  AND first of all let us consider what is accomplished by means of the mentula introduced into the vulva. This is, properly speaking, to effect copulation; but there are various ways of doing it. As a matter of fact copulation can be effected:—the man face downwards with the woman on her back, the man on his back with the woman face down, the man on his back with the woman turning her back to him; the man sitting with the woman turning her face towards him, sitting with the woman turning her back to him; the man standing or kneeling with the woman turning her face towards him, standing or kneeling with the woman turning her back to him. Let us examine each of these methods separately. Coition with the man face down on the woman who lies on her back is the ordinary method, and the most natural. Aloysia Sigaea says: “For my own part I like the usual custom and the ordinary method best: the man should lie upon the woman, who is on her back, breast to breast, stomach to stomach, pubis to pubis, piercing her tender cleft with his rigid spear. Indeed what can be imagined sweeter than for the woman to lie extended on her back, bearing the welcome weight of her lovers’ body, and exciting him to the tender transports of a restless but delicious voluptuousness? What more pleasant than to feast on her lovers’ face, his kisses, his sighs, and the fire of his wanton eyes? What better than to press the loved one in her arms and so awake new fires of desire, to participate in amorous sensations unblunted by any taint of age or infirmity? What more favorable to the delight and enjoyment of both than such lascivious movements given and received? What more opportune at the instant of dying a voluptuous death than to recover again under the revivifying vigour of burning kisses? He who plies Venus on the reverse side, satisfies but one of his senses, he who does the same face to face satisfied them all.” (Dialogue VI.) Ovid, the Master of Loves’ Mysteries, invites pretty women to take this posture by preference: “See you reckon up each of your charms, and take your posture according to your beauty. One and the same mode does not become every woman. You are especially attractive of face; then lie on your back.” (Art of Love, III., 771-773.) This posture is by no means limited to one mode. The woman lying on her back, the rider may clasp her between his legs, or she may receive him between hers. Yet another position may be adopted, according as the woman lie back with legs stretched wide apart or with the knees raised. It is this position,—lying on her back with legs wide apart, that Caviceo asks Olympia to assume for making Love: “I do not wish you”, he says, “to work your buttocks, or to respond with corresponding movements to my efforts. Neither do I wish you to lift your legs up, whether both at once, or one after the other, when I have mounted you. What I do wish you to do is this: First stretch your thighs as far apart, open them as wide as a woman well can. Offer your vulva to the member which is going to pierce it, and without altering this position, let me complete the work.... Count my thrusts one by one, and see you make no mistake in the total” (Aloysia Sigaea, Dialogue V.). Would you see a representation of this? Take the tale FÉlicia ou mes fredaines, part II., ch. xxv, and look at the plate facing the text. The other position, in which the woman is lying with her knees raised, is the one which Callias makes Tullia take: “After I am lying upon your dear body”, he says, “press me fast in your arms, and hold me thus embraced. Draw your legs back as far as you can, so that your pretty feet touch your buttocks, smooth as marble” (Aloysia Sigaea, Dialogue VI.). If you would enter the woman lying on her back with her legs in the air, it may be done in yet another way than Tullia’s mode, and one perhaps still more delicious, by placing your mistress so that she rests her legs crossed over the loins of her rider. A representation of this very pleasant posture, which would rouse the numbed tool of a Hippolytus, is to be found in part IV. of the FÉlicia mentioned above. There is another similar plate in ch. xxi, not without charm. Doris, in the epigram of Sosipator, vol. I. of the Analecta of Brunck (p. 584), seems also to have made a trial of this figure: “When I stretched Doris with the rosy buttocks on the bed, I felt immortal in my youthful vigour; for she clipped me round the middle with her strong legs, and unswervingly rode out the long-course of Love.” Doris did not bestride him; the expression, “When I stretched” shows this; she was lying on her back, and