Put What Where?: Over 2,000 Years of Bizarre Sex Advice

Mating. Reproduction. The survival of the species. How much more crucial does it get?

You’d think homo sapiens would have sorted out that one pretty sharpish. But no. Since the start of civilization, human sex has been absurdly complicated by a steady dripfeed of self-appointed experts: moralists, pundits, visionaries, ju-ju men, zealots and learned academics – all claiming to know the magical secrets of lovemaking. And they were all prepared to sell their wisdom to you at a very reasonable price. Just as every generation likes to think it invented sexual intercourse, we also like to think we invented sex advice, or at least built it on a very limited number of predecessors: the Kama Sutra, maybe Marie Stopes’ 1918 Married Love and the 1970s The Joy of Sex. But in fact today’s maelstrom of lovemaking manuals, videos and DVDs has a far richer and more twisted heritage than that. The genre is way older than the novel, and takes us right back to an ancient Chinese tomb-hoard of books first written in 300 BC.

Every era has had its Dr Ruths dictating to us the correct way, the right place, the essential time, the appropriate shape, the perfect partner and, of course, the ultimate naughtiness. And what a proud parade: they feature, to mention but a few, Roman poets, medieval woman-haters, Victorian adventurers, astral travellers, gay sandal-makers, dope peddlers, racial-purity fanatics, wholewheat snack-makers, an impotent love guru, a divorced virgin and a toga-wearing erectophobe. If these self-appointed sexperts share one common characteristic, it’s a special strain of eccentricity. Along with the throng of plain charlatans came the freaks, geeks, dreamers, anarchists, rebels and lost souls who were so out of kilter with society that they felt driven to preach about a legally perilous subject in a manner almost guaranteed to offend those in authority, scandalize friends and families, and frequently land them behind bars.

One of their great motives was, as usual, power – the power to tell people what they should and should not do in their most private moments. But they were also driven by a streak of evangelism, the messianic eye-gleam of people convinced that they had found the sexual solution to life’s miseries. In many ways, the old advice books were not actually about sex itself, but alchemy: promising to reveal secret formulae for the perfect existence, the greatest happiness, and to open up a conduit to divine wisdom. Some even claimed that secret bouts of ritualistic congress could grant you magical powers and immortality.

Despite (or because of) this legion of advisors, sensible sex advice was a long time coming. It was only very recently that we finally learnt the precise mechanics of reproduction. This information gap didn’t stop the experts, though. They simply made it all up, using as their guide a hodge-podge of previous books, current fashion, a bit of fieldwork and their own deep personal prejudices. But if old sex books can’t help us much with the art and science of lovemaking, they do open for us a new window on to history’s lurid mosaic of obsession, fear, lust, hatred, fantasy and insanity. Welcome to the human condition.

So much for the writers, but what about us, the readers? Why do we spend precious money and time on sex manuals? Bonobo monkeys are our closest primate cousins, and although you wouldn’t catch a bonobo monkey with his nose stuck in a mating manual, they enjoy a sexual repertoire – multi-positions, group sex, lesbianism, etc. – that is at least as complex, acrobatic and experimental as most human couples ever sample. True, bonobos have sex in public, which humans mostly don’t – so their young get an education that consists of ‘watch it, learn it and try it’. Then again, the human imagination, and the ample amount of time it dedicates to sexual fantasy, can generally be trusted to work out all the physical permutations on its own. But there is something else about the private nature of human sex: it plants nagging questions in people’s heads – am I normal; am I doing it in a way that is correct, fun, efficient and legal; and, of course, can I do it better?

Education aside, one can’t ignore the titillation factor associated with anything to do with sex, particularly in decades past when such information was heavily censored and even the most straightforward information could be considered hot stuff – although much of it came across as a mix between an engineering treatise, a lengthy sermon and a wholefood cookbook. That sort of illicit thrill scores bulls-eye on the brain’s reward centre – which responds by sending the message, ‘That was good, let’s do it again, it might be better next time’. Thus, sex manuals throughout history have elbowed hot cakes into second place on the sales charts. The books have frequently used the same sales lure – there’s an amazing secret regime revealed inside that will truly change your life. Today the same trick is used to sell diet, exercise and psychological self-help books. The song remains the same: our modern era is remarkable only in the sheer, overwhelming volume of sex advice being churned out and avidly consumed. One in four British women says they own a sex manual, according to a survey by the publishers Dorling Kindersley in 2003. Writers and publishers are putting out new sex books every month. Everyone is at it, from former porn stars to the car-workshop manual maker Haynes. Then there are DVDs, videos, websites and mass advertising – the Sunday Telegraph carries adverts for a ‘clitoral stimulator’ and none of its readers’ horses bolt.

We’ve become saturated with sex advice. That should, in theory, make for bookshelves crowded with surprising, amazing and revelatory material. In reality, though, it doesn’t. Now that medicine has sorted out the science and most of us share a liberal sense of morality, the texts all tend to say rather the same thing, albeit in a variety of permutations. Ho hum. That’s why, if you still fancy a spot of true variety and spice between the covers of a sex manual, there’s only one place to go – back in time, to where all the strange folk and their peculiar practices lie quietly waiting for you. Just one word of warning, though: please don’t try any of it at home.

Caution! Before You Start Sex, Remember...

