Lisa J. Murphy doesn't make ordinary books. Most books are meant to be looked at, read only with your eyes. Hers are meant to be touched.

Her book Tactile Mind, which she hand-crafted herself, is meant to be felt up, to be precise. It is an erotic book for the blind and visually impaired, though it can be enjoyed by the sighted as well.

A photographer with a certificate in Tactile Graphics from the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, Murphy learned to create touchable images of animals for books for visually impaired children.

Then she realized that there was a lack of such books for adults only.

"There are no books of tactile pictures of nudes for adults, at least the last time I looked around," says Murphy.

"We're breaking new ground. Playboy has (an edition with) Braille wording, but there are no pictures."

She says that while we live in a culture saturated with sexual images, the blind have been "left out."

There are more than 836,000 Canadians living with significant vision loss, according to the CNIB. As the population ages over the coming decade, this number is expected to rise dramatically.

Though porn for the blind sounds like an oxymoron, Murphy assures that it is not.

Tactile Mind is half art object, half artisanal concept book. It contains explicit softcore images that are raised from its pages, along with Braille text and photos. The effect of the tactile, plastic "images" is a bit like that of an ancient Greek bas-relief. Or, somewhat less precisely, a smutty pop-up book.

Creating a tactile book is far from simple, Murphy says. She recruited some friends and photographed them wearing masks, streamers, Christmas lights, or nothing at all. That was the easy part.

Then she blew up the photos and built on top of them with clay, being careful to mimic the photo in three (well, two and a half) dimensions.

She baked them until they were hardened, and then covered them with a layer of special Thermoform plastic that molds to what it touches when heated up.

After being heated in a special machine, the plastic-finished product is ready to become a plate in the book. The whole process takes Murphy between 40 and 50 hours. That's for just one image.

"I was just interested in the challenge," she says. "When you're dealing with people who can read Braille with their fingertips, they can feel every error."

The book won't fit on just any shelf. It's 13 to 15 centimetres thick when shut.

It displays the visual photos alongside the tactile image based on them. A Braille description describes what's in the photos, such as articles of clothing.

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"It'll say, `He's wearing a mask,' (so readers know) he's not missing a nose," says Murphy.

At $225 per numbered, signed copy, the book is definitely upscale.

"People love to touch it and look at it," says Jesse Huisken, co-owner of This Ain't The Rosedale Library. "People think it's charming; they just can't afford it."

The book also retails at fetish store Northbound Leather, where it is at home among other things tactile.

"It is something completely new, something completely different," says manager Enza.

She says Northbound stocks other erotic toys that emphasize touch over sight, such as a stimulation device that administers electric current. It's controlled by manipulating a doll that's attached.

The market is growing for erotic toys and pornography made for people normally left out of the traditional demographic for such things–that is, white, straight, able-bodied males.

The Feminist Porn Awards took place in Toronto on Thursday and Friday, honouring the kind of dirty movie that "expands the boundaries of sexual representation on film and challenges stereotypes that are often found in mainstream porn."

Murphy's book lends, uh, depth to her sexy subject matter.

Although she lists her CNIB credentials, she says it's unclear if the advocacy organization would approve of her book. Representatives were unavailable to comment by press time.

"I think they might be a little conservative," Murphy says.