with her feet lifted up clasped her rider. But again the feet of the woman lying on her back may also be held up by others. In this way Aloysio enjoyed Tullia with the help of Fabrizio, in the VI. Dialogue of Aloysia Sigaea, where Tullia expresses herself as follows: “Aloysio and Fabrizio come running towards me. “Lift up your legs”, says Aloysio to me, threatening me with his cutlass. I lifted them up. Then down he lies on my bosom, and plunges his cutlass in my ever open wound. Fabrizio raised my two legs in the air, and slipping a hand under each of my hams, moves my loins for me without any trouble on my part. What a singular and pleasant mode of making you move! I declared I was on fire, but before I could end my sentence, the overflowing foam of Venus quenched the fire” So too was it with feet in air, whether of her own accord or seconded by another, that Leda gave herself, with her husband’s consent, to the doctors who had been called in, as Martial describes the scene: “To her old spouse Leda had declared herself to be hysterical, and complains she must needs be f...cked; yet with tears and groans avers she will not buy health at such a price, and swears she had rather die. The husband beseeches her to live, not to die in her youth and beauty; and permits others to do what he cannot effect himself. Straightway the doctors arrive, the matrons retire; and up go the wife’s legs in air; oh! medicine grave and stern!” (XI., 72.) Face downwards to her the man may do the woman’s business, while she is half reclining, either obliquely in bed, or on a chair, or lying sideways. The latter position is recommended by Ovid to the woman with rounded thighs and faultless figure: “She that has young rounded thigh and flawless bosom, should ever lie reclined sideways on the couch” Copulation face to face with the woman sitting obliquely is described by Aloysia Sigaea with her usual elegance and vivacity: “Caviceo came on, blithe and joyous” (it is Olympia speaking). “He despoils me of my chemise, and his libertine hand touches my parts. He tells me to sit down again as I was seated before, and places a chair under either foot in a way that my legs were lifted high in air, and the gate of my garden was wide open to the assaults I was expecting. He then slides his right hand under my buttocks and draws me a little closer to him. With his left he supported the weight of his spear. Then he laid himself down on me ... put his battering-ram to my gate, inserted the head of his member into the outermost fissure, opening the lips of it with his fingers. But there he stopped, and for awhile made no further attack. “Octavia sweetest”, he says, “clasp me tightly, raise your right thigh and rest it on my side.”—“I do not know what you want”, I said. Hearing this he lifted my thigh with his own hand, and guided it round his loin, as he wished; finally he forced his arrow into the target of Venus. In the beginning he pushes in with gentle blows, then quicker, and at last with such force I could not doubt that I was in great danger. His member was hard as horn, and he forced it in so cruelly, that I cried out, “You will tear me to pieces.” He stopped a moment from his work. “I implore you to be quiet, my dear”, he said, “it can only be done this way; endure it without flinching.” Again his hand slid under my buttocks, drawing me nearer, for I had made a feint to draw back, and without more delay plied me with such fast and furious blows that I was near fainting away. With a violent effort he forced his spear right in, and the point fixed itself in the depths of the wound. I cry out.... Caviceo spirted out his venerean exudation, and I felt irrigated by a burning rain.... Just as Caviceo slackened, I experienced a sort of voluptuous itch as though I were making water; involuntarily I draw my buttocks back a little, and in an instant I felt with supreme pleasure something flowing from me which tickled me deliciously. My eyes failed me, my breath came thick, my face was on fire, and I felt my whole body melting. “Ah! ah! ah! my Caviceo, I shall faint away”, I cried; “hold my soul—it is escaping from my body” (Dialogue V.). Finally the conjunction with the woman lying on her side, particularly on her right side, is deemed by Ovid the most simple, calling for the least effort: “A thousand modes of Love are there; the simplest and least laborious of all is when the woman lies reclined on her right side” (Art of Love, III., 787, 88). Above all this position is the most convenient for tall women: “Let her press the bed with her knees, with the neck slightly bowed, she whose