Recent non-fiction and erotica

Posted by lilech on May 16, 2012

Brooke Magnanti’s (aka Belle de Jour’s) new book, The Sex Myth, reviewed.

Eric Berkowitz’s new book on the history of Sex and Punishment: “Berkowitz, a lawyer-cum-journalist, has used both his skills to extremely good effect. … Early on, when comparing Mosaic law with that of the earlier Middle Assyrians, and noting almost identical concern about what should happen if a woman attacks a man’s balls when fighting, Berkowitz observes that Deuteronomy was not necessarily dictated by God, but that “it appears that this Hebrew law was a reflection of a regional testicle fixation”.”

Sex and Terror: “In Sex and Terror, Pascal Quignard looks closely at this delicate interplay of celebration and terror. In startling and original readings of myths, satires, memoirs, and works of ancient philosophy and visual art, Quignard locates moments of both playful, aesthetic commemoration and outward cruelty.”

A collection of French surrealist texts on sex: “At one point, a heated debate takes place on the desirability of having sex with women who can’t speak French. In the end, all that’s established is that any consensus on these matters is impossible.”

A forthcoming issue of Signs devoted to sex, with a focus on early modern western Europe.

Nava Renek reviews The Unbearables Big Book of Sex: “The book is roughly divided into thematic sections; it moves from the human condition, reflected in sex, to the mundanity of the act, to the opposite of erotica, deviant behavior, sexual violence, some verse, and finally essays about sex or sexual behavior.”

Words Without Borders posts an issue devoted to sex, inc. the stories “The Hole in the Garden II,” “The Hunchback and Botticelli’s Venice,” “Meow,” etc.

“For those of us who secretly read V.C. Andrews and The Story of O under the covers with flashlights in early adolescence, Tamara Faith Berger is our grown-up literary saint. Her prose has consistently traversed extreme, forbidden territory, infusing filth with intelligence and sophistication unseen in much of Canadian literature. Daring and candid depictions of sexuality are her legacy; first with the intensely pornographic and female-centric musings of Lie With Me, and later with The Way of the Whore, both of which cemented Berger as a perhaps unwitting standard for accurate depictions of rabid female desire.”

What do Swedes read? Elfriede Jelinek. “The novel runs wild and rampant, spilling sex into every crevice. It’s not a dirty book—it’s filthy. And while this is the opposite of the primness in some recent American fiction, it isn’t exactly the opposite of troubling.”

Top 10 most provocative books out this month.

Exhibitionism

Posted by lilech on April 3, 2012

“The nonverbal behavior of women toward men according to their menstrual cycle has not been previously explored. In this study, the gait of women walking ahead a male confederate was recorded with the help of a spy-camera. … Comparisons were performed according to the women’s ovulation phase measured with an LH salivary test. Near ovulation, it was found that women walked slower and their gait was subjectively rated as sexier.“

“Do women who like politics have more orgasms?“

“This article looks at the position of the drag king in Hungarian lesbian culture. It focuses on Bandage, Socks and Facial Hair (2006), a documentary about a drag king workshop. The film documents the historical moment when the Hungarian workshop participants encounter the drag king as a lesbian tool for parodying and repoliticizing mainstream masculinity.”

“According to early modern European medical theory, men could menstruate vicariously through various bodily orifices. Although some medical men thought that the flow was pathological, others believed it brought significant health benefits. However, as the ability to control one’s body and mind became central to eighteenth-century definitions of manhood, leaky male bodies became increasingly problematic.”

Tony Perrottet’s article, “Who was Casanova?”

Danny Sutton photographed by Bunny Yeager

Source.

“The Rule of Thumb: Vagina Types and Variability of Female Orgasm … What [Princess Marie Bonaparte] discovered was a direct correlation between the ability to orgasm through vaginal sex and the measurement of space between the vagina and the clitoris.”

“Traumatic penile amputation is a rare condition requiring urgent surgical consultation with almost immediate surgical intervention. … These injuries are penetrating in nature, usually occur with the organ flaccid and most are self-inflicted by mentally unstable patients. … This report describes penile replantation in a 24-year old mentally challenged patient using 4.5× loupe-magnification to restore a functional, fully erectile penis without tissue loss and a 20-year problem free follow-up.”

