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Yellow Dog Magazine

One of the most overlooked errogenous zones on the human body is hard to give an exact location if you are trying to play guessing games with your lover. It's not above the waist, it's not below the waist, it's actually at the waist. So small, so overlooked, until we tried to expose it in the 1960s. Barbara Eden who starred in the sitcom "I Dream of Jeanie" was never allowed to show her navel with the midriff-bearing harem girl costume. It was not until 20 years later, when she finally did, that most would say it was no longer worth looking at, but us true fetishists argue it was; it was closure, we needed to see it.

Gene Rodenberry, producer of the most innovative show of his time, Star Trek, once had to edit a scene where a green belly dancer showed her navel. The next season, Laugh-In became very popular and showed women dancing in bikinis with painted stomachs. The producer of Start Trek then sought revenge and created an alien being with two navels.

What is it about this area that arouses some, revolts others and yet is completely neglected by the rest? It could be so many things, for one, bare flesh at the waistline is always sexy due to its proximity to the genitals. Adult sex sites commonly put the word bellybuttons into its meta tags so that they show up in search engines - why? Because a bellybutton clearly indicates some sort of partial or full nudity. Any man (or woman, to be politically correct) wants to look at a woman in a bikini.

In the United States, it all seems to be about T & A, until recently. With the fad of piercing, more and more we see exposed navels. As sexual as we are in the United States, we have overlooked one of the most unique, sensuous, errogenous zones that can be exposed in public legally. Tune into Spanish television sometime and see how it's displayed; even guests on the late night talk shows are encouraged to expose their bellybuttons to show the audience what type it is - - an innie, an outie? They want to know what their favorite celebrity has. The camera crew zoom-ins are always much appreciated too. Ever-popular are the Middle Eastern belly dancers who also often adorn it with jewels. The French are some of the only ones to document the navel as an errogenous zone in published book format. Even the Bible has a line in the Book of Proverbs which reads "Her navel is a perfectly rounded goblet which never holds sour wine." What are we missing here? Lots. Many sex help books indicate that you should discover unknown sensitive parts of the body and even experiment with caviar and grape jelly when eaten from the navel of your lover. Recently we have realized this, and even on the sitcom "Friends," Ross says to Rachel, "Remember the time I poured hot chocolate over your body and ate the mini marshmallow out of your bellybutton?" And everyone knows how sexy Jennifer Aniston is, not only as Rachel Green on "Friends," but in "Got Milk" Ads where she is in Levis and a ripped shirt which shows her navel and the Rolling Stone magazine spread she did which can be found plastered all over the Internet.

If not for the web, this innocent fetish would have never been realized. With the exception of a few scant articles and letters to the editor in Playboy and other men's magazines in the early 1970s, they too ignored it until recently. The September 1997 issue of Playboy magazine featured an article by Chip Rowe entitled "Surfing For Sex." Finally the navel was recognized and listed as one of the 25 sites featured. That simple one paragraph listing for the Night Spy Navel Base yielded over a million hits in September alone and prompted another letter to appear the month after. Since then the birth of a dozen more bellybutton sites have emerged.

There is an advantage here: try it as a pickup line sometime, say to a woman "you have a cute bellybutton" - - I promise you the reaction will not be as harsh as a slap in the face as if you had said "you have a nice ass." Especially if it is exposed, this is the perfect opportunity. If it isn't, she will say "how do you know?" and this will prompt her to show it to you. At the beach, try complimenting a lady on her navel. I am sure, if nothing else, it will get a chuckle or line she has never heard before.

It's not about fetishism, or replacement of another body part, it's a gateway to new forms of fun foreplay and adding some new forms of passion into your love life. Look for some of the stories posted at my site or email me: navelbase@aol.com