chief beauty is her long shapely flank” (Art of Love, III., v. 779, 80). It seems that the Phyllis of Martial allowed herself to be done in that way: “Two arrived in the morning, who wanted to lie with Phyllis, and each was fain to be first to hold her naked body in his arms; Phyllis promised to satisfy them both together, and she did it; one lifted her leg, the other her tunic” (X., 81). She was lying on her side; the f... lifted her leg; the pederast her tunic. We now come to the manner, in which the man lying on his back has connection with the woman face downwards. The parts are interchanged; the woman plays the rider and the man the horse. This figure was called the horse of Hector. Martial says: “Behind the doors the Phrygian slaves would be masturbating, every time AndromachÉ mounted her Hector horse fashion” (XI., 105). Ovid, however, with much sagacity denies that this posture could have pleased AndromachÉ; her figure was too tall, for this to have been agreeable or even possible for her. It is for little women, that it is pleasant to be thus placed: “A little woman may very well get astride on her horse; but tall and majestic as she was, the Theban bride never mounted the Hectorean horse” (Art of Love, III., v. 777, 778). It is no business of ours to decide the question. At any rate Sempronia takes this posture with Crisogono. “He could wait no longer: “Are you undressed”, said Crisogono. “Now, my Sempronia, take the position, which gives me so much pleasure, you know which.” He stretches himself down on his back, she gets upon him astride, with her face towards him, and with her own hand guides his burning arrow between her thighs” (Aloysia Sigaea, Dial. VII). This is the same attitude, which in Horace is imposed by the slave upon the little harlot, who: “... naked in the light of the lantern, plied with wanton wiles and moving buttocks the horse beneath her” (Sat. II. vii, v. 50). As to the matron spoken of v. 64 of the same satire as “never having sinned above”, no doubt this posture did not suit her. Women have not all the same taste. Evidently, it was as little to the taste of the girl whom Xanthias in Aristophanes’ Wasps (v. 499) asked to ride him; for she asks him indignantly, and playing on the double meaning of the word (Hippias and ——, a horse), if he was for re-establishing Hippias’ tyranny: “Irritated she asked me if I wanted to revive the tyranny of Hippias.” Again in his Lysistrata (v. 678) this master of wanton wit points to the same thing, declaring the female sex to be very good at riding and fond of driving: “Woman loves to get on horseback and to stick there.” Aristophanes mocks similarly those, of whom he says, in verse 60 of the same play, that “They are aboard their barks.” “They are mounted on their chargers.” For —— signifies both a ship and a horse. Plango in Asclepiades, Brunck’s Analecta, vol. I., 217, affects the same figure. “When she in horsemanship vanquished the ardent Philaenis, whilst her Hesperian coursers foamed under her reins.” Yet more expert in this kind of amorous riding than Philaenis herself, this ardent votary of pleasure thanks Venus in this epigram, that she has been able so to exhaust certain Hesperian gallants, whom she had mounted, that they had left her with wanton members all drooping, and feeling no desire left in them. To bestride men was also the favourite pastime of LysidicÉ, who was never tired in the service of Venus, of whom the following epigram of Asclepiades treats: “Many a horse has she ridden beneath her, yet never galled her thigh with all her nimble movements.” Courtesans consecrated to Venus a whip, a bit, a spur, in order to signify, that with their clients they like best to pose themselves in that way, and that they preferred riding themselves to being ridden,—nothing more. It is the same when in Apuleius, Fotis satiated her Lucius with the pleasures of the undulating Venus: “Saying this she leaped upon the couch and, seated upon me backwards, plying her hips, vibrating her lithe spine lasciviously, she satiated me with the delights of the undulating Venus, till both of us exhausted, powerless and with useless limbs, sunk down, exhaling our souls in mutual embraces” (Metamorph., II., ch. II). The next figure,—the man lying supine and the woman turning her back to him, is executed by Rangoni with Ottavia, under the direction of Tullia: Rangoni: Look how stiff I stand! But I want to try the bliss in a new way. Tullia: In a new way? No! I swear by my wanton soul you shall not. You shall not take a new way. Rangoni: It was a slip of the tongue; I meant to say a new