The Sweetest Nectar - Extra Extra Magazine

OVERSIZED CRAVING

Shrouded in romantic fog, standing atop granite hills, Porto’s sensuality comes from the gut. The city’s raw, sentimental demeanour is embodied by tripe, the traditional dish made of offal and white bean sauce, which inspired the nickname of its inhabitants, the Tripeiro. Upon first impression, Porto’s Baroque and Manueline Gothic style might remind you of fantastical fairy tales, but let it be known that daily life here is utterly naughtier. The climate is one of enigmatic desire, with vertiginous landscapes bordered by the infinite Atlantic Ocean, castles in ruins, and rain showers that soak you by surprise. Porto, both precious and unapologetically tacky, is a place to make spontaneous decisions while being surrounded by warm-hearted people and nourishing cuisine. Take, for instance, the delicious francesinha sandwich, an XXL croque monsieur, which comprises multiple layers of bread, stacked slices of ham and a drizzle of melted cheese. Drops of garlic butter scorching my throat, I will never forget the best scallops I’ve ever eaten, at the Marisqueira Antiga fish restaurant. This vivid memory cannot be distinguished from the final emulsion: three seven-litre port wine bottles of different ages, up to forty years old, on a silver trolley, with small deserts displayed like beijinhos – small kisses in Portuguese – on the neck.

TROUSERS ROLLED UP

Tell me, why does a sip of good wine taste like a kiss? The French illustrator René Vincent is the man responsible for the iconic design of the Ramos-Pinto port advertisement. The Art Deco poster displays two elegant and androgynous figures who are about to share a smooch. A Cupid’s angel hovers between their lips, holding a shining goblet. Perhaps the couple have been interrupted, or maybe they are so deeply infatuated that they are frozen by lust for one another? Remember, a kiss does not come without preliminaries. The vineyards require a lot of care and work throughout the year, and when it’s time to yield the fruit, strong muscles and many pairs of hands are required to gather, pick and press the grapes. Travelling and working between Lisbon and Porto, the doctor and poet Miguel Torga kept a diary steeped in poetry and scrumptious bits of prose, detailing with fervour the delights of the human body as well as clairvoyant contemplations on nature and culture. His novel Vindima (Grave Harvest), published in 1945, focuses on Douro society and extends to Porto, exploring the complicated relationships that intertwine citizens. Torga describes the picturesque and precarious landscapes; the sun-scorched vineyards and frantic energy of the harvest. The symbolism of vine and wine reaches an erotic paroxysm in the scene where the grapes are crushed using the traditional, foot-squishing method: ‘A little later, trousers rolled up, the men set about stomping the grapes, their movements reminiscent of sensual copulation. Golden, black, purple, yellow and blue, the grapes were like the stares of lascivious eyes in a bed of love.’ The ultimate lustful page-turner, Vindima contains tumultuous love affairs alongside the trials of sudden death and poverty, battles over broken hearts, and copious amounts of illicit sex.

Miguel Torga, the pseudonym of Adolfo Correia da Rocha (1907–95), is considered to be one of the most important writers in 20th century Portuguese literature. In his poems and novels, the pleasure of creativity is inextricably intertwined with the erotic force of life and the exuberance of nature. Juggling a career in medicine with literary pursuits, Torga was a true humanist, a devotee to both the arts and science. Photo: Notícias, Região

VERTIGO IS A KINK

I love to get lost inside the labyrinthine Crystal Palace gardens, overlooking the Douro River, and follow peacocks around until I find an iridescent feather to stroke my lover’s face with. Each time I walk there, it feels like a different place. Probably because the scents of these gardens sprinkle an infinite panel of aphrodisiacs. If you lose yourself well enough, you might find the Jardim dos Sentimentos (Garden of Feelings). There, a bronze sculpture, surrounded by myrtle plants, awaits you. The Madonna’s face is supposed to represent pain. But don’t be fooled, her expression more closely resembles the ecstasy of an orgasm. There are countless breath-taking viewpoints in town, meaning that sexual fantasies whirl fast and wild. Stop by for a party at Ferro Bar where each flirtatious movement and drop of sweat is accompanied by the creaking of trains, echoing as they run across the rooftop. At São Bento station, most people travel by standing still, captivated by the beauty of painted tin-glazed white and blue azulejos tilework. The glimmering ceramics depict historical scenes and the daily activities of the Tripeiro, offering a true time travel experience.

