The Cradle of Erotica: A Study of Afro-Asian Sexual Expression and an Analysis of Erotic Freedom in Social Relationships is a book written by Allen Edwardes and R. E. L. Masters that was first published in 1963.
The accuracy of the scholarship has been disputed by many of its reviewers, with the work being accused of demonstrating Orientalist exaggerations and caricatures of a hypersexualized "East".
[2] Edwardes and Masters then address and explain the matriarchal dominance of sex in Afro-Asian sexual practices, especially those relationships seen in the Muslim faith.
[5] The morphology of the clitoris in certain ethnicities renders place names[clarification needed] that distinguish them from their other Afro-Asian cousins.
[7] This chapter also explores specific parts of the penis, such as the glans and its coloration, as further means of distinction between the ethnicities of Afro-Asian.
The descriptions and analysis of various sexual techniques, practiced by men and or women, comprises the core material of this chapter.
The authors claim that Coitus prolongatus, the process of delaying the ejaculation of a male in order to accelerate the female orgasm, is a sexual technique practiced by Muslim and Hindu men.
The authors claim that opium and marijuana, specifically hashish, are used by many Afro-Asian cultures in order to enhance their sexual experiences.
[11] The authors claim that a female under the influence of hashish had the purported ability to have consecutive vaginal and anal sex with over one hundred men .
Edwardes and Masters quote the French army surgeon Dr. Jacobus, who calculate that over 80% of Arabian married couples are involved in adultery.
This lust for polyandry is also evident in Arabian women engaging in copulation with several males at once in erotic parlor games.
[14] Edwardes and Masters attribute the prevalence of masturbation in Afro-Asian societies to the sleeping and living patterns of children.
Men living in Mecca create concubines of women in order to fulfill their sexual hunger, specifically cunnilingus.
[22] In recent years, Joseph Boone uses orientalism as his weapon of demystification against what he argues is Edwardes and Masters' fictional portrayal of Eastern sexuality.
He uses the obsession with the penis sizes of Egyptians and Arabian men in The Cradle of Erotica as a perfect example of sublimation.
[24] Roland Boer goes further in his 2012 work The Earthly Nature Of The Bible, stating that The Cradle of Erotica is an example of what he called "Orientialist camp" that was a hallmark of Edwardes' career.