When mighty Aphrodite rose from the waters of Cyprus to bring a little love to the world, she had little idea just how inexperienced her subjects were going to be. You see, we all search for variety in this life, but as far as our love lives are concerned, many of us are still unsure about which spice to add to make the love nest that bit more interesting. The following takes a look at aphrodisiacs, and while it's true that real aphrodisiacs are ingested, a more liberal, sensuous approach has been adopted for the purpose of this entry. People love to love. We all do. But we've all got different ways of doing it...

Taste

There's nothing quite like fruit to get you and your partner in the mood for a bit of rumpy-pumpy. And if the fruit is sticky and juicy you can sensually lick the fingers of your lover clean afterwards. Nectarines are quite good for this. Apparently.

Apples in May

To keep the apple of your eye sweet, one Researcher has suggested apples in May. Here's why:

• They are exotic because they are out of season.
• May alone is an aphrodisiac.
• Very crunchy, but sweet and sticky.
• Related to cinnamon, yum.
• Involves gnashing of teeth.
• Keeps you regular

Chocolate

There are a couple of reasons why chocolate is considered 'sexy':

1. Eating it releases endorphins, the 'feel good' chemicals into the brain.
2. It's one of the few foodstuffs that will melt at body temperature.

Try eating chocolate or chocolate ice-cream off of your partner's body. It's an old trick, but it's very good fun...

Good Aphrodisiac Dining

If your date turns up early, let them join you in the kitchen and make the tasting and preparation time a time of flirting and getting close. Ignore the old rules of the chef needing space in the kitchen. Get close. If they're there early, that means they want to spend time with you. Try and not spill any food on them, though.

A candlelit¹ meal is a necessity. For music, a good classical CD playing in the background is good mood music. Serve a good wine with the food, with port and cheese afterwards. The conversation and flirting is bound to flow with the wine and the food into whatever follows. Ahem...

And feeding your partner kiwi fruit and strawberries makes them... taste sweeter. So we've been told.

Ice Cubes, Flowers or Feathers?

An ice cube can have very stimulating effects on your partner's body and despite a few desultory claims to the contrary, ice cubes are far from cruel, especially on a hot night. Move your ice cube slowly over your lover's body and then gently lick up the melted water. Also, keep the ice cube in your mouth - this has the added effect of keeping you close to your lover as they feel the sensation of both you and the cold at precisely the same time.

Flowers or feathers being tickled over the naked torso of your choice are also well worth considering.

Honey Dust

An interesting conversation on the subject of Honey Dust...

Person One: This stuff is absolutely wonderful. I dust my honey up and lick him all over. Lots of fun.

Person Two: Sounds wonderful! Tell me, where can I purchase this Honey Dust? Please? I used to use chocolate sauce, but I am still on my diet. Has Honey Dust got any calories? Oh, well, I suppose I could always burn them off straight away afterwards...

Steak

An exceptionally good rare steak will really get the juices flowing. Of course, your partner must be a carnivore (slapping a bloody piece of animal flesh on the table in front of a vegan isn't recommended). A mediocre steak won't do - it's got to be one of those expensive, 'can cut it with a butter knife', flavourful cuts of meat, preferably grilled, with the edges just a little bit charred. For beef lovers, it has an amazing effect! Make the portions small enough so that you still want more... too much will make you torpid.

Other Random Randy Foods

• Red wine

• Oysters

• Vanilla custard

• Herbs - such as basil and thyme.

• Mediterranean food - peeled ripe red peppers especially so.

• Whipped cream from an aerosol can.

• Amaretto with milk.

• Chillies and hot curries release bucketloads of endorphins.

• Asparagus - not only for the taste but for the very shape of it, best cooked by steaming to keep it crisp and crunchy.

• Garlic - great for virility. Make man strong like bull.

• Strawberry wine gums - a favourite flavoured-condom flavour.

• Durian fruit - Madhur Jaffrey says that the Durian fruit is an aphrodisiac. Apparently in East Asia, where this pungent fruit grows, it is said that 'When the Durian comes in, the saris go up...'

• Honey - one of the most powerful aphrodisiacs, but should be used sparingly on those with hairy chest as, even after a lot of licking, some still stays behind. Ouch.