EVERY RETURN IS A FIRST TIME

Glasses clinking and catching winks of the sea, the most erotic way to drink port is to soak your lips in the liquid ruby, sweet and pulpy, poured in a halved melon. Resembling a sunflower or a twilight sky stained with lipstick, the incomparable intensity of the wine is best felt at the end of meals. The all-glass Praia da Luz restaurant, on the esplanade that runs along the coast, is a perfect place to have a daring conversation. Here, you’ll be surrounded by the smell of surfers’ iodic skin, fresh from the ocean, wearing blue spots of sunscreen on their cheeks. After dinner, take a night-time stroll along the waterfront. Your secrets are safe with the gulls, whose cries sound similar to squeaking bedframes. In an interview, fado singer Mísia said that ‘we cannot add doors to the sea.’ It’s a cryptic statement, one that speaks to her desire to conspicuously catch the tides, to access the high waves, flowing like libidinous bodily fluids. Mísia made her debut in Porto, dressed in a mini skirt, dictating her own truth through music and a spanking sense of dramaturgy. Containing narratives of everyday life, Mísia’s songs are not strictly about sex, nor dancing erotically; the purity of feelings and raucous voice wrap you far more profoundly. The 1980s track ‘Porto Sentido’ (Sensing Porto) evokes a reality far from the clichés, a heady mix of melancholia and slang. Listen to her describe how the city’s hot waters – its rivers, hilltop mist and seashores – relate to the lives of prostitutes, sailors, hitchhikers and football fans. As the lyrics go: ‘Every return to Porto is a first time.’

Mísia is inspired by her mother, who was a cabaret dancer, which accounts for the many influences shaping her music: tango, bolero, the sensuality of the accordion and the violin, as well as verses from the greatest Portuguese love poets. Courtesy: Richard Elliott

Located on the beach of the same name, the restaurant Praia da Luz faces the waterfront, with the crashing waves composing a sensuous soundscape for diners. Try the oysters, plucked fresh from the ocean, and served with rivulets of green seaweed. Courtesy: Porto Cool

HERE, EVERYBODY JUMPS

There are six bridges in Porto, connecting the port wine cellars to the city centre, punctuating the hype of Ribeira’s coloured façades. Gazing at the double-decker metallic Dom Luís bridge is a truly pleasurable visual sensation – the structure resembles a twisted version of the Eiffel Tower. In summer, people of all ages jump from the bridge, landing in the river twenty metres below. Watching them fall leaves butterflies in your stomach and inspires an immense feeling of freedom. Nothing is sexier than dripping bodies, drying in the open air. Here, everybody jumps. Teenagers, tourists and district regulars alike love to experience the rush of adrenaline. In Porto, sensuality is stylised by daily interactions; by people scrapping lottery tickets after betting on millions, by a woman sitting on a Super Bock beer crate or someone leaning on a window ledge. These are quotidian scenes of chance, luck, desire and tension. I love to see grandmas wearing fluffy fleeces and silky bathrobes outside. These elderly ladies disrupt the lines between private and public, deciding – through their casual attire – which intimate boundaries can be loosened. Their act of transgression reminds me of the Portuguese poet Judith Teixeira. Born in 1880, Teixeira penned verses about the pleasures of the female sex, daring to reveal what goes on in the seclusion of her bedchamber. In the poem ‘More Kisses,’ she writes, ‘Let me, mad, set your mouth on fire and dominate your life!’ Obsessed with breasts and depicting erotic dreams about naked female bodies lying in the light of dawn, Teixeira’s Sapphic poetry stirred up a lot of scandal. She divulged her most inflamed desires and an insatiable thirst for beauty especially when she was enveloped in the mists of morphine. In 1923, the publication of her collection Decâdencia (Decadence) created a controversy. The book came to prominence at the same time as Sodoma Divinizada (Deified Sodom) by Raúl Leal and Canções (Songs) by António Botto, two openly gay authors. Both Botto and Leal have been granted enduring literary notoriety for their nonchalant and loving depictions of same-sex desire. In Canções, you can find a divinely languid picture of Botto posing with his shoulders exposed.

