SEXY SWELLINGS

THE SPANISH FLY

There were days when asking for a condom,  available only at the chemist was shaming, now the quiet whispers in the pharmacist’s ear  for Viagra or Cialis can prove to be mortifying if your neighbor is in the queue behind you.  Thank goodness for buying through websites, enabling the awkwardness to dissipate especially when delivered in a brown envelope.

None of these senseless humiliation need surface when we flit between continents to find out that the human condition is all centered on procreation.   From ancient Egypt to China, keeping virile was and still is very much a primeval force.

At the top of the list the Chinese are actually experts in acquiring different parts of the animal directly capable of prolonging strength for those declining in testosterone or the aged or plain and simple lusting for more.

A former boss, an Iranian diplomat, directed his driver to collect ginseng from China Town.  After Friday prayers, he downed this concoction with roots and all and disappeared, never to return to the office.    This Friday afternoon assignation continued for the duration of his 3 year term in Thailand, rejuvenated and refreshed the poor man returned to work Monday morning  with a spring in his step, and a twinkle in his eye. 

The concoction used to intrigue me so when one Friday morning arrived, I asked the driver to get an extra elixir for me.  Trying so hard to explain it is only for men, I assured him that I had a plan to seduce a man.   This was an earlier version of  Ginseng Powershots,  mixed with water, honey, the roots were soft to suck and chew on. 

PANX GINSENG

When it comes to men, however dubious the concoction, they are so ready to try even if the hairy roots strangle and obstruct the throat, all for the possibility of  going for as long as possible. Does it work?  Was it in the mind?  Lets say some men use Panax Ginseng on the skin as part of extrasensory sensation, he was as good as long as the Ginseng Panax stock was in supply; when it ran out, it was time for me to move on.

HORNY GOAT WEED
OR
EPIMEDIUM GRANDFLORUM

My travels have allowed me to peak at how others do it – who’s kidding who? -  as if we do things differently.  Common sense says the highest population in the world would have the answers to libido enhancers, so it is only natural to travel to China to explore this well known  Epimedium Granflorum  or more easy on the tongue “The Sexy Goat Weed.”  

FROM PHARMACY STORES

Epimedium grows all over and is picked wild. Only the leaves are plucked, never the roots. No chemicals are used on wild plants so it is clean and pure.

The Horny Goat Weed has estimated sales of over 100 tons per year declares itself as the reigning king of herbal sex enhancers.  Asking any Chinese expert will tell you it is very good for sex and that it will make you sexually strong..  

Should I or shouldn't I?   In a health food stores it comes in capsules, 500 mg of Horny Goat Weed per capsule with flavornoid icariin should be easy to swallow.   It has been around for more than 2000 years.  The reason?   Well let’s not be shy; all I can say is that it works.

Deer Penis in a Chinese pharmacy

Although no scientific proof supports their claims of libido enhancer, once consumed,  the deer penis and the tiger penis makes for cockfire sure treatment. With their similarity of an erect penis, antlers have long been sought as sexual stimulants in East Asia.  It was a popular tonic for Chinese emperors, with so many wives and concubines, they needed a helping hand.  The concoction is thinly sliced deer penis, soaking in strong alcohol for approximately two weeks.  Daily dose of  20 mil would be enough to boost testosterone and improve ……function.

Amazing how easy it is to persuade men.

Kangaroo balls have made it to the Chinese medicine cabinet.  Its commodities help to enhance sexual power on the theory that Kangaroos have a voracious sexual appetite, apparently it produces up to twice as much semen as a bull.  Ingesting these powdered balls brings about sexual energy.  Placebo?   Its cheap, kangaroos are not an endangered species, and the more disagreeable it is to swallow the more it should work?   My Chinese buddy Xing-Pao is hopping sure about it.

But lets turn our compass to the another of the world, perhaps
they have more enticing ways.

Johimbe  is found in Africa. Intrigued by its African sounding name, and anything African stimulates my imagination - never too late to try something new.  Let us say the long weekend of breakfast in bed, lunch in bed and dinner in bed was like Groundhog day for three days in  row.