Touch

As people we just love being touched. And we love singing about touch. Just think about how many times the word 'touch' appears in classic song titles; 'Touch Me In The Morning' by Diana Ross, 'Sometimes When We Touch' by Dan Hill, and who can possibly forget 'Touch Me I'm Sick' by Mudhoney?

We love touching each other. Massaging scented oils on your lover's feet is a winner all the way. And there's something about running your fingers through the hair of a loved one that makes you feel all soft inside. Assuming your loved one has brought their hair along with them.

Light the joss sticks, establish a good temperature in the room, and get touching. And if there's somebody with you, so much the better. But hey, we can talk about Male Masturbation any old time. According to one Researcher 'it's the small things you do that define the kind of relationship you have with your partner'. Read the following:

I always believe that my girlfriend looks at her very best first thing on a Sunday morning, no make up, tousled hair falling about her face.

With this in mind I think that one of the sexiest and [most] sensuous things you can do is this. Wake up before they do, lean over, kiss them and say 'Darling I love you'. Then get out of bed and make them a cup of tea.

Alternatively, you can do something called a Dutch Oven. This is where one partner lets go a huge fart, pulls the duvet cover or bed sheets over the head of their loved one, trapping them in a confusion of methane, while shouting triumphantly, 'Dutch oven! Dutch oven!' The person trapped will wriggle like an eel, the trapper will then nearly die laughing and it will all end up in a really boisterous play fight.

Some More Touchy Thoughts

Gentle stroking or scratching the inside of the arm or back of the neck, or sliding fingers up and down the back or gently stroking around the shape of the ear. Mmmmmmm.

For the un-initiated, lick and suck and nibble your partners ears. At first it is very ticklish, but persevere. You won't be disappointed

I guess it's quite obvious my biggest aphrodisiac is confidence! Personal confidence, he has to have confidence. My whole life I'll always remember this one guy, named Fred (not a sexy name, I know), he was skinny, smart, and definitely not all that good looking. But, oh my, was he suave! And he listened to me very carefully - he kept me on my toes. Ten years later, I still think about him on hot, rainy nights. Well, on a lot of nights!

A big cosy bed with loads of pillows and teddies, satin-bed linen, blankets and all sort of soft stuff.

Go for the whole body. Just be gentle follow the contours of the muscles and go out from the spine on the back. Guaranteed to help you both relax.

Gently breathing all over your lover's body is another great way to get the mood going the right way.

A kiss at the small of the back.

Gently nibbling and licking from the toes working your way up, paying special attention to the back of the knees and slowly working further up with careful attention to the haunches and the collar bone and then the back of the neck...

For relaxation, an especially good technique is to draw your fingers lightly across your lover's eyebrows. I don't know why, but it works, right down to your toes!

Smell

Money is a powerful aphrodisiac. But flowers work almost as well
- Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

He capers, he dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes
verses, he speaks holiday, he smells April and May
- Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor

Sometimes it's all in the scent. The way we smell, and the way we react to smell. It's the pheromones of masculinity, the scent of a woman. Or it could well be the whiff of an onion, and the noxious stink of Eau de Bull's Semen for Real Mountain Men. Smell is important and the best advice is to wash regularly. You don't want it being said about you that you keep a pig in the house as an air freshener, or that if people want to hide anything from you they just hide it underneath soap, do you? But don't go overboard. Excessive anti-sceptic behaviour is... well, anti-sceptic behaviour. If you like garlic, eat garlic. To hell with the prissy-wissies and their turned up noses, their peppermints and body sprays. Eat lots of fruit and vegetables to keep your insides nice and fresh, and you'll smell like a baby. As one of our Researchers put it:

A clean, but sweaty, male body smells delicious

Hearing

If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O! it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour! Enough! no more:
'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
- Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

Sounds can stir the soul, can quicken the heart beat. Have you ever sat down in a darkening room, day turning slowly into evening, the fire crackling away to itself, and listened to Richard Burton reading most sonorously, magically, the poems of Dylan Thomas, Samuel Coleridge and Gerard Manley Hopkins? If you have, then you'll know of the wonder that can be conjured up out of the ether, that speaks strange mystery into our ears. If not, it is recommended that you buy a recording of this magnificent man's poetry readings. It really is the stuff of magic.

And the poetry of John Donne's done it for some...

