“What is sensuality? It is the moving of those different bodies towards each other, in the pursuit
of pleasure. Sensuality is desire, but desire beyond the crude and instantaneous event of what we
might describe as drive, stimulation, reflex response. Sensuality is indefinite, lingering, persistent
desire. It is anguish and delight, want and anticipation, attraction and seduction, rapture and
strategy. Sensuality is to feel your erotic emotion and to play with it: to desire and to make
yourself desirable. Sensuality is to transform the urges of the body into language—be it poetry,
letters, rituals, garments, presents or gestures.”
—Giulia Sissa, Sex and Sensuality in the Ancient World
Since another’s feelings are always involved, desire is intrinsically undercut by uncertainty. To
achieve reciprocity in sensuality, it is necessary to overcome that uncertainty with clear, honest,
respectful communication. But desiring is never enough. We strive, as Giulia Sissia reminds us
above, to be desired as well. Only intimacy provides the trust and inspiration to be more
comprehensive, more attentive, and more experimental in sensuality. Therefore, one path that
opens the body to pleasure is language. Whether it’s a letter, a note, an email, a text, or a muffled
moan, talking dirty is tantalizing.
Sensuality is an art. Every part of the body becomes capable of providing pleasure, since
every part of the body has its own erogenous possibilities. Such stimulation can be offered by
touch, massage, pressure points, breath, fingernails, elbows, eyelashes, tongue, and teeth. All the
senses are involved as well as the intellect and memory. In fact, as the Kama Sutra recommends,
a lover must be a cultivated person who understands such diverse subjects as poetry, painting,
music, dancing, perfume, magic, architecture, make up, jewelry, clothing, cooking, gymnastics,
and all the other sixty-four arts. Therefore, sensuality deepens and transforms the body’s
perceptions the more we refine and develop our appreciation for erotology.
The photographs selected here represent the play of sensual longing. They explore
different types of sensual excitement and inspiration. The models are wearing masks and
blindfolds which emphasize the mystery, ambiguity, inscrutability, and the remoteness latent in
the desired object. The images are provocative. Through a sultry, ecstatic sensuality, they attempt
to create the context between the desired and desirer that might arouse an erotic trance.
Similarly, I have explored the play of sensual longing in many of my poems. For
example, the following poem entitled “Surrender” evokes a situation that highlights explicit
sensuality:
Surrender wherever you hide
your perfume’s secret kisses.
Surrender the smoothness
of your willing flesh
like a mirror aching for light.
Surrender until your aroused body
welcomes someone else’s whims
with the helplessness
of a rainbow’s fever.
Surrender to whatever gathers you closer
slides inside, and thrusts deeper
until the flashing pink uproar
of your tingling flesh moans,
whispers, and begs for more.
Surrender to that seductive
thwack and sting
that only serves
to sharpen the senses.
Whenever your bewildered
nakedness resists, surrender.
Wherever your slapped skin
feels startled and recoils, surrender.
Surrender until your fear
vanishes through the rug burns
on your knees.
Surrender to the unanticipated
pleasures beyond the boundaries
of your smile.
There exists a surprise, some unanticipated pleasure, revealed as a consequence of desire.
Sometimes it is kinky or shocking or celebratory, other times quite mundane. The drumbeat of
repetition in the poem generated by the word surrender attempts to lull the reader into a state of
extreme voluptuousness. Likewise, the imagery triggers a deliriously passionate mood.
Another of my poems that foregrounds ecstatic sensuality is entitled “Delila:”
When her flesh demands
more than tenderness,
Delila’s eyes remain
patient as the dawn.
With her wrists
tied to her heels
and rope looped
around her tucked knees
tighter than a secret,
her skin tingles
like goosebumps
after sunburn.
Submissive as silk,
Delila’s body stings
from the knots’ tiny kisses
and yearns for the touch
that will excite her flesh
beyond arousal.
Both of these are ekphrastic poems, or poems written in response to some kind of
artwork, in this case two paintings I first viewed at the Seattle Erotic Art Festival a few years
back, and the titles of my poems are derived from those of the original paintings.
Like the photographs in this selection, both “Surrender” and “Delia” evoke an intense
erotic mood of heightened sensuality. In both the poems and the photographs, similar images
appear. Sensuality with all its variations complications and uncertainties can be observed in the
voluptuous eroticism of the different models, in their poses, their gestures, what they are wearing
or not wearing, or what they have donned as ornaments or other titillating accoutrements. Above
all, their sensuality is enticing, alluring, and, I hope, inviting.
Bio:
Bill Wolak is a poet, collage artist, and photographer who has published his eighteenth book of
poetry entitled All the Wind’s Unfinished Kisses with Ekstasis Editions. His collages and
photographs have appeared recently in the 2024 Dirty Show in Detroit, the 2024 Rochester
Erotic Arts Festival, the 2020 International Festival of Erotic Arts (Chile), the 2020 Seattle
Erotic Art Festival, the 2018 Montreal Erotic Art Festival, and Naked in New Hope 2018. He
was a featured artist in the book Best of Erotic Art (London, 2022).
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