John Naish - Put What Where? - Over 2,000 Years of Bizarre Sex Advice

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