Amsterdam

You might not want to put a ring on it, but give Amsterdam the chance for a short term union and it will show you a good time. Of course, “short” might just be an hour of sex bought by any free-loving backpacker with enough birthday money saved up for a romp between the sheets with a prostitute (a 20-minute session costs on average 50 Euro). But Dam has deeper and more long-lasting erotic pleasures. For a taster, ride bikes through the narrow streets of De Wallen, the city’s red light district and the oldest part of Amsterdam. Then head to the Erotic Museum, housed in a 17th-century canal house, where John Lennon lithographs feature alongside X-rated versions of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. On your way out, take a moment to read the old stone plaque above the door (“God is mijn Burgh,” or “God is my Castle”). If sex shows aren’t on the agenda, embrace romantic Amsterdam instead. Like Venice, Amsterdam is a city of rambling canals. Rent a small private boat and enjoy Amsterdam’s architecture from the water with dinner and wine onboard.

Berlin

Morbid hedonism ruled Berlin during the Weimar Republic (1918-1933). The city was bursting with a proliferation of nude magazines, glittering cabaret shows, perfumed female flesh, pagan cults and an endless supply of cafés, bars and private clubs catering to gay men, transvestites, lesbians and sadomasochists. For connoisseurs of carnal excess craving a glimpse into this history, read Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin. Today, following Amsterdam’s liberal lead, Berlin embraces all things decadent, subversive, creative and uninhibited. Indeed, nowhere on earth can compete with Berlin when it comes to the diversity of its nightlife. In addition to alternative and techno clubs, there are all kinds of naughty fetish and sex establishments, places like the Kit Kat Club. Bring both kinds of rubber—proper dress is essential for entry to the Kit Kat Club and other similarly themed spots.

Cartagena

A coastal city Colombians call the “Jewel of the Caribbean,” Cartagena was traditionally a seaman’s paradise for ephemeral fun and quickie kicks. These days its appeal is wider, making it the country’s most loved tourist destination. It offers visitors quaint colonial charm, tropical beaches and inexpensive food and entertainment. But the ancient city has darker attractions: its flesh pots. On the narrow streets north of Plaza de los Coches, prostitutes entertain men at rock-bottom prices. In upscale areas like the Boca Grande and El Laguito, lovers dine on balconies overlooking the town square, sip cocktails at sunset at Café Del Mar and kiss in the turrets along the old city walls built by the Spanish in the 1600s to ward off pirates. During the day, the privileged areas of Cartagena breathe the life of Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s magical realism in Love in the Time of Cholera. After dark, the city becomes a sexual playground with all-night discotheques and wild sex parties in the mansions of old sugar barons. The local statue (by Fernando Botero) is, after all, a naked women reclining on her side, one hand raised above her head suggestively. There’s no colossal, guilt-inducing statue of Christ here.

Havana

With its lapping coast and sticky hot atmosphere, Havana teems with repressed, barely-disguised sexuality. In the 1950s, Havana was the adult playground of the wealthy. Sprinkled with casinos, resorts, cabarets and nightclubs, the “Key to the Gulf” lured the likes of Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner and became Ernest Hemingway’s home for his last 22 years. And where there’s money, there’s sex. Many wealthy American bureaucrats and politicians escaped to the city seeking freedom during the McCarthy trials. Even after the Cuban Revolution, when the era of decadence came to an end, Havana did not lose its sex appeal. Today, it still serves as an exile for the adventurous adults in search of exotic thrills. Start with the local jineteras, Havana’s sexy answer to the contemporary tour guide. These young beauties promise to unsheathe all the local attractions to male tourists—for the right price, that is. For those with more eclectic tastes, there are the fiestas de diez pesos. These floating, underground parties attract gays, lesbians and, more interestingly, transvestites, who cruise the Cine Yara looking for a good time in the wee hours of the morning. For an edgy take on the sultry city, read Pedro Juan Gutiérrez’s Dirty Havana Trilogy, where sex trades like currency and nourishes like food.

Khajuraho

The birthplace of the Kama Sutra, India could well claim to be the world’s sexiest land. Sure there are super-conservative elements in the nation but even they can’t deny that sexual enjoyment—culturally and traditionally—is as integral as rice and curry to a person’s well-being. If there were ever any need for material proof of India’s cool spiritual sex cred, the quiet north-eastern village of Khajuraho is it. The Madhya Pradesh outpost, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is famed for its medieval Hindu and Jain temples erected by the Chandela kings in the tradition of Tantric Art. Commonly known as “Temples of Love,” the structures’ external sculptures are visual educational guides, instructing worshipers on how to become masters of sex. Each spring, the Festival of the Dances takes place on the site’s sprawling grounds. The sculptures come to life with the performances, especially those that take place as night falls. It’s totally tantric, baby.

New Orleans

Once the “Great Southern Babylon,” New Orleans coined the phrase “Sin City” long before Las Vegas set up camp in the western deserts. She got her fast and loose reputation early on thanks to King Louis XIV of France when he decided to clear Paris’ La Salpetriere prison of its prostitutes and send them to New Orleans to be potential wives for the settlers. The Sun King’s plan backfired royally; rather than be transformed into prim and proper housewives, these transient women started the first female street gangs. Dubbed “fast females,” women like Bridget Fury and Mary “Bricktop” Jackson employed all methods, sexual and violent, to get a foothold in the corrupt, male-dominated society. In 1897, the madams, prostitutes and street gangs prevailed when the local government passed a law establishing the Storyville district, New Orleans’ own red light zone where indulgence and vice ruled the day. Women took to the streets, many nude and mimicking sexual acts, to celebrate the triumph. Fast forward to 2009 and the Big Easy still offers more of the same (sort of). The Krewe du Vieux, one of the many participating parade krewes of New Orleans’ annual Mardi Gras festivities, could pass for the modern day cousin of the revelleries of 1897. Routed through the city’s French Quarter, sub-krewes dress up in erotic attire in keeping with the adult theme (L.E.W.D.’s theme is described as “Inaugural Balls”). Even the local politicians can’t seem to shake the pull of the erotic—US Senator David Vitter was caught entangled in the Canal Brothel scandal. The downtown Quarter scene is rife with raunchy treats, from steamy sex shops to burlesque shows like Bustout Burlesque and the Shim Sham Revue. The Chris Owens Club & Balcony is notorious for setting the stage for burlesque to flourish; the titular owner is a local celebrity in her own right for still daring to bare even in her golden years. For New Orleans aphrodisiacs, indulge in the Sleeping Beauty Trilogy, a series of erotic stories written by famed local author Anne Rice under the pen name A.N. Roquelaure. Also check out The Big Easy, starring Dennis Quaid and Ellen Barkin. Whatever the vice may be, New Orleans provides an outlet—for all the erogenous zones.

Paris

It’s no secret that Parisians, denizens of the original “City of Love,” know how to make everything beautiful and tasteful. Unlike its global counterparts, even Paris’ sex museum is elegant. Indeed, it’s easy to forget that the Musée de l’Erotisme, erotica’s answer to the Louvre, is located in seedy Pigalle. The museum boasts a vast and serious collection of erotic art and artefacts, including Nepalese temple carvings, Aztec fertility idols, ceramic pornography from China and oddities like a yak oil lamp from Tibet. But the sexiness of Paris goes beyond artefacts to the live stage with two of the most unforgettable cabaret shows in the world, The Lido and The Crazy Horse. Of course, Parisians have also discovered the most luxurious ways to indulge fantasies. In the boudoir of Paradise Found, one of the most exclusive sex clubs in Paris, members (and members only) have access to Betony Vernon’s erotic jewellery. Libertinism is alive and thriving with clubs catering to a very select clientele. Les Chandelles and Cléopâtre attract the gorgeous from all over the city with the promise of… well, sex with beautiful strangers. It’s l’échangisme (swinging) of the highest calibre.

Rio

Samba, caipirinhas and itty bitty bikinis. What city screams sex more than Rio de Janeiro? It has the climate (heady tropical), a high population density of mixed-ethnic peoples (mostly gorgeous), Carnival (debauched and as crazy as your wildest dreams) and beaches like Copacabana and Ipanema (sexy and song-inspiring). Then, there’s its Cariocas spirit, a heritage of the mulatto mix of the country’s imported Catholicism and African practices combined with indigenous pagan beliefs. Take the cable car up to lunch on Sugarloaf Mountain, cruise the red light district on the Copacabana boardwalk or make love under the Cascatinha Waterfall in the Tijuca Rainforest. Old-school romantics can dine and dance at the infamous Copacabana Palace Hotel, built 1923, where hundreds of the world’s most famous performers, artists and politicians have stayed and where Fred and Ginger danced in Flying Down to Rio. Those looking for a little danger won’t have to look far. The favelas, notorious for the violence and crime captured in movies like City of God and Black Orpheus, are right next door to Rio’s richest areas. Or there are always the petty thieves, hookers and drug dealers that run rampant at some of Rio’s most popular night hotspots—Icy, Hideaway, Zero Zero, Catwalk and Baronetti. Whatever trouble you get into, remember, you can always Blame It on Rio.

Shanghai

Known as the “Paris of the East” in the 1920s and ‘30s, Shanghai is still arguably China’s most romantic city. Ancient temples, tea houses, saunas and massage parlours offer a glimpse into a lost world, where East meets West in an explosion of money and sensual overload. Visit the Broken Bridge billed as the “Lovers Bridge”, where the legendary White Snake and Xu Xian first met in the ancient city of Hangzhou. Check out over 3,500 pieces covering 6,000 years of human sexuality at the Museum of Ancient Chinese Sex Culture in the Jiangsu Province. Meander through the narrow streets of the French Concession district, which boasts a mix of East and West, old and new, rich and poor, with European buildings, contemporary art galleries and weeping willows. Stay at the Mansion Hotel, a converted mansion from the 1930s that reportedly housed gangsters and orgy parties and dine at Le Garçon Chinois, a hidden café in the Secret Garden on Hengshuan Lu, made famous in Wen Hui’s notorious novel, Shanghai Baby. There are also brothels disguised as karaoke bars—not to be confused with music boxes, which are fun for the whole family.

Tokyo

In part, Japan’s deep and complex history with eroticism can be traced to the Edo period (1600-1868), during which there was an unparalleled explosion in erotic art, literature and the phenomenon of the geisha, originally a sensual entertainer who played and sang, erupted in popular culture. Today, Japan (or at least Japanese men of a certain persuasion) is also known for prizing schoolgirl innocence—the Buru-sera industry (main enterprise: selling used panties) has emerged to serve this fetish. Schoolgirls are also often the inspiration for and subjects of Japanese anime porn, (or hentai, which means perversion) popularized due to a legal ban on showing actual penetration. These gritty, graphic animations are not for the faint of heart as they often depict rape and sodomy. In Tokyo, look for the love hotels, which often have erotically themed rooms ranging from romantic to S&M and are stocked with pornography and sexual paraphernalia. Guests leave notes in the hotels’ love diaries for fellow patrons. One salacious entry read: “You can be happy even if your partner is someone else’s husband.” For more insight, read Hideo Okuda’s Lala Pipo, an erotic social commentary on the seedier side of Tokyo.