Like a lava-esque overflow of decaf cappuccino, if you can siphon off the excess of effluvia created by The Art of Intimate Love's tendency to wax arcane, you'll find some tasty treats in these fine videos.

Neil Tucker, a man whose eyeballs would make Little Orphan Annie wince in a stare-down contest, writes and narrates this exercise. Tuckers video is designed to encourage sexual pleasure and enhancement through discovery of the inner force. Suffice to say, this this video is more simply executed in practice than harboring the notion of consulting a mysti cal blueprint to contemplate one's navel.

Along for the ride, two sets of models demonstrate varieties of head, facial and ear stimulation, bearing in mind that the hands are the most practical and reliable instruments of love — the tools of transmitting energy. "Every finger is a dancer with its own sensual identity," says Tucker, as the couples respond by fox-trotting one another into Elvis-like pelvic gyrations.

Breathing techniques are also espoused. Though difficult to describe in a mere sentence, some involve some fairly tricky muscular contractions through the anus. So if someone tells you in the future to blow it out your ass, you probably can after watching this video.Other methods of this ilk appear a little more extreme, such as the illustrated technique of breath exchange —an exercise that goes over real big after a garlic pizza.

The art of breast, groin, gluteus, thigh, kneecap, calf, ankle, arch, and toe massage is also covered. There's even a method of using your fists and knuckles to circulate blood in the head — a technique espoused and practiced to a successful degree by Moe, Larry and Curly.

Simply put, however, if you can't get your love life in operational gear after watching this tape, it's time to go on to another plane of existence.

"If there's a devil in sex, it's haste," says Tucker. "Take the time to create (and relax)."

Or, in the immortal words of Kenny Loggins: "Get loose. Footloose. Put on your dancing shoes."

The pursuit of the ultimate orgasm is as old as the dawn of civilization and the pursuit of the ultimate campfire (or cave-woman). Narrated by Dr. Andrew Stanway, a viewer-friendly chap, The Lover's Guide To Better Orgasms, and its companion piece, The Lovers' Guide: Advanced Sexual Techniques, are, arguably, the best video how-tos on the subject, a subject which other so-called video experts have managed to clobber into a dilettantish puree, thanks to a bewildering mass of facts, opinions, statistics, boring interviews and really boring love clips. Not so Dr. Stanway whose rascally ly mien and manner reminds you of one of Alec Guinness' accomplices in The Lavender Hill Mob.

The effects of Stanway's lectures are brisk, educational and arousing, featuring a myriad of attractive (British) role-playing subjects who keep the entertainment index on the naughty/fun level.

Guide To Better Orgasms treats its subject as the complex whirl of spiritual, emotional, psychological, and bodily responses that it is. For women, it is possible to learn how to come. And 80%, according to this video, do, primarily through masturbation— putting to rest, hopefully, the guilt-riddled notion that if a man can't ride the baloney pony into the winner's circle, he should be banned from the paddock forever. Accordingly, you'll learn how to masturbate (men and women: a good place to start is the bath tub); you'll learn how to use a vibrator (a REALLY bad place to start is the bath tub).

Through the techniques discussed in this video, men and women can learn how to improve and increase the intensity of their orgasms/ a second or third trip to the buffet table may not even be out of the question for some men.

"Most of us are ignoring the enormous potential for improvement in our orgasms," says Stanway. Then, again, it's like the old joke: How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice...practice...practice.

As implied in The Lovers Guide: Advanced Sexual Techniques, one-ups-manship might work on the tennis court, the golf links, or the boardroom but even-upsmanship is the rule of the bedroom. (There's nothing worse than being three strokes down with one hole to play.)

No one has to be a sexual cigar store Indian or an incompetent in bed as espoused by this video. The keys are openness, a desire to improve and listening to what your partner really wants.

Contents of the show include fantasy and sex games (good visuals serve to illustrate); creative lovemaking positions (some you have NEVER seen in adult video) and safe sex practices. This being a British production, remember: when a woman's voice sounding like Emma Thompson's talks oh-so academically about kissing a man's balls, keep a straight face and a STIFF upper lip.