THE DOURO

On the Douro River, a few moliceiros remain, a type of traditional boat that was used to harvest a mixture of seaweed used as local fertiliser. On the hulls, scenes of work at sea are depicted in bright colours. Sexier scenes occasionally slip by: a woman lifting her yellow dress, showing her ass to a wheat reaper; a model’s legs wide open, with the inscription ‘girl, how much do you want?’; an apple picker with a bird’s nest in her hands and a man, starring at her bum, salaciously saying, ‘oh, what a rich little bird!’ If these drawings seem bawdy today, then they surely transgressed morals at the beginning of the 20^th century. The film Val Abraão (Abraham’s Valley), by Manoel de Oliveira, is a 1993 modern Portuguese adaptation of Madame Bovary, set on the banks of the Douro. Despite the wanton nature of Ema’s sexuality, she exclusively shows affection to the deaf and mute washerwoman Ritinha. All the flowers in the film are fake, except the rose that Ema picks in the garden for Ritinha, to declare her ineffable feelings, offering her secretive sex. The most musical scene is when the servants make fun of a troubled man passing by, playfully chasing him with a damp cloth. The women have a coy argument about desire, marked by their suave alternation between não (no) and sim (yes). Ema smiles, almost biting her lips; laughter bursts out as a rebellious expression of sensuality.

PHALLIC SWEETS

Size really doesn’t matter in the case of the Rua Afonso Martins Alho, the smallest street in Porto. The thirty-metre-long alley is named after a merchant who is remembered today by the popular saying ‘fino como o alho,’ which translates along the lines of the English expression ‘sharp as a whip.’ The direct translation is ‘thin as garlic,’ and is commonly used to describe someone who is clever, shrewd and cunning. Down this narrow street, desire hangs on a tightrope. Have you ever imagined what kind of panties a stranger is wearing? I’ve never seen as many pairs of underwear floating in the air, drying on washing lines, as in this tiny alley. Sometimes the garments are displayed with so much grace I imagine it must be on purpose, to stimulate fantasies and feelings of wonder in the passers-by below. One kilometre further, nearby the Trindade metro station, the infamous Lingerie Restaurant offers a highly entertaining dinner show. Waiters are in their underwear, and the menu is embellished with sexual innuendos, preliminary featuring dishes and erotic loaves of bread in the shape of boobs and dicks. Decorated with crisp, white sugar icing, doces fálicos (literally ‘phallic sweets’) are cock-shaped cakes which come from Amarante, a medieval and religious town sixty kilometres above Porto. During the June festivities, in honour of the patron saint Gonçalo, piously dressed inhabitants might give you a taste of this delicious treat. According to legend, the phallic cakes are given as a true sign of affection and may even bring you love. The biggest doces fálicos ever baked measured twenty-one metres long and required seventy kilos of sugar, fifty kilos of flour and almost a thousand eggs.

Having opened its doors in 2004, The Lingerie Restaurant serves up a unique thematic concept: all of its waiters wear only their undergarments. The à la carte menu lists dishes with suggestive names such as ‘The Swinging Couple,’ ‘Maria’s Vegetables,’ ‘Oh, Yes Please’ and ‘Pink Lips.’ Courtesy: Visit Porto

THE BOLHÃO MARKET

The Bolhão market is a theatre stage, built over several floors. Stalls are adorned with plaid curtains, opening and closing, while hands waltz over the piles of food. A majestic staircase leads to the central open court. Under the steps there is a row of urinals facing small cabins, a famous cruising spot, where guys meet for a secret fuck. You might go to Bolhão to buy fresh fruits and blossoming flowers, but you can also expect to procure some juicy stories from the merchants. Her gaze full of mischief, a fishmonger confides that her husband just came back from a trip to Brazil. If his balls sink in the toilet, he has committed no act of infidelity. But if his balls remain floating, that means he … Overhearing her words, I am both enchanted and repelled. What does she mean? That a sexually transmitted affliction will shrivel the shape and size of his testicles? Or has she cast a magic spell on her beloved’s private parts? She does not finish the sentence, but instead holds a fish above her mouth, like a perfect phallus to swallow. Another fishmonger whispers to a foreign customer about the locals: ‘Big men, small dicks.’ These fishwives’ tongues are hornier than intertwined lovers, and they have more than one dirty joke in the pockets of their chequered and lace-trimmed aprons.

