I must have missed the facsimile or teletype transmission that alerted everyone to the idea that enjoying the films of American indie auteur Wes Anderson was, like, sooo fucking 2002 or whatever. Last I heard, he was pretty hot shit in the film world and then - boom! - like Bill Murray at a Williamsburg kegger, The Life Aquatic sank like a lead weight in the sea of moviegoer fandom. Some liked it for the music and some liked it for the pretty colors. More disliked it, it seems, because that was the cool thing to do. Let’s just hope that never happens to The Life Erotic, which, similar names aside, has about as much to do with Wes Anderson’s oceanographic adventure movie as I have to do with my college girlfriend: thankfully little. The Life Erotic takes the erotic adult members-only website and puts its own little twist on the form, raising the quality level to a very high watermark and keeping it totally Euro. With a monthly cost of $19.99, a membership to The Life Erotic implies sensual satisfaction, but does it deliver? Accompany Mr. Pink’s as we discover the ins and outs of this particular haven for epicurean delights.

Pros:
Everything online at The Life Erotic has been produced exclusively for this website and won’t be found anywhere else. Not only that, but something new arrives here every week. In fact, in a seven day period you’ll see three or four new galleries and a new HD video. Speaking of HD videos...

Videos are also very, very high-resolution, reaching a maximum of 1290x1080 pixels (a.k.a.: 1080p), with five other options, both MOV and WMV, thrown in for good measure. These videos may be short, but they pack a hell of a lot of detail into their compact running time, showing the marvelous bodies and gorgeous faces of the models in great detail.

It’s not just the videos that have been lovingly rendered in high resolutions. The lusciously shot photos can be viewed in three sizes, the largest of which hits an astonishing 2848x4288 pixels and offers so much detail you’ll be examining each shot for hours.

In addition to the standard video downloads and online photo galleries, all content is available in at least one other form, be it streaming Flash videos or downloadable zipped photo archives in all three resolutions. Great viewing options all around at The Life Erotic.

Cons:
As The Life Erotic continues to update and add more content to its archives, the need for better navigation will become essential. As is, there are very few browsing tools and members could easily find themselves frustrated by the lack of content sorting tools. You’re basically stuck with the model index, master update list, and a Girl-Girl subdirectory.

Although the model index definitely helps those viewers to whom the model is the most important component of a shoot or scene, there’s no information given about these models, leaving us to wonder what their interests are, both sexual and otherwise, and what they enjoy doing for their audience.

A few of the older galleries only reach a maximum photo resolution of 1024x768. This drop in quality is especially surprising when you consider that The Life Erotic is less than a year old.

While the content is definitely very tantalizing, there isn’t too much of it; at least, not yet. With only 40 videos and just over 200 image galleries, there’s definitely room for a busier update schedule and larger archive here at The Life Erotic.

Conclusion:
You’ve got a twenty burning a hole in your wallet, just begging to be spent, and while you can’t exactly feed it into your CD/DVD drive to pay for a pornsite membership, finding some way to get yourself inside The Life Erotic wouldn’t be a bad move if you’re into softcore glamor models and light hardcore lesbian content. The quality here is astounding, bringing you incredible amounts of detail for a very reasonable price. The Life Erotic hasn’t been around for very long - less than a year - and, as such, it’s not surprising that there isn’t a whole load of content online right now. The update schedule could do with a little more action, but it’s certainly not slow or lifeless, even now. For $19.99, there’s little reason not to strongly consider giving The Life Erotic a go, even without a huge back catalog of material at your disposal. After all, it’s better than your current Saturday afternoon plans of doing nothing, isn’t it?