posture. Tullia: And what sort of one? I have an idea ... what they call the horse of Hector. Lie down on your back, Rangoni; let your puissant spear stand firm to the enemy, who is to be pierced, Well done! Ottavia: What must I do, Tullia? Tullia: Clip Rangoni between your thighs, mounting him a-straddle. His cutlass as he lies should meet your sheath poised over it. Why! you’ve taken the position admirably. Excellent! Rangoni: Oh! what a back, worthy of Venus! Oh! the ivory sides! Oh! the inviting buttocks! Tullia: No naughty words! He who praises the buttocks, slanders the vulva! You know better, Ottavia! Her greedy vulva has swallowed your bristling member whole, Rangoni. Ottavia: Quick, Rangoni, it is coming!... quick, quick, help me! Rangoni: I am coming, Ottavia,—I am come! Are you?—Are you, darling! Tullia: How now? Are you so quickly done up, you two? (Aloysia Sigaea, Dial. VI). The pygiacic “Eumolpus did not hesitate to invite the young girl to the pygiacic mysteries, but begged of her to seat herself upon the goodness known to her (that being himself, to whose goodness the mother had recommended her daughter), and ordered Corax to get on his stomach under the bed on which he was, so that with his hands pressed against the floor, he might assist with his movements those of his master. Corax obeyed, beginning with slow undulations responding to those of the young girl. When the crisis was approaching, Eumolpus exhorted Corax with a loud voice to quicken up his movements. Thus placed between his servant and his mistress, the old man took his pleasure as in a swing.” Would it be surprising, if in these posterior mysteries, Eumolpus’ member had perchance gone wrong, and taken by mistake one orifice for the other? You will find this figure represented in a copper-plate engraving in the very elegant book of d’Hancarville, Monuments du culte secret des dames romaines, ch. xxv, and you will be glad to know the note, with which the learned annotator accompanies the same. “This attitude is to the taste of many men, and even the ladies find an increase of pleasure in practising it. It is supposed, that Priapus penetrates farther in, and that the fair one by her movements procures for herself a more voluptuous delight, and a more abundant libation.” Is it possible for the man, conveniently, to manage the business while turning his back to the woman lying on her back? Experts must decide. Aloysia Sigaea says with good common sense: “There are many postures it is impossible to execute, even supposing the joints and loins of the candidates for the sacred joys of Venus more flexible than can be believed. By dint of pondering and reflection more ideas occur to the fancy than it is practicable to realize: Nothing is inconceivable to the longings of an unbridled will; nothing difficult to a furious and unregulated imagination. Love will find out a way; and an ardent fancy level mountains. Only the body is unable to comply with everything the mind, good or bad, suggests.” In another work of d’Hancarville’s, Monuments de la vie privÉe des douze CÉsars, plate XXVII., you find represented men seated and copulating with women, who are facing them; plate XV., in the same book presents to your curiosity a man sitting and working a woman, who turns her back on him. Augustus is seated: he is attacking backwards, with true imperial audacity, Terentia Nothing is more frequent than conjunction whilst standing, the woman with her back to the man; it is indeed very easy to do it that way in any place, as you have only to lift up the fair one’s petticoats, and out with your weapon; it is, therefore, the best manner for those who have to make instantaneous use of an opportunity, when it is important to be sharp about it, as may happen, when you take your pleasure in secret. Thus Priapus complains of the wives and daughters of his neighbors, who came incessantly to him burning with ticklish desires. “Cut off my genital member, which every night and all night long my neighbours’ wives and daughters, for ever and for ever in heat, more wanton than sparrows in springtide, tire to death,—or I shall burst!...” (Priapeia, XXV). I remember a medical man of our time, one of the most celebrated professors, (I had nearly uttered his name), who to emphasize this, called his daughter, and pointing to the blushing girl, while his hearers could not help smiling said: “This girl I fabricated standing.” A representation of this position is to be found in the Monuments de la vie privÉe de douze CÉsars, pl. XLVI., and another in the Monuments du culte secrets des dames romaines, pl. XIII. But