History - BDSM

[Tania Admin]

Im always looking for the history and origins for all our fetishes. I found this interesting.

When trying to derive a clear cut origin for BDSM activities, one can encounter great difficulty since these kinds of erotic and non-erotic practices have experienced genuinely spontaneous creation within separate cultures all over the planet.

This is to say that practices and activities closely resembling what we know today as BDSM, do not necessarily have a common origin point. What this suggests to those individuals who seek to find a greater understanding of BDSM history, is that the practices involved with BDSM have a very natural place in the sexually exploratory realm of the human psyche.

It is within our nature as human beings to include some of the quintessentially BDSM elements into our sexual experimentation, which has been clearly exemplified by all of the different cultural generations of BDSM oriented activity.

One main origin point for BDSM style practices is within the 9th century B.C., when ritualistic whippings were becoming more prevalent in certain areas of ancient Sparta. These whippings were basically a component of an ancient pre-olympic religion, known as the Cult of Orthia.

Within this ancient religion, ritualistic whipping ceremonies were conducted quite frequently, and represent some of the oldest documented examples of sadomasochistic activities known to man. One of these examples is actually a type of graphical proof, which can be found in an Etruscan burial area located in Tarquinia.

Inside this ancient burial site, there is a very clear depiction of two men whipping a woman with a cane while they engage in sexual activity with her. This piece of evidence, which dates back to about the 6th century B.C., is a nearly indisputable account of BDSM style sex practices being performed by ancient peoples.

These ancient accounts of BDSM became steadily more popular after their initial introductions, and after these practices were developed, they began to take a prominent role in sex and foreplay oriented practices. This is only one cultural example of how BDSM type activities can quickly adopt a meaningful role in a society’s sexual consciousness.

Another exemplification of BDSM’s origins and development over time is the Indian work known as theKama Sutra. This piece of writing, whose composition began at some point around 400 B.C., serves as a profoundly important work in Indian culture.

This book is not only a manual for different sex positions, but it also represents a text containing information about the nature of love, life, family, and many other aspects of living that can be used to better a person’s existence. With regard to the Kama Sutra’s BDSM implications, this book is known to have contained at least four different types of prescribed hitting methods that are designed to be used during love making.

These four types of hitting are designed to enhance the experience of love making, and allow for participants to experience a sense of joyful pain. The Kama Sutra marks one origin point for BDSM type practices, and it also makes the ethical point that hitting and other kinds of BDSM oriented sexual maneuvering should only be performed on those participants who understand what is happening, and are willing to submit themselves to such treatment.

While the aforementioned examples of BDSM origins in different cultures are both examples from many centuries in the past (in the B.C. era even), there are some 14th century medieval examples of BDSM practices being originated in the west that are involved with what is known as courtly love.

Courtly love is essentially the way in which nobility and other high standing political and social entities in medieval Europe treated relationships with their numerous sexual partners. Courtly love, in the medieval context, described a kind of sexual practice wherein the submissive participants were treated very much like sexual slaves.

This was a kind of sexual relationship in which whipping could be used for stimulation, and also bondage became prevalent in this time to heighten the sense of having a sexual slave, so to speak. Medieval lords and noblemen would have their sexual subjects bound in some sort of containment area, which sometimes may have even been a genuine dungeon area.

Out of these early forms of BDSM practice have come the more modern variations, which seek to incorporate a heightened sense of equability and mutual enjoyment into the activities. In other words, while in the ancient and medieval times the BDSM subjects would often be used against their will, this is not necessarily a fundamental element of modern BDSM practice.

Today, BDSM participants often know full well what they are getting into, and a sense of mutual enjoyment is often derived from everyone involved.

 

[AndyRew]

' The Dominatrix: A BDSM History '
An all-vintage visual odyssey through BDSM history, documenting enchantingly sexy female dominants from the 1860s to the 1930s. (special appearance by Freud's couch)
Link is broken ,so has been taken down​

 

[AndyRew]

' Forbidden - BDSM '

Link is broken ,so has been taken down​

 

[AndyRew00]

The historical origins of BDSM are obscure. For example during the ninth century BC, ritual flagellationswere performed in Artemis Orthia, one of the most important religious areas of ancient Sparta, where the Cult of Orthia, a preolympic religion, was practiced. Here ritual flagellation called diamastigosis took place on a regular basis. One of the oldest graphical proofs of sadomasochistic activities is found in an Etruscan burial site in Tarquinia. This is just one of the many historical tails portraid as the Beginning.....We'll go deep within

 

[AndyRew00]

Etruscan Tomb of Whipping

One of the oldest graphical proofs of sadomasochistic activities is found in the Etruscan Tomb of the Whipping near Tarquinia, which dates to the fifth century BC! Inside the tomb there is fresco which portrays two men who flagellate a woman with a cane and a hand during an erotic situation. Another reference related to flagellation is to be found in the sixth book of the Satires of the ancient Roman Poet Juvenal (1st–2nd century A.D.), further reference can be found in Petronius’s Satyricon where a delinquent is whipped for sexual arousal. Anecdotal narratives related to humans who have had themselves voluntary bound, flagellated or whipped as a substitute for sex or as part of foreplay reach back to the third and fourth century.