“Mediated exhibitionism is the phenomenon of amateur performers exposing their nude bodies on the Internet, and includes the exchange of nude images by email, text message, webcam, electronic bulletin board, and other means of digital communication. … A series of websites catering to mediated exhibitionism were investigated.”

“Research has shown men and women of all ages and sexual orientations to use the Internet for sexual purposes. For example, the Internet is used to access pornography, to find sex-related information, to purchase sexual merchandise, and to find partners for romance and sex. … The purpose of this chapter is to provide the reader with an empirical and theoretical overview of the first 15 years of research in the field of Internet sexuality.”

Elizabeth Taylor:

Courtesans, cocottes and Cléo

Posted by lilech on November 29, 2011

By Jan Saudek

“The three most notorious courtesans of the age–known as the Les Grandes Trois–were Emilienne d’Alençon, Liane de Pougy, and Caroline Otero, called “La Belle Otero.” Like many other top courtesans and middling prostitutes, the three women earned the bulk of their infamy as actresses in such places as the Folies Bergère.”

A guide to Parisienne prostitutes of the belle époque: “This slender opus has rightly enjoyed an underground cachet among academics for its wealth of human detail, providing … names and addresses of Paris’ most alluring clubs, nightspots, and private boudoirs of 1883. … Only 169 copies of the guide were printed “for private distribution”. … Today, Pretty Women is extremely rare, with only three original survivors. One of them happens to be in the New York Public Library, kept safely … in the Rare Books Division in Midtown.”

“Even now, legends of Edward’s [King Edward VII's] appetites filter through Paris. … According to Maisons Closes, or Shuttered Houses, the classic study of Paris’ brothels written in 1958 by [Robert Miquel], the Prince of Wales grew so obese in middle age that he commissioned the construction of a fauteuil d’amour—a “sex chair”—to be kept in his favorite luxury brothel, Le Chabanais. This bizarre device allowed him to have sex without crushing the poor girl with his enormous bulk.”

“The most interesting features of the bed room were the copper tub decorated with a half-swan-half-woman, in which Bertie [King Edward VII] liked to bathe with a prostitute or two in champagne, and a chair, a siège d’amour (love seat) actually, in which the overweight Prince of Wales could do…well…whatever he wished with the cocotte of his choice.”

“Colin Jones and Emily Richardson reveal a little-known collection of obscene and irreverent 18th-century drawings targetting Madame de Pompadour, the favourite mistress of Louis XV of France.”

“One of the most distinctive features of the urban culture of the nineteenth century — a feature which … distinguishes it sharply from the urban culture of the present day — was the existence of prostitution on a scale so widespread and so obvious as to cause considerable alarm to contemporaries.”

“The Cautionary Tale of Elizabeth Kenning (c.1790–1829): … Elizabeth “grew very desperate and determined on revenge.” Instead of regretting her loss of virtue, “from the seduced I became the seducer.” She moved into a brothel, where she was entirely “initiated in the ways of infamy and vice” and began to “lay snares for defenceless youth.””

“London’s Most Famous Prostitute, ‘Skittles’: … Of the estimated 80,000 prostitutes plying their trade in London in the middle of the nineteenth century, perhaps the most famous was Catherine Walters. Known by the nickname of ‘Skittles’ (possibly because she worked at a bowling alley near Park Lane) she was, it has to be said, more than just an average prostitute.”

Geographies of Regulation: Policing Prostitution in Nineteenth-Century Britain and the Empire: “The incidence of venereal disease in the military caused grave concern. Reluctantly, the government attempted to solve the problem through the … Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864, 1867, and 1869. Concerned about the physical and moral health of the military and its readiness to shoulder imperial burdens, these statutes attempted to resolve the problem by dealing with the prostitutes, not their customers.”