CAFÉ PIOLHO AND THE THREE MARIAS

In the city centre, the Lello bookshop is an Art Nouveau jewel. The Neo-Gothic details of its opulent façade – as well as the queue of people
lengthening each second – can’t be missed. All visitors want to be swallowed by the majestic and curved staircase – a vagina covered in red carpet and surrounded by thousands upon thousands of pages. If impatience takes over, go straight to the neighbouring and very special Café Piolho. During the yoke of the Salazarist dictatorship, it was a rare place where embraces, steaming cups of cumbalino (the common name for a local espresso), could be exchanged alongside radical ideas. Patrons took part in a practice that is known as tertulia: gatherings where art and politics are discussed amongst friends. In Porto, a lot of women are called Maria. There is a story that definitely changed my mind on the erotic potential of that common name. As freedom of speech was highly compromised in 1972, the ‘Three Marias’ (poets Maria Teresa Horta, Maria Isabel Barreno and Maria Velho da Costa) were arrested for their acclaimed fiction, letters and erotic texts, which were declared pornographic and an offence to public morals. When it was published, their collective text New Portuguese Letters was not strictly intended to be a feminist manifesto. The aim was simply to defy authority. While having lunch together, one of the Marias said: ‘If one of us can make so much noise, imagine the three of us.’ Inspired by the 17^th century’s passionate Letters of a Portuguese Nun by Mariana Alcoforado, the three Marias deployed a hunger for sexual and emotional freedom. They adoringly write of ‘the silk of your buttocks … the scorching smell of your armpits,’ lovingly extolling the sexiness of all bodies, spilling their erotic potentiality with generosity and, sometimes, well-placed cruelty. Testicles are described as ‘fragile and unprotected, so marvellously warm, covered with the soft velvet fuzz of fruits.’ Of course, the whole text is punctuated with orgasms: ‘we are lovers through each orgasm that we built towards with each other, reaching climax time after time in long hours when nothing else counts and everything happens ….’

Steeped in history, Piolho is probably the oldest meeting point in Porto, a place where students and teachers, locals and foreigners, friends and lovers alike find one another. Writ large over the doorway in ornate golden lettering, the cafe’s official name is Âncora d’Ouro, but it is far better known around town by its nickname. Courtesy: Portoalities

DOOMED LOVE

Right in front of the former Relação Prison, which is now the Portuguese Centre for Photography, there is a statue of a man grabbing a woman’s bottom. Graffiti-style stickers placed on her butt are a testament to the dirtiness of the scene. The provocative statue is in homage to the writer Camilo Castelo Branco, who was imprisoned for adultery, and judged for his tumultuous love affairs, including an elopement with Ana Plácido, the wife of a Porto businessman. When the two lovers were imprisoned, in 1862, Camilo wrote his most well-known work Amor de Perdição (Doomed Love), in only two weeks.
The novel tells the story of a forbidden romance between Simão Botelho and Teresa de Albuquerque. Erected in 1949 by the sculptor António Duarte, Ana’s curvaceous ass has been a much-appreciated sight for over seven decades. Her butt is always a must-see for tourists. If her peachy rear-end makes you thirsty, then wander over to Passos Manuel. One of Porto’s best kept secrets – the bar is a still-functioning car park. If this sounds inelegant, then please be assured that Passos Manuel is anything but. The glorious Art Deco building opened in 1939, and is the ideal spot for your most adventurous dates to unfold. After the third drink, go up to the top floor, which is home to a gallery space and club night going by the name of Maus Hábitos, which means Bad Habits.

TRULY YOURS, ANDRESSA

Júlio Dantas’ successful play A Ceia dos Cardeais (The Cardinals’ Supper), published in 1902, includes monologues by three cardinals, one Portuguese, one French and one Spanish. The trio enjoy a rich supper in a luxurious room in the 18^th century Vatican and recall their youthful loves. The amorous lament of the Portuguese cardinal emanates with a sentimentality reminiscent of a Saudade and, above all, demonstrates that of all feelings confessed at the table, his is the truest of the three. A Ceia das Cócótes (The Cocotes’ Supper) is an anonymously authored pornographic parody, in which the French Cléo, the Spanish Otero and the Portuguese Fernanda describe their first sexual experience. Fernanda is inspired by the famous courtesan and celebrated society figure, Andressa do Nascimento, best known as Preta Fernanda.
Born in 1859 on the island of Santiago in Cape Verde, she was, perhaps, the best-known black citizen of her time. Collecting lovers from sailors and soldiers to influential writers and legal scholars, Preta was utterly glamourous and unafraid of scandals, always present at the hottest night spots. Recordações d’uma Colonial (Recollections of a Colonial Subject) is a fictive autobiography of dubious source, talking about her life in Cape Verde and Portugal, where Preta supposedly wrote about all of the men who had shared her bed but omitted their true names. The final chapter remarks on each man’s sexual performance in candid detail. The way Preta’s life fuelled fantasies in the colonial imaginary, and the impossibility of accessing her memories without the mediation of a third party, leaves only one possible question: can Andressa speak?

OCEAN POOLS

An Art Deco masterpiece, the Casa de Serralves villa once belonged to Count Carlos Alberto Cabral. Now the house is open to the public. Designed to resemble a seashore, its pink façade contrasts with the cyan-coloured water of the fountains. Made of marble, covered in mirrors and with a view of the park, the bathroom is a blushing rose vision with a tub big enough for two. A few metres further, the Museum of Contemporary Art, created by Álvaro Siza in 1991, is made of concrete and steel. Its exterior, covered in granite and painted plaster, might seem intimidating, but the décor plays artfully with your senses, beautifully combining artificial lightning and natural visual ‘escape routes’ which face outwards onto the gardens. Take a walk there, amongst the neatly lined shrubbery, and you’re sure to chance upon the Anish Kapoor sculpture, made of a circular mirror reflecting the sky. It’s a wonderful place to hook up with a lover, where you can catch glimmers of your ecstatic, kissing faces in its reflective surface, or even dare to indulge your inner sex narcissist with some solo fun. On the beach of Leça da Palmeira, another architectural surprise designed by Álvero Siza awaits. His stunning swimming pool is built into the rockface, perfectly blending into its maritime habitat, offering a salty dip with a close view on the whims of the ocean.

AFTER THE RETREAT, I MEET GINA

Away from the noisy city with its old, creaky yellow trams and abundance of wrought-iron balconies, the chapel of Fandinhães and the Tarouquela church provide an idyllic setting to rest and confess your sins. Look up and catch sight of the modillions. Usually, these ornamental blocks which appear underneath a cornice are covered in geometrical patterns. But here, rather than straight lines and angular shapes, there are figures carved in stone: a squatting man hides his genitals, while a woman exhibits her vagina. These characters are ominous representations of human lust and weaknesses. On the way back to town, following the zigzag of the Douro with the train, you may hide your face behind a vintage 1970s Gina magazine. The cover is innocent enough: a close-up photograph of a woman, often with a refined hairstyle, so as not to arouse suspicion. Yet, the subtitle – Histórias Sexy Internacionais – does not lie: within its glossy pages are international sexy stories. Editors from Porto and Lisbon have a long history of publishing licentious texts, which sometimes appeared in magazines, under the category of ‘Leitura para homens’ (Reading for men). In 1854, the epistolary novel in verse Cartas de Olinda e Alzira (Letters from Olinda and Alzira) by Manuel Maria Barbosa du Bocage set the standard for Portuguese erotic poetry, characterised by its burlesque and satirical tone. One of my Saturday morning guilty pleasures is to dig out old magazines and literary jewels at the Feira da Vandoma, a flea market near the Estádio do Dragão (Dragons Stadium), the home ground of Porto’s football team. It is one of the oldest markets in the city, a place where students have sold their aged books and oddities for years. Once I was trying on a vintage pink bathrobe, and a passer-by ostentatiously complimented my style. We strolled along together until we reached the Avenida 25 de Abril red bridge, where the market ends. I remember thinking that the scenery looked as if it had been cut out of a postcard of San Francisco. Backdropped by the picturesque setting, we languidly kissed, and I thought to myself: this is the vertigo of Porto.

19 Porto: The Sweetest Nectar

by Justine Gensse