Men and women nestle together on large beds that line the main dining room at the Supper Club restaurant in San Francisco. The lights dim, and a woman stands in the middle of the room with a microphone in hand.

"Welcome to this year's 'Readings in Bed,'" she says, "where we don't just ask you to open a book, we ask you to strap it on."

'Readings in Bed' was a part of the San Francisco literary festival known as Litquake that took place in mid-October. People gathered in cafes and bars around the Bay Area to listen to authors read from their latest work. But at this event, the prose was a little more risque than the other readings.

San Francisco is no stranger to flaunting juicy sexual details. For the Folsom and Castro street fairs, leather and bondage clad men and women parade down the sidewalks without shame. In October, the Exotic Erotic Ball serves as just one more reason to take it off. Sex clubs, erotic boutiques and peep shows appear everywhere in the city. But it is erotica authors who maintain that true erotica is not just sexy exchanges and naughty words. It is much more.

"It is very difficult to convey all the textures of sex on the page," David Henry Sterry says. Sterry, who is the author of the book "Hos, Hustlers, Callgirls and Rentboys" and the moderator for the event, is much more interested in what goes on inside people when they experience sex. Unnecessary bad words and lewdness in a story line is not a turn on. According to him, "the most important organ you use in sex is, of course, your brain."

Many festival goers agree with Sterry, even though most of them were not well versed in the art of erotic writing. Sheena McNeal believes that the selections read aloud achieved just what Sterry said. Although she does not frequent erotica readings, to McNeal, the test of good erotica is its honesty about what happened between two characters.

Geoff Knight's book, "The Riddle of the Sands," might not be the most honest account of sex, but it certainly is entertaining. The gay adventure novel tells the story of a college man seeking to find the lost pyramid of Imhotep, not forgetting time for some extracurricular activities as well. While the premise is fun, Knight still strives to achieve a connection between the people in the sex act.

"Publishers wouldn't pick it up because of the sex alone," Knight says. "You have to put a lot of skill and heart into it. It takes time and practice."

Other erotica authors, like blogger Violet Blue and sex educator Carol Queen, along with Sterry hope that people can come away from readings like these with an open mind and a sense of playfulness about the genre. For them, it is not just a means of arousal. It is an art form.

"For any erotica virgins who will be deflowered here this evening," Sterry says, "I hope they can come away from it enlightened and with their third eye opened."