further, a man may join himself to a woman standing face to face by supporting her in such a way, that her whole body is lifted up, her thighs resting on the man’s hips, or else by lifting up the lower part of her body, whilst the upper part is resting on a couch. Will you feast your eyes with a representation of this not ungraceful position? If so you will not omit to look at plate XXIV of the Monuments du culte secret des dames romaines, and plate XL of the Monuments de la vie privÉe des douze CÉsars; Ovid, if I am not mistaken, had his eyes on one or the other of these figures: “Milanion was supporting Atalanta’s legs on his shoulders; if they are fine legs this is how they should be held” (Art of Love, III., vv. 775, 776). The former of these modes is no doubt that described by Aloysia Sigaea, Past Mistress of these naughtinesses, and with a vivacity, a grace, and elegance that leaves nothing to be desired: “La Tour came forward instantly.... I had thrown myself on the foot of the bed”—(Tullia is speaking)—“I was naked; his member was erect. Without more ado he grasps in either hand one of my breasts, and brandishing his hard and inflamed lance between my thighs, exclaims “Look Madam, how this weapon is darting at you, not to kill you, but to give you the greatest possible pleasure. Pray, guide this blind applicant into the dark recess, so that it may not miss its destination; I will not remove my hands from where they are, I would not deprive them of the bliss they enjoy.” I do as he wishes, I introduce myself the flaming dart into the burning centre; he feels it, drives in, pushes home.... After one or two strokes I felt myself melting away with incredible titillation, and my knees all but gave way. “Stop”, I cried—“stop my soul, it is escaping!” “I know”, he replied, laughing, “from where. No doubt your soul wants to escape through this lower orifice, of which I have possession; but I keep it well stoppered.” Whilst speaking he endeavoured, by holding his breath, still further to increase the already enormous size of his swollen member. “I am going to thrust back your escaping soul”, he added, poking me more and more violently. His sword pierced yet deeper into the quick. Redoubling his delicious blows, he filled me with transports of pleasure,—working so forcefully that, albeit he could not get his whole body into me, he impregnated me with all his passion, all his lascivious desires, his very thoughts, his whole delirious soul by his voluptuous embraces. At last feeling the approach of the ecstasy and the boiling over of the liquid, he slips his hands under my buttocks, and lifts me up bodily. I do my part; I twine my arms closely round his form, my thighs and legs being at the same time inter-twisted and entangled with his, so that I found myself suspended on his neck in the air, lifted clean off the ground; I was thus hanging, as it were, fixed on a peg. I had not the patience to wait for him, as he was going on, and again I swooned with pleasure. In the most violent raptures I could not help crying out—“I feel all ... I feel all the delights of Juno lying with Jupiter. I am in heaven.” At this moment La Tour, pushed by Venus and Cupido to the acmÉ of voluptuousness, poured a plenteous flood of his well into the genial hold, burning like fire. The creeper does not cling more closely round the walnut tree than I hold fast to La Tour with my arms and legs” (Dial. VI). As to the last manner by means of which copulation may be achieved, the man standing with the woman half lifted up, Conrad practises it with slight modifications. (Tullia speaking): “He opened my thighs—I do not dislike Conrad, though I am not particularly partial to him. I neither consented, nor refused. As to him, he fancied a novel posture, and not at all a bad one. I was lying on my back; he raised my right thigh on his shoulder, and in this position he transfixed me, while I was awaiting the event, without greatly desiring it. He had at the same time extended my left thigh along his right thigh. His tool plunged into the root, he began to push and poke, quicker and quicker. What need to say more? Picture the conclusion for yourself” (Dial. VI). Last of all, a man can get into a woman turning her back to him after the manner of the quadrupeds, who can have no connection with their females otherwise than by mounting upon them from behind “... Women are said to conceive more readily when down after the manner of beasts, as the organs can absorb the seed best so, when the bosom is depressed and the loins lifted” (Of the Nature of Things, IV., vv. 1259-1262). Also Aloysia