Johimbe traditionally used for fever, coughs, leprosy, it apparently is a natural product to engage the blood flow for amorous swellings.  Yohimbe extract dilates blood vessels in your mojo for a harder, firmer and stronger love muscle.  Found in health food stores, it was quickly replaced by Viagra.     

Lord knows, we have known about Spanish Fly since I was a kid – and that was a long time ago. 

A dangerous substance Spanish fly produces irritation of the genitals and a resulting blood flow to the arear mimicking engorgement.  Cantaradin is extremely toxic when ingested so do be careful.   

There is rhyme and reason for looking at highly populated areas on the globe to find out who has the best sexual stimulants.  Look no further than the second highest population of the world  …….  India.

For India, there are many libido enhancers, from tiger’s urine to Lady's fingers or Okra.  It is a recommended food item that rejuvenates and turns on sexual desires. The spices and chillies in their curry spurs on the desire.  

They practice tantric sex for a reason. The point is to channel all the sexual energy that would normally leave during an orgasm, back into your body, it gives you so much energy. The Indians believe that tantra sexual experiences are sacred acts capable of elevating the participants to a higher spiritual plane activating the chakras.  Prolonging the act of love and utilizing powerful orgasmic energies back into the body.  

There is much need for ancient aphrosidiac from Spanish Fly to Viagra to achieve this level.   You only live once - just go for it.   

ADAM & EVE and APPLES

 

The Apple fruit has long been an ancient symbol of sexual gratification.   Apple as the forbidden fruit in biblical times has been known for temptation, sin, seduction and also in garnering knowledge.  Persuasion of the carnal kind, women tempt their men in dubious ways and capitulation gives way to endless ecstasy. And believe it or not it started with an apple.

As I bite into the rosy apple, the luscious juices flowing down my chin – the fresh scent of apple blossom catching my breath, all those sensory perception of life, death and dirty thoughts coming crashing into that very first crunch. 

“An apple a day keeps the doctor away” always associated with good clean living while Snow White’s poisoned apple linked with evil thoughts, murder and death.   In between life and death there is Adam’s discovering knowledge by Eve tempting him with the forbidden fruit bringing about sensual and erotic persuasions. The Apple is  many things to many people. 

Supposedly a fruit that gives pleasure, another kind of Apple truly sends me happily to a corner for hours on end.  The Apple Mac is attached to me in more ways than one.   It sends me to sleep with those hypnotic YouTube movies. It wakes me up with my Itunes music. It entertains me with movies and it is the tool that makes my living.   You might say all of these things can be done by any other brand.  And you would be right. It's just a smoother ride, and subconsciously it's the bite that's tempting.   

One of Steve Job’s fruitarian diet was an Apple.  Returning from an Apple farm he made the decision to call his company Apple because the name sounded ‘fun, spirited and not intimidating.” Although never suggested anywhere, there is the  subliminal message of  association with the Tree of Knowledge.   Job’s unintended biblical meaning perhaps underlies his religious skepticism. 

To appreciate apples in a way different to the weekly shop at the groceries, God’s condemned fruit is abundant in many parts of the world.  One area of the globe, majestically hidden in the foothills of the Himalaya range is Himal Pradesh where the variety wows you with sheer disbelief that nature has managed to propagate a whole spectrum of a species in Latin called MALUS.

Throughout history, apples have symbolized pleasure, love, and fertility. Of course, all of this does not prove that the sin of Adam and Eve had anything to do with sex. But it is a strong indication that many interpreters throughout history did believe their sin was a sexual transgression.

The apple has multiple symbolic meanings, many of which are sexual. Erotic associations likened apples to female breasts, while the core of an apple cut in half has often been compared to a woman's vagina. In ancient mythology, Dionysus, the god of intoxication, created the apple and presented it to Aphrodite, the goddess of love.

In the Middle Ages, the forbidden fruit was often identified as a fig, not an apple.  It was later replaced by an apple and became a symbol of the forbidden fruit, it's Latin name meaning “apple” and “evil.”