License my roving hands, and let them go
Before, behind, between, above, below.
O my America! my new-found-land,
My kingdom, safeliest when with one man manned,
My mine of precious stones, my empery,
How blest am I in this discovering thee!

For natural sounds, crickets chirping and the sound of rain pouring outside are very seductive. And the smell of an oncoming storm is fabulous. And there was even once a physics teacher who claimed that whispering physics equations to women made them putty in his hands. However, it is rumoured that he hadn't had sex for a thousand years.

Music

For many it's the sound of music that makes us lose it, use it and abuse it. Be it reggae or classical, funk or folk there's something for everyone that lets them swing their pants just the way they like to. No one's without a piece of music that doesn't conjure up a love connection. Tune in to the following musical revelations:

I don't know about anyone else but some of my faves are of the old fashioned variety, 'Can't Help Falling in Love' by Elvis, 'Blue Velvet' by Bobby Vinton, 'Blue Moon'. A more modern tune would be Moments in Love by The Art of Noise. And for that I just want to be held and told that I'm loved, Stars by Dubstar (especially the acoustic version).

Now I'm sure that out there there will be others with different tastes to me and that some club anthem might just work for them, or perhaps a tune like 'Venus In Furs' by The Velvet Underground.

Background jazz... Starbucks sells CDs of their background music. Perfect.

I just bought two compilations of love songs by famous artists: Miles Davis - more for wine and candlelight, and Louis Armstrong - more for a great dinner and a little dancing after.

What worked last time I had a girlfriend (sigh, so long ago) was lighting up some candles, some incense, and putting Ravel's 'Bolero' on the stereo. Oh my god, I'll never forget that night. We started looking deep into each others eyes and then...

...the 'Carmina Birana' many years ago. It's even more fun if you understand what it's all about! Oh, and use the CD version - I used the vinyl version and turning the LP halfway through is a sod.

What you need is two bottles of wine and 'What's Going On', and 'Let's Get It On' by the incomparable Marvin Gaye.

For me it has to be Alice Cooper. There's a couple of tracks of his which have quite an amazing effect on me.

One that really kills the mood for me is pretty much anything by Simply Red.

Sight

What turns me on (alright it's a cliché but it's true) is definitely the eyes, these mirrors of the soul. A pair of eyes that laughs to me and sparkles with joy, happiness and a twist of passion, I can always spot such eyes in a room of a hundred people. It's quite magical because I don't notice anyone else when this happens, and her appearance is turned to godliness because of those eyes. Furthermore my romances have to be a friend or at least a potential friend, with whom I can have an intelligent conversation... someone I can trust with eyes like supernovas - then I'm more than satisfied.

Films

For some people, certain films get their pistons pumping and their engines whirring. And not necessarily the kind of films you might naturally expect. Indeed, while Debbie's busy doing Dallas for some, for others it's Bram Stoker that does the trick.

One film that really does it for me is 'Bram Stoker's Dracula'. Best watched by candlelight too. Strangely I used to know someone who got really turned on if I'd been eating garlic, but that's just scary. Other films that do it also include 'Interview With a Vampire', 'Wilde' and 'Being John Malkovich'.

It's got to be 'Casablanca' (predictable I know) in front of a roaring fire when it's pouring rain outside on a Sunday afternoon. A nice glass of red wine. Someone arranged it all as a surprise for me once when I was going through tough exams. I was putty in his hands..

Methodology

Seven Basic Requirements of Just One Particular Female

When are men going to realise that you don't get a girl randy by feeding her oysters or changing the bed first?

My basic requirements are:

1. At least two hours' conversation - about anything, you know what's going on below your belt... you just don't mention it. Preferably with someone for the first time, so you're a bit more hesitant about touching each other - that way you take longer to start. A drink with it might help.

2. Very cave man/just feeling being protected. I'm more likely to be putty for someone who puts his arms round my shoulders or his hands on my waist than one who shoves his mitts down my bra or knickers as a first move. That just puts me on the offensive and turns me off. This protection act must also be coupled with the respective actions and words (paying for dinner, opening the car door).

3. Warm feet.

4. Empty bowels.

5. A man who laughs. With abandon - or who shows any other signs of being uninhibited - like doesn't spend ages fiddling in his wallet for the right money, just bungs a handful on the table.