Satires
​

Another reference related to flagellation is to be found in the sixth book of the Satires of the ancient Roman Poet Juvenal (1st - second century ad), further reference can be found in The Satyricon of Petronius where a delinquent is whipped for sexual arousal. Anecdotal narratives related to humans who have had themselves voluntary bound, flagellated or whipped as a substitute for sex or as part of foreplay reach back to the third and fourth century.

The Kama Sutra

The Kama Sutra describes four different kinds of hitting during lovemaking, the allowed regions of the human body to target and different kinds of joyful "cries of pain" practiced by bottoms. The collection of historic texts related to sensuous experiences explicitly emphasizes that impact play, biting and pinching during sexual activities should only be performed consensually since some women do not consider such behavior to be joyful. From this perspective the Kama Sutra can be considered as one of the first written resources dealing with sadomasochistic activities and safety rules.

 

[AndyRew00]

A Brief Overview

There are anecdotal reports of people willingly being bound or whipped, as a prelude to or substitute for sex, during the fourteenth century. The medieval phenomenon of courtly love in all of its slavish devotion and ambivalence has been suggested by some writers to be a precursor of BDSM. Some sources claim that BDSM as a distinct form of sexual behavior originated at the beginning of the eighteenth century when Western civilization began medically and legally categorizing sexual behavior. There are reports of brothels specializing in flagellation as early as 1769, and John Cleland's novel Fanny Hill, published in 1749, mentions a flagellation scene. Other sources give a broader definition, citing BDSM-like behavior in earlier times and other cultures, such as the medieval flagellates and the physical ordeal rituals of some Native American societies.

Although the names of the Marquis de Sade and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch are attached to the terms sadism and masochism respectively, Sade's way of life does not meet modern BDSM standards of informed consent. BDSM ideas and imagery have existed on the fringes of Western culture throughout the twentieth century. Robert Bienvenu attributes the origins of modern BDSM to three sources, which he names as "European Fetish" (from 1928), "American Fetish" (from 1934), and "Gay Leather" (from 1950). Another source are the sexual games played in brothels, which go back into the nineteenth century if not earlier. Irving Klaw, during the 1950s and 1960s, produced some of the first commercial film and photography with a BDSM theme (most notably with Bettie Page) and published comics by the now-iconic bondage artists John Willie and Eric Stanton.

Stanton's model Bettie Page became at the same time one of the first successful models in the area of fetish photography and one of the most famous pin-up girls of American mainstream culture. Italian author and designer Guido Crepax was deeply influenced by him, coining the style and development of European adult comics in the second half of the twentieth century. The artists Helmut Newton and Robert Mapplethorpe are the most prominent examples of the increasing use of BDSM-related motives in modern photography and the public discussions still resulting from this​

 

[AndyRew00]

Greece Spanking Images/Aristotelian Perversion or pony play​

Ancient Dildo Collection

 

[AndyRew00]

Etymology:

The term sadomasochism is derived from the words sadism and masochism. These terms differ somewhat from the same terms used in psychology, since those require that the sadism or masochism cause significant distress or involve non-consenting partners. Sadomasochism refers to the aspects of BDSM surrounding the exchange of physical or emotional pain. Sadism describes sexual pleasure derived by inflicting pain, degradation, humiliation on another person or causing another person to suffer. On the other hand, the masochist enjoys being hurt, humiliated, or suffering within the consensual scenario. Sadomasochistic scenes sometimes reach a level that appear more extreme or cruel than other forms of BDSM—for example, when a masochist is brought to tears or is severely bruised—and is occasionally unwelcome at BDSM events or parties.[citation needed] Sadomasochism does not imply enjoyment through causing or receiving pain in other situations (for example, accidental injury, medical procedures).

The terms sadism and masochism are derived from the names of the Marquis de Sade and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, based on the content of the authors' works. Although the names of de Sade and Sacher-Masoch are attached to the terms sadism and masochism respectively, the scenes described in de Sade's works do not meet modern BDSM standards of informed consent. BDSM is solely based on consensual activities, and based on its system and laws, the concepts presented by de Sade are not agreed upon the BDSM culture, even though they are sadistic in nature. In 1843 the Ruthenian physician Heinrich Kaan published Psychopathia sexualis ("Psychopathy of Sex"), a writing in which he converts the sin conceptions of Christianity into medical diagnoses. With his work the originally theological terms "perversion", "aberration" and "deviation" became part of the scientific terminology for the first time. The German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft Ebing introduced the terms "sadism" and "masochism" to the medical community in his work Neue Forschungen auf dem Gebiet der Psychopathia sexualis ("New research in the area of Psychopathy of Sex") in 1890.

