Bubble Dance & Bartitsu Sticks

The image shows Bartitsu martial art techniques. Bartitsu - invented by British engineer Edward William Barton-Wright (a mix of ju-jitsu, boxing, French stick fighting) - was the self-defense method of Sherlock Holmes & if you like Holmes check out this film - Murder By Decree.

Wow - parentheses - that's how my mind is working at the moment - all over the place. Hypoglycemic shock today - had to skip reading - sorry.

When Gore Vidal was asked by a badgering interviewer whether the first person he had sex with was male or female, Vidal replied, "I was too polite to ask." As classic as this: A woman came up to Truman Capote in a restaurant and asked him to autograph her breast. Capote did. Her angry husband strode over, took out his penis and suggested Capote might like to autograph it. “Well,” responded Capote, “perhaps I could initial it.”

While working on my new book Grave Desire - an analytical biography of the necrophile Sergeant Bertrand - I've been researching strange sexual habits. On my walks around Tokyo, I discovered an area not too far from our apartment called Senzoku 4, which is roughly the area of the Yoshiwara (prostitute quarter) during the Edo period of Japan. Its streets are full of soaplands. Prostitution is illegal in Japan but, as with a lot of Japanese laws, there are ways of getting around the edict. According to Wiki this is how things work in a "soapland" 

The client and prostitute first undress, and the client's body, including his genitals, is washed. After warming his body in a bath, the client lies on a mattress while the companion covers herself with liquid lotion for lubrication. Then she slides her body up and down the client's body; this is known as "awa odori," or "bubble dance". Oral sex may be performed on the mat, and if the client chooses, sex as well. When "mat play" is concluded the client and prostitute rinse off and move to a bed for sexual intercourse.

Unlike Amsterdam, Soho, & Berlin's Stuttgarter Platz, the clubs are fronted not by women but middle-aged men who rush from doorway to taxi to greet clients. When I walk along the streets, they dodge back into the buildings. Foreigners rarely get into these places. 

Check out this shunga (erotic artwork) by Katsushika Hokusai - it is the first example of  shokushu goukan (触手強姦) [tentacle rape] - although ~ & please take this in: octopi do not have tentacles.