Absurdly high skill levels

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

Why not? Erotic Art has a default (DX-5), which is what you get from watching films, reading books or just imagining everyday without spending the hundreds of hours of study.

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.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by pawsplay

Well, I'm just not getting it. It's "erotic," it helps to be flexible, but according to you, it is not per se an improvement on sex technique.

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.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Molokh

Though what stands for 'basic' knowledge, then?

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.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

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.

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.

[Not another shrubbery]

And the thread suddenly veers to the left *eek*
heh

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

It represents special sexual techniques, and is obviously cultural and setting specific. It's a skill that Mysteries of the Trade could be based on for Tantric Magic. It's a skill that the temple harlot of Ishtar might practice when she tames Edikudu out of the wilderness. It's not the skill of following the advice in Cosmo, or doing "that 'move' that Joe at work told you about".

I think this covers it... props for the Gilgamesh reference *thumbup*

[pawsplay]

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.

[Kromm]

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.

[pawsplay]

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.

[Kromm]

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

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by pawsplay

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.

Originally Posted by Kromm

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

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?