Many interpreters throughout Judeo-Christian history have understood the sin of Adam and Eve to have something to do with a sexual transgression of one sort or another, it shouldn't be surprising that the apple was the fruit of choice to depict the sin of Eden.   It has also been  used as a symbol of fertility.

Apples play an important part in several Greek myths. Hera, queen of the gods, owned some precious apple trees that she had received as a wedding present from Gaia, the earth mother. Tended by the Hesperides, the Daughters of Evening, and guarded by a fierce dragon, these trees grew in a garden somewhere far in the west. Their apples were golden, tasted like honey, and had magical powers. They could heal, they renewed themselves as they were eaten, and if thrown, they always hit their target and then returned to the thrower's hand.

In Athens, newlyweds divided an apple, then ate it prior to entering the bridal chamber.  Sending or tossing apples was also a part of courtship. According to folklore, the apple is one of many foods believed to possess aphrodisiac powers. In ancient Greece, if a man wanted to propose, he would simply toss the lady of his affection an apple. If she caught it, he knew she had accepted his offer.

Even in Islamic folklore, it is told that the prophet Mohammed inhaled the fragrance of an apple brought to him by an angel just before his last breath of life.

In Germany, during medieval times, a man who ate an apple that was steeped in the perspiration of the woman he loved was very likely to succeed in the relationship.

In Medieval England, an autumnal celebration centered around the fermented fruit of the apple tree and the almost Bacchanalian merriment that would ensue. (The supposed purpose was to ensure a bountiful harvest, or so the story goes.)

Apples contain phenylethylamine (PEA), which gives you a natural feeling of well-being and excitement.  High in anti-oxidants their free radical-fighting power boosts natural anti-aging abilities while helping to fight cancer.  Although apples deliver a jolt of sweetness, their high pectin content keeps a sugar rush at bay, preventing the hyper high.

So with historical facts and myths, we come to savoring the definitive species  that has taken me all the way into foothills of the Himalaya range.  During the British Raj, the summers were spent up in Shimla, the weather akin to summer time in Britain rather than the sweltering wretched humidity found in Poon, or Bombay.  Samuel Evan Stokes introduced the apple crop in the hills around Shimla while working with the Leprosy Mission of India.

Stokes brought in Red Delicious and saplings of Golden Delicious to his orchard in Thanedar . By 1926 the whole of India couldn’t get enough of it, they were an instant.  The popularity of these divine fruit  spurred locals into planting Apples, rather than their usual crops of potato and plums. Soon orchards cropped up all over the valley of Himachal Pradesh, to meet this demand. Thanedar is 80 kms from Shimla on the old Hindustan-Tibet road, rising to an altitude of about 7700ft, the majestic views unfolds magnificent panorama of mountains.  One step closer to God.

Having gorged myself on all different strains of Malus, and unable to decide between the Golden Delicious or the Ambrosia or the Pippin or even the Braeburn; suddenly none of them swayed me anymore once an offering taste of preserved jellies, jams and chutney of the various breeds.  Now I was in heaven and utterly understood why Rudyard Kipling called this place Kotgarh “the Mistress of the Northern Hills.” 

Lack of restraint, lack of will power, lack of faith in God, always denouncing authority, I would have been easily seduced by the serpent, if this was the Garden of Eden and that had been my Adam.    It would be a toss up between the effects of a Male Homosapien or a Malus Hornet. 

THE PEACOCK THRONE ONCE A UPON A TIME

From the Flames of Persia to the Devil’s Feast

The celebration of uninterrupted monarchial rule for 2,500 years enviable to  all the world’s monarchial institutions was commemorated in the famed ruins of Persepolis.   The site chosen as the authentic site of the founding of the Persian empire by Cyrus the Great, it is also the ultimate symbol of Iran’s monarchy and civilization.   