6. A decisive man.

7. Definitely not a pornographic film. What really leaves me weak at the knees is either Mel Gibson or Bruce Willis rollicking around half naked getting wet or muddy or both and just oozing maleness. Or better still, Bogey and Bacall looking at each other. What that triggers off in the imagination is better than any film - and I can substitute the protagonists to suit.

So forget oysters, asparagus or steak or pharmaceuticals - just go back to animal basics. Until it's time to wash up.

Do Sweat the Small Stuff

But it's the little things too, like offering you his coat because you're cold, even though you already have a coat on, and it means he'll be walking around just in a t-shirt. It's the little sweet considerate things that cause us females to have a more open mind to advances.

She's Not There

Many people are speaking about foods and oils and massages and films etc etc etc... but an unseen aphrodisiac is that of absence. If you and your partner are separated for a time long enough for you to miss each other, then when you next meet you will need no aphrodisiac whatsoever. It is not a preferred technique but it still works.

Black Country Love

Nothing gets my back leg going more than a couple pints of Banks' mild and listening to the sound of Noddy Holder singing his socks off with Slade.

After a bit of a dance around the living room, I like to sit down to a big pork and stuffing sandwich with the crackling left in. And then, the pièce de resistance, I close the curtains, take off my clothes (except my sandals), turn off the lights and put on the soundtrack to The Wicker Man.

This is more than an aphrodisiac - this is an ancient fertility rite.

'Let the baby grow...'

The Ultimate Male Aphrodisiac

In my available years, I discovered the ultimate male aphrodisiac. I would step close, as if wanting the goodbye kiss, and look him seductively in the eye. If he began to kiss me, I would look afraid, and stop him with my finger to his lips. In a soft voice I would whisper something like, 'Please don't kiss me. I can't handle it! I've thought about nothing but touching you all night long, and if you kiss me, I'll be lost!' And then softly caress his lips, and step inside. Usually, they would call me back before an hour was up from the pay phone down the street. If you do decide to go back out, make them take you somewhere like church, totally innocent, and proceed to give them alternating sexy and guilty looks. You would think men could see through this sort of thing. Fortunately, men have seen just as many sappy movies as you, and they dream of some woman lusting for them the same way we want them to do us. They just don't acknowledge it.

The Magic of Love

Hats off to the... er, genius of the following Researcher:

Women are a lot more complex than men. It's no use wading in by whacking on your favourite episode of TJ Hooker and expecting Heather Locklear to weave her feisty magic over your new woman. No, you must be more clever than that. Invite her back to your pad where you've already made some minor adjustments to your usually grubby porn haven.

Once in, sit her down and retire to the bathroom to 'slip into something more comfortable'. This is where you have to be clever. Before you left that evening you had already put in CD of Jean Michel Jarre in the player in the living room. From the bathroom you now press play (via remote control) whilst simultaneously killing the lights.

Now pump up that volume.

With a hand torch shining on your own face you leap from the bathroom and begin to move in time with the music. You're dressed like David Copperfield the magician, and, she now knows that the hissing sound coming from the bathroom earlier was you lacquering your hair. Place your index finger over your lips and indicate for her to say nothing - 'Sshhh' - in a sexy manner.

Note: This will fail if your Dad comes in and switches on the lights.

Hoping that doesn't happen, you then perform a pre-rehearsed magic routine involving cards, rabbits, and minor hand-dexterity illusions. Under no circumstances should you wrap her watch in a hanky and smash it to pieces. This creates confusion and could panic her unduly. Especially when you cock it up and actually smash her watch to pieces.

Once the magic act is over you end in a stance like John Travolta from 'Saturday Night Fever', stay still like a statue, no matter what she is saying or doing, then throw on all the lights, pause for breath and applause, and then, and only then can you suggest the TJ Hooker idea. She'll be putty in your hands.

And another part of the act to bear in mind involves that thing where you rip something up and blow on it, and then open your palm and it's gone. Do this with photographs of your old girlfriends. This achieves two things:

1. It impresses her beyond comprehension.
2. It sends a metaphorical message to her that these women now mean nothing to you.

Use the War of the Worlds music for this one. While doing this, it may be useful to cite the words, 'you want me don't you?' in a kind of monotone mantra.