The Secret History of Georgian London: “One Sunday in January 1769, Alderman Drybones paid a pretend virgin called Nell Blossom 20 guineas for the pleasure of deflowering her. Sir Harry Flagellum paid ten guineas to be beaten by Bet Flourish or Miss Birch from Chapel Sreet, and Colonel Tearall paid ten guineas for ‘a modest woman’ who would let him do what he liked with her.” From another review: “[Jane Austen] was actually very aware of the dangers to poor, unprotected women of the predatory nature of the London sex industry. … In Pride and Prejudice, the spiteful old ladies of Meryton were also well aware to the fate reserved for those who publicly strayed from the strict moral path and were most disappointed when Lydia, happily living in sin with Wickham in London, was retuned, safely married.” And more: “At about the same time, the most famous erotic novel of the time was released. Fanny Hill by John Cleland shows the progress of a harlot, but unlike the unhappy heroine of Hogarth’s series, Fanny has a happy ending as did many of the women of ill repute of the times.” And finally (another literary connection): “That there was a bright side to sex in the Georgian city was shown by the astonishing success of The Beggar’s Opera in 1728, celebrating the low life of Macheath and his harlots. However, Mary Young, who was the original Polly Peachum, came to no such cheerful reprieve at the end. … She was hanged at Tyburn in 1741.”

Courtesans and whores’ biographies

Posted by lilech on May 22, 2011

Marisa Berenson as Lady Lyndon

“[Princess] Dorothea [Lieven, née von Benckendorff] devoted herself tirelessly to the welfare of Russia, assiduously sleeping with every major statesman on the European stage, including Metternich, ‘the first statesman in Europe’, George IV and each successive British prime minister bar George Canning, whom she saw as a plebeian with no manners.”

Harriette Wilson, a very busy courtesan, was less discriminating. Before publishing her memoirs, she “wrote to everyone she intended to name, making clear that there was still time to edit them out in return for £200. Many decided that this blackmail was cheap at the price, among them the Foreign Secretary and future Prime Minister, George Canning.” Wilson “was not beautiful … but exuded sex appeal and vivacity. Barely educated, she studied hard to ensure that she was attractive to gentlemen of a more intellectual bent, reading in short order, Seneca, Rousseau’s Confessions, Racine’s tragedies and Boswell’s Life of Johnson. ‘I allowed myself only ten minutes for my dinner,’ wrote this ambitious young girl.”

Another famous prostitute who wielded a dangerous memoir was the Dublin madam known as Mrs. Leeson (aka Peg Plunket)

Julie Peakman has written about the ‘whore biographies‘ penned by Wilson, Leeson and others. Here’s a discussion of one of Peakman’s articles on this 18th- and 19th-century genre.

Perhaps the most interesting of the British courtesans of this era was Grace Dalrymple Elliott, about whom there’s a book called My Lady Scandalous by Jo Manning. More here.

Scene from Stanley Kubrick's 'Barry Lyndon'

There’s a bawdy folk song about another prostitue of that era, Kitty Fisher

Charlotte’s girls — 18th-century prostitutes in the employ of Charlotte Hayes, who appears on Wikipedia’s list of British brothel keepers

Here’s an on-line copy of Horace Bleackley’s 1909 book, Ladies Fair and Frail; Sketches of the Demi-Monde During the Eighteenth Century, with chapters on the more famous 18th- and 19th-century British prostitutes

“Over the lifespan of the [Men and Women's] club (1885-1889), discussions ranged from sexual relations in Periclean Athens to the position of Buddhist nuns, to sexuality and its relation to marriage, prostitution, and friendship.“

Hogarth's depiction of the orgy scene in 'Rake's Progress'

The Royal Dildo — nasty, pornographic rumors about Marie Antoinette

A blog post on the history of Parisienne brothels, inc. Le Chabanais

This looks interesting: “Prostitution, in Rosenthal’s view, confronted the core controversies of eighteenth-century capitalism: luxury, desire, global trade, commodification, social mobility, gender identity, imperialism, self-ownership, alienation, and even the nature of work itself.”

Here’s a bookseller’s list of books on courtesans

And now for something completely different: