Re: Absurdly high skill levels
 

Maybe, but IMO, Erotic Art is "Opening the Eightfold Lotus of Infinite Pleasure" not "I'm aware of the concept of foreplay" or "I know where the clitoris is". The difference is greater than a mere default would indicate.

Re: Absurdly high skill levels
 

Where on earth did I say that?! I said it wasn't the "have sex" skill -- that is, it isn't some skill you need merely to engage in sex. It certainly is an improvement on sexual technique but, not to put too fine a point on it, much sexual technique has little to do with basic sex acts people can figure out on their own.

Having the Flexibility advantage helps here for reasons that anybody who has ever looked at the Kama Sutra or watched more, er, "artistic" porn should find self-evident. Unless you seriously believe that hanging from a swing to have sex, or folding feet behind head, make no demands on human flexibility. Beyond that, I'm not getting into details. This is a G-rated forum.

Re: Absurdly high skill levels
 

Nothing. The same way there's no Breathing skill, Eating skill, or Whizzing skill in GURPS. There's no need for a Shagging skill . . . it's among the most basic of operations, and everybody can do it. Erotic Art is to shagging as Breath Control is to breathing, Fire Eating is to eating, etc. It's a specialized and/or showy retasking of a basic bodily function.

Re: Absurdly high skill levels
 

Absolutely. And note that a default simply means that you can try some crazy stuff you saw in a movie or a book . . . not that you're any good at it. There's no implication that it's somehow tied to the basic sex acts that everybody with a functioning brain can figure out. The whole point is that Erotic Art covers the stuff that you'd never figure out by accident.

Re: Absurdly high skill levels
 

And the thread suddenly veers to the left *eek*
heh
I think this covers it... props for the Gilgamesh reference *thumbup*

Re: Absurdly high skill levels
 

It's a skill that Mysteries of the Trade could be based on for Tantric Magic.

I guess. I would totally consider Tantra to be a Meditation Technique, however. And being double-jointed does not help in any significant way of which I am aware. Consider that most practitioners of sexual Tantric practices are middle-aged monks and nuns.

I was under the impression Erotic Art was mainly a skill for specialized prostitutes, but if the official word is that it's for bedroom trapeze acts, then I'll withdraw my suggestion that it goes with Sex Appeal.

And now for something completely different.

Re: Absurdly high skill levels
 

Erotic Art has nothing to do with Sex Appeal. It's specifically the skill of using any number of your body parts on any number of body parts of one or more other people to produce sexual pleasure. Sex Appeal is the skill of maximizing your physical attractiveness to distract in order to get your own way. They differ about as much as Karate and Intimidation, and in many of the same ways.

As for more cerebral sexual arts . . . nothing says that there isn't a Philosophy (Tantra) skill with applications.

Re: Absurdly high skill levels
 

It's specifically the skill of using any number of your body parts on any number of body parts of one or more other people to produce sexual pleasure.

Are you sure you're not talking in circles here? Because that does sound like the skill of having sex.

Re: Absurdly high skill levels
 

I think it's clear that I used "have sex" to mean least-common-denominator sex, like "walk" means walk instead of watusi.

Re: Absurdly high skill levels
 

I don't get it. If Erotic Art is what Karate is to DX-punching, then what is the erotic equivalent of Brawling, the middle ground between Karate and DX?