Tight buns and corsets cause nymphomania

Dr John Cowan, The Science of a New Life (1888)

The constricting of the waist and abdomen by corsets, girdles and waistbands prevents the return of venous blood to the heart, and the consequent overloading of the sexual organs causes the unnatural excitement of the sexual system.

The majority of women, adoring followers of the goddess Fashion, wear their hair in a large, heavy knot on the back part of the head, and when their own is insufficient to make a roll enough, false hair is added. This great pressure on the small brain produces great heat in the part and causes an unusual flow of the blood to the area of amativeness and, if persisted in, a chronic inflammation of the sexual organ, and a chronic desire for its sexual exercise ... It is almost impossible that she should lead other than a life of sexual excess.

Sexual jealousy can ruin your skin

Fang Nei Chi (Records of the Bedchamber), Sui Dynasty (AD 590–618)

A woman should not allow herself to become jealous or sad if she sees her man copulate with another woman, for then her yin essence will become overexcited. She will be afflicted by pains while sitting and standing, and the vaginal emissions will flow spontaneously. These are ills that will cause a woman to wither and age before her time. Therefore she should guard against this.

Never share a bedroom

Marie Stopes, Married Love (1918)

It may enchant a man once – perhaps even twice – to watch his goddess screw her hair up into a tight and unbecoming knot and soap her ears. But it is inherently too unlovely a proceeding to retain indefinite enchantment ... So far as is possible ensure that you allow your husband to come upon you only when there is delight in the meeting. Whenever the finances allow, the husband and wife should have separate bedrooms, failing that they should have a curtain which can at will be drawn so as to divide the room they share. No soul can grow to its full nature without its spells of solitude. A woman’s body and soul should be essentially her own, and that can only be so if she has an inviolable retreat.

Ejaculating may repel your partner

Theodoor Hendrik Van de Velde, Ideal Marriage, Its Physiology and Technique (1928)

After mental and emotional excitement the smell of the semen is more acrid, after muscular exertion, more aromatic and, after several repeated acts of coitus in rapid succession it becomes fainter, but stale and unpleasant.

I know of one highly talented and delicately sensitive woman who abruptly terminated a liaison on finding, at the first act of sexual intercourse, that the special seminal odour of the man was intolerably unpleasant to her ... It may be said in general that the odour of semen is exciting and stimulating to women and unpleasant, even nauseating to men. For a woman, the odour of the beloved man’s semen is delightful and excites her anew; but that of an unloved mate fills her with loathing.

Never make love with goblins

Fang Nei Chi (Records of the Bedchamber), Sui Dynasty (AD 590–618)

If a person has an unbalanced sex life, his sexual desire will increase. Devils and goblins will take advantage of this condition. They assume human shape and have sexual intercourse with such a person. They are much more skilled in this art than human beings, so much so that their victim becomes completely enamoured of the ghostly lover. Those people will keep the relation secret and will not speak about its delights. In the end they succumb alone, without anyone being the wiser.

The after-effects of copulation with an incubus can be cured by the following method: the man should copulate all day and night without ejaculating, then after seven days the disease will be cured. When his body is so fatigued that he cannot continue the act, the man should let his penis rest in the woman’s vagina and he will benefit all the same. If this disease is not treated as indicated here, the victim will die in a few years.

If one wishes a proof of the existence of incubi, one has but to repair alone to a marsh place far away in the mountains, in spring or autumn. One should stay there in a condition of complete tranquillity, staring into space and concentrating one’s thoughts on sexual intercourse. After three days and three nights, the body will suddenly become alternately cold and hot, the heart will be troubled and the vision blurred.

Then, a man engaging in this experiment will meet a woman, and a woman a man. During sexual intercourse with such an incubus one will experience a pleasure that is greater than ever felt while copulating with an ordinary human being. But at the same time one will become subject to this disease which is difficult to cure.

Evil women can contain iron

Albertus Magnus, De Secretis Mulierum (The Secrets of Women) (c. 1478)

O my companions you should be aware that although certain women do not know the secret cause of what I shall describe, many women are familiar with the effect, and many evils result from this. For when men have sexual intercourse with these women it sometimes happens that they suffer a large wound and a serious infection of the penis because of iron that has been placed in the vagina, for some women or harlots are instructed in this and other ill deeds.

Post-climax calamities

Havelock Ellis, Psychology of Sex: a manual for students (1933)

So profound is the organic convulsion involved by the process of detumescence that serious effects have sometimes followed coitus. Especially in men, not only death itself, but numerous disorders and accidents have been known to follow immediately after coitus, these results being mainly due to the vascular and muscular excitement involved by the process of detumescence.

Fainting, vomiting, involuntary urination and defecation have been noted as occurring in young men after first coitus. Epilepsy has been not infrequently recorded. Lesions of various organs, even rupture of the spleen, have sometimes taken place.

In men of mature age the arteries have at times been unable to resist the high blood pressure and cerebral haemorrhage with paralysis has occurred. In elderly men the excitement of intercourse with young wives or with prostitutes has sometimes caused death. Such results are, however, exceptional. They tend to occur in persons who are abnormally sensitive or who have imprudently transgressed the obvious rules of sexual hygiene.

Sex during the monthlies causes ...

The Treasury of Natural Secrets (anon., Italy, 16th century)

Physical weakness

Ten years’ premature ageing

Simple-mindedness

Loss of libido

Aches and pains in stomach, feet, eyes, brain, head

Ringing in ears

High fevers

Tremors

Weak nerves

Poor eyesight

Baldness