The Tarot Erotica Deck

Number of cards in deck: 78

Measurements: 2.5 x 4.2 inches, or 65 x 107 mm.

Back of card: Black with a pink picture of that funny flower that my girlfriend says looks like a fig leaf with a penis sticking out of it. They sell them in grocery stores. There's one in the upper right, another in the lower left, snaked together, so the card can be inverted.

Booklet included: Yes, 47 pages, 2.5 x 4.25 inches, or 63 x 108 mm. Printed on shiny paper stock.

Publisher: Q.E.D. Games, New York. Printed in Canada.

Special Note: I am often asked if this deck is really in stock. It is. There is a good supply remaining. If I or the person who actually holds the remaining stock had any brains, we would mark the price up to fifty dollars a deck, sell them on Ebay & make out like bandits.

Comments: If I wasn't in trouble with Net Nanny before, I sure am now. If you're curious, the two of swords is about as explicit as this deck gets, and that's pretty explicit. I wouldn't have shown it as it's as easily described as shown, but as I always show the two of swords I couldn't very well wimp out. We're not teenagers anymore & sometimes I wonder what all the fuss is about. We each have one or the other of "those" body parts and there is only a very small minority of adults who don't put them to their natural use on a regular basis, or who would if they could. Sex is more common than the NFL, less hazardous & more fun, too.

Q.E.D. tells me they weren't looking to publish an erotic tarot but one of their illustrators created it & gave it to them & so they published it. We all find ourselves doing things we didn't exactly plan on, that's where the fun in life is (which is what these cards are all about). So far (March 2000), they've been refused distribution from that big tarot publisher in the American north-east, which might be a bit hypocritical. What's the difference between this deck & other graphically explicit decks, such as Daughters of the Moon (lots of female frontal nudity, including a woman giving birth) or Cosmic Tribe (an abundance of limp penises)? Primarily, I think, it's the misleading names of the other two decks. And perhaps the fact that as Americas we are not as offended by gratuitous nudity as we are by folks actually doing something with their nudity.

Myself, human interaction interests me a lot more than naked skin. With that viewpoint in mind, I have to fault the artist of this deck. When people get naked & have sex, the most fascinating part of their bodies are their faces. Genitals are genitals but the face is a symphony orchestra all by itself. Faces in this deck, when not hard & unmoving, are blank. We all remember the face of this or that lover in all their many moods, including those seen during lovemaking, but the point was driven home to me by the early girl cams. Not so many years ago anything went (and free as well), all from excited, nervous amateurs with no prior media experience. It was fascinating to see the expressions on the man's face, on the woman's face, from the unhappy, tense-looking warm-ups to something very much like bliss when it was all over. Sex between loving couples is a form of healing, a very nourishing form of healing. You don't see that when you're part of it, and you don't see it from professional porn actors & until the cams, that's all we had to go by. And the Mona Lisa. What is that smile on her face? It's the smile of a woman who's just made love. It is the rarest, the briefest of all human expressions. For an artist it is a supreme challenge. Was Leonardo her lover? And if this is the usual result of sex, then why, why, are we trying to hide it?

So in this deck, there's male-female action, male-male action, female-female action, female-horse action (8 of cups) & general orgy scenes, among the cards I looked closely at. Penises in this deck, unlike the Cosmic Tribe are stiff, though most of them are not erect. Some are uncircumcised. None of them sport condoms, which, for serious lovemaking, are positive nuisances. Except for the two of swords, female pudenda are never shown as explicitly, though many are shaven (something I've yet to come across in my life). All the men are men, well-hung with bulging biceps, all the women are women, with pronounced hips & big breasts, and almost all the people shown are young adults. Looking several times, I could not find a single hermaphrodite, though there are various human/animal mixtures, including centaurs pulling the Chariot. The Tower is a giant erect penis with its head shattered by lightning & a man & woman flung from it, but the purity of the sexual metaphors are mixed with windows & doors & arches on the shaft itself, making it a mere temple building. One other card of interest: The 9 of Stars (Pentacles). This shows a naked woman with a naked boy sitting in front of her. On the boy's face is a butterfly mask. And look at The Fool, above. They're our old friends, Adam & Eve, on their way to a Fall.

The booklet is not sexually explicit but is loaded with innuendo & at times shows great wit. Here is the text to the two of swords:

TWO OF SWORDS: End of Conflict. The two of swords has definite opinions about the proper way to think & behave, but does not live up to them. He can usually keep his secret.
UPRIGHT: Events happen quickly, but the Seeker is keeping them under control. This may concern itself with a lover the Seeker has been trying to attract. If so, this person is experiencing a growing interest.
REVERSE: The stalemate is over. The goal is won or lost. This is an early resolution, perhaps even premature. The lover that the Seeker has been seeking is repelled or found to be disloyal.
PREEMPTORY: If you try to push this situation right now, you'll only get deeper. Concentrate on a different problem.

The booklet gives an interesting 8 card layout designed to tell you more about that handsome new person you just met. Court cards are Page, Knight, Queen & King. The Page of Rods is male & is shown with another male. The Page of Cups is female & is shown with another female. The Page of Swords is male & is shown with a female. The Page of Stars is female & is shown with a male. The dual figures shown on the Page cards are unique as far as I know. It is an interesting solution to the usual 3 male/1 female court card display, or the 2 female/2 male solution. Several other cards in this deck also show great originality, among them the Fool & the ten of swords. And if you have to ask, everyone, everywhere in this deck, is nude.

I would be interested in your experiences with this deck.

One technical note: Several of the cards have a minor ink blur in the white borders. This is a defect, of course, but we will not replace a deck unless the problem is severe.

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