flickering votive candles. Do a funky “come-as-you-are” brasserie setting and serve upmarket comfort food. Buy a couple of shaggy ottomans, add some plants, and string piazza lights in strategic places. The soft, casual atmosphere makes it a favorite escape and enhances the sense of cozy privacy. Get all lovey-dovey on your comfy outdoor swing draped with a canopy of golden silk and lit by ornate Moroccan lanterns. Scatter your pool with rose petals before taking that midnight skinny dip, and set up lounge chairs with fluffy robes waiting, along with shaken cocktails or espresso martinis. Get crazy. Howl at the moon. In between, nibble on homemade potato chips, fried olives, cheeses—and each other.

A FINAL NOTE ON SETTING THE MOOD FOR SEDUCTION . . .

Setting the mood for seduction is similar to the classical art of Noh theater. After the dance had been carefully choreographed, the dancer could then allow his performance to develop of itself. If you want to allow the evening to develop freely into a night of romance and lovemaking, check on everything that shouldn’t be noticed: the temperature of the room, the scents, the lighting, and the soundtrack. The less obvious the effect, the better. You want to bring him into an environment that overcomes physical and emotional stress and outside distractions, that nurtures and inspires as it pleasures and relaxes you both. Make your home friendly, and seduction will surely follow.