I was honored to be privy to such a historical phenomenon never to be repeated, encompassing the “center of gravity of the world” at that time.  This event has remained etched firmly in memory despite the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini, the fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty, Jimmy Carter’s indecisiveness, of his aggressive national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinsk, and my failing Farsi skills, the recall of such an event needs to be told from a perspective of how those three filled days of partying, ceremonies, Son et Lumière shows, fountains of Beluga’s finest, to Moet’s Premiere Cru.

Fifty 'tents' (actually prefabricated luxury apartments with traditional Persian tent-cloth surrounds) were arranged in a star pattern around a central fountain, and vast numbers of trees were planted around them in the desert, recreating something of how the ancient Persepolis would have looked.  

International invitees included the rich and famous of the time, a dozen kings and queens, ten princes and princesses, presidents and first ladies, sheiks, sultans, emperors, vice presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers, ambassadors.   I was merely the teenage daughter of an ambassador, stuffed in between greatness and palace etiquette: to be seen but not heard. My father had an important role in 1969, as he was instrumental in achieving the successful State Visit of  King Bhumipol Adulyadej and Queen Sirikit of Thailand to Iran.

To celebrate this momentous event, The Shah of Iran was to make a ritualistic speech in front of all invited guests at Cyrus’s tomb. The parade of Persian history in front of all Kings, Queens and Head of States in front of Cyrus's Tomb was spectacular.  Persepolis an ancient site, is 60 kms north of the beautiful town of Shiraz.  Known for its exquisite roses, Shiraz became the cultural capital of Iran.

The Royal guests had direct telephone and telex connections back to their respective country and the whole celebration was televised to the world by way of a satellite connection from the site. The large Tent of Honor was designed for the reception of the dignitaries. The Banqueting Hall, the largest structure was kept cool by several

air-conditioning units combating 40c heat during the day; then turned warm for the stark cold nights.

  

Maxim’s of Paris flew in cargo plane loads, feeding 600 guests for 5 hours on the first evening.   The menu was lavish, paired with extravagant wine and Champagne from Château de Saran 

Like liquid gold with every sip, the Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1945 was also served to all the 600 guests. Thousands of empty bottles were then buried in prepared dug up sites, so there can be no evidence of alcohol  consumption under Islamic rule.

Quails eggs stuffed with golden Imperial Caspian caviar followed by mousse of crayfish tails with Nantua sauce.   A choice of roast saddle of lamb with truffles but the piece de resistance was definitely the roasted peacock, Iran’s ancient national symbol.  Cleaning the palate with glazed port fresh figs with cream and raspberry champagne sorbet was refreshing as if this was last nights meal.  Unfortunately it also proved to be the beginning of an anti-Shah revolution as Khomeni describes this as the “Devils’s Feast”.  I was lucky enough to taste these delectable morsels behind  the kitchen with my handsome minder, Mumtaz.  His sole job was to keep me safe out of harm's way.

Every night the female guests received a souvenir at the dinner table, every male counter part also had their names and titles engraved on souvenirs, etched discreetly with the Peacock crest, symbol of the Pahlavi dynasty. 

Time Magazine put the event costing 100 Billion dollars,  the French press actually doubled that number.  The lavishness was  in fact astonishing to witness.  Alexandre and Carita, the two top French salons came with throngs of personnel to adequately coif Princess Anne and Princess Grace’s locks among other royalties for the festivities.

Once upon a time, my fairy story to be amongst  Kings, Princes, Heads of States left right and centre came true, but nothing compares to being lifted by the Imperial Helicopter for a brief sensational 20 minuet ride on return to Shiraz.   To Cyrus the Great, to the Pahlavi's, and especially to the Iranian people, who suffered incalculable deprivation  by such extravagant show of power, I take with me such incredible memories never to be repeated.  

To the Shah and the Shahbanu, this was no party of the year but was the celebration of 25 centuries. At the peak of his sovereignty, it was a show of power, of style, and the penultimate extravagance against the suffering of his people to the world.  To those that were privy either serving behind the scenes, or invitees, it was an event that is so unique, deserves once upon a time, a spot on a blog.