Sigaea: “Some people pretend that the fashion to make love indicated by Nature is that one where the woman offers herself for copulation after the manner of the animals, bent down with the hips raised; the virile ploughshare penetrates thus more conveniently into the female furrow, and the seminal flow waters the field of love.... The doctors, however, are against this posture; they say it is incompatible with the conformation of the parts destined for generation.” (Dial. VI.) However this may be, it happens frequently, that women cannot be managed in any other way. Given an obese man and a woman likewise obese or with child, how are they to do the thing otherwise? This is the reason why, so they say, Augustus having married Livia Drusilla, divorced wife of Tiberius Nero and already six months gone in pregnancy, had connection with her after the manner of animals. Plate VII of the Monuments de la vie privÉe des douze CÉsars will give you an idea of the posture assumed by both of them. But why should we not give you the annotations whereby the learned editor has elucidated the plate? Here they are: “This Drusilla was the famous Livia, the wife of Tiberius Nero, who had been one of Anthony’s friends. Augustus fell violently in love with her, and Tiberius gave her up to him, although she was at the time six months with child. A good many jokes were made about the eagerness of the Emperor, and one day, while they were all at table, and Livia was reclining by Augustus, one of those naked children, whom matrons used to educate for their pleasures, going up to Livia said: “What are you doing here? yonder is your husband”, pointing to Nero, “there he is” A singular reason for the necessity of encountering a woman backwards is given by Aloysia Sigaea, with her usual sagacity: “For pleasure, one likes a vulva which is not placed too far back, so as to be entirely hidden by the thighs; it should not be more than nine or ten inches from the navel. With the greater number of girls the pubis goes so far down, that it may easily be taken as the other way of pleasure. With such coition is difficult. Theodora Aspilqueta could not be deflowered, till she placed herself prone on her stomach, with her knees drawn up to her sides. Vainly had her husband tried to manage her, while lying on her back, he only lost his oil” (Dialogue VII). Ovid recommends this way with women who begin to be wrinkled: “Likewise you, whose stomach Lucina has marked with wrinkles, mount from behind, like the flying Parthian with his steed” (Art of Love, III., v. 785, 86). The same advice also seems to be given by him a little before: “Let them be seen from behind whose backs are sightly” (v. 774). But besides necessity, it is a fact that women are worked in this way out of mere caprice, variety offering the greatest pleasure. It is simply for this reason that Tullia suffers Fabrizio to do her that way, in Aloysia Sigaea: “As Aloysio got up” (Tullia speaks) “Fabrizio makes ready for another attack. His member is swollen up, red and threatening. “I beg of you “Madam”, he says, “turn over on your face.” I did as he wished. When he saw my buttocks, whiter than ivory and snow, “How beautiful you are!” he cried. “But raise yourself on your knees and bend your head down.” I bow my head and bosom, and lift my buttocks. He thrust his swift-moving and fiery dart to the bottom of my vulva, and took one of my nipples in either hand. Then he began to work in and out, and soon sent a sweet rivulet into the cavity of Venus. I also felt unspeakable delight, and had nearly fainted with lust. A surprising quantity of seed secreted by Fabrizio’s loins filled and delighted me; a similar flow of my own exhausted my forces. In that single assault I lost more vigour than in the three preceding ones” (Dialogue VI.) This copulation from the back is practicable in another very pleasant fashion, an excellent reproduction of which can be seen in the Monument du culte secret des dames romaines, plate XXVIII. A woman is represented with her hands placed on the ground, while the lower part of the body is lifted up and suspended by cords; she is turning her back to the man who stands. This seems to be much the same position as was taken up by the wife of the artisan Apuleius speaks of in his Metamorphoses (book IX), whom “bending over her, the lover planed with his adze, while she leant forward over a cask.” An engraving showing this ingenious attitude is appended to the story of The Tub in the Contes et Nouvelles en vers of Jean de La Fontaine, vol. II., p. 215. |
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