In 1905, Sigmund Freud described "sadism" and "masochism" in his Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie ("Three papers on Sexual theory") as diseases developing from an incorrect development of the child psyche and laid the groundwork for the scientific perspective on the subject in the following decades. This led to the first time use of the compound term sado-masochism (German sado-masochismus) by the Viennese psychoanalytic Isidor Isaak Sadger in their work, Über den sado-masochistischen Komplex ("Regarding the sadomasochistic complex") in 1913.

In the later 20th century, BDSM activists have protested against these conceptual models. Not only were these models were derived from the philosophies of two singular historical figures. Both Freud and Krafft-Ebing were psychiatrists. Their observations on sadism and masochism were dependent on psychiatric patients, and their models were built on the assumption of psychopathology. BDSM activists argue that it is illogical to attribute human behavioural phenomena as complex as sadism and masochism to the 'inventions' of two historic individuals. Advocates of BDSM have sought to distinguish themselves from widely held notions of antiquated psychiatric theory by the adoption of the initialized term, "BDSM" as a distinction from the now common usage of those psychological terms, abbreviated as "S&M".

 

[AndyRew00]

Dr. Samuel Johnson’s “insane thoughts on fetters and hand-cuffs”

In researching the history of consensual sadomasochism, there isn’t a comprehensive body of knowledge to draw upon, no established canon of reference works, no Journal of Sadomasochistic Studies.

Instead, I have data points: case studies, books (often anonymous), anecdotes, images, etc. I’ll admit that sometimes what is and isn’t a data point is decided on the “I know it when I see it” principle. Connecting those points requires a certain amount of guesswork and judgment calls.

For example: Dr. Samuel Johnson, English man of letters of the Enlightenment, and his relationship with his close friend Hester Thrale. The latter’s posthumous effects, sold at auction in 1823, included a padlock and fetters. Thrale identified it as “Johnson’s padlock, committed to my care in the year 1768.” In 1767 or 1768, Thrale wrote that “our stern philosopher Johnson trusted me… with a secret far dearer to him than his life”. On other occasions , she wrote that “this great, this formidable Doctor Johnson kissed my hand, ay & my foot too upon his knees!” and quoted him saying, “a woman has such power between the ages of twenty five and forty five, that she may tie a man to a post and whip him if she will.” Finally, there is a reference in Thrale’s journal to “the fetters & padlocks [that] will tell posterity the truth”, and Johnson’s own journal entry, dated 24 March 1771, about “Insane thoughts on fetters and hand-cuffs.” (in Latin) (Pg.387-388)

Johnson scholars have debated the exact meanings of these items and phrases. The more conservative, such as Peter Martin in his Samuel Johnson: A Biography (Belknap Press, 2008) say that the “suggestion that Johnson may have taken a perverse sexual pleasure in such confinement has been discredited” (pg.388) and dismisses “the wild theory that Johnson was a flagellant demanding to be scourged and manacled.” (pg.389)

Johnson was a troubled man, suffering from severe depression (he called it “the black dog”), the twitches and ticks that would today be diagnosed as Tourette’s syndrome, and the habitual counting of obsessive compulsive disorder. (A trait he shared with the Marquis de Sade.) He lived in fear of going mad, and much of the time he spent at Thrale’s house was as a patient of an informal retreat for therapy. Martin argues that the implements of confinement were more symbolic than literal, and that the confinement to his room at Thrale’s house was just a way of keeping Johnson calm in his worst moments, as he requested. (Pg. 388-390) In other words, it wasn’t a sex thing, and therefore should not be considered a sadomasochistic relationship.

I think that was an over-hasty assessment by Martin. Other scholars don’t dispute the facts but question the subjective quality of Thrale and Johnson’s relationship. Jeffrey Meyer’s Samuel Johnson: The Struggle
(Basic Books, 2008) reconsiders Katherine Balderston’s notes on Thrale’s letters from 1949. Says Meyer:

Despite the overwhelming evidence of Johnson’s darkest secret, his modern biographers have not been able to reconcile his obsession with their exalted image of the great moralist and stern philosopher. […] Christopher Hibbert (1971) was cautious and indecisive. Though Hester [Thrale] had said “do not quarrel with your Governess for not using the Rod enough,” Hibbert wrote, in an awkward style that expresses his own uneasiness: “whether or not the rod was actually used, whether or not Johnson’s fantasies [sic] about manacles and fetters were erotic and masochistic in their nature, it is impossible now to say.”

[Pg.6-7]

Other scholars, if they acknowledged the data at all, squeamishly said it was too slender to draw conclusions. This makes me wonder how much evidence about various historical figures’ sexual peccadilloes have been lost by neglect or intent by prejudiced scholars.

Meyers writes:

Johnson submitted to chains and handcuffs, and had his door padlocked, when he felt the onset of madness. But it would have been quite impossible for the tiny Hester, even with the help of several manservants, to restrain and shackle a crazed, rampaging and uncommonly strong Johnson. He had bought these implements to restrain himself during period of madness, he was depressive, not manic, and never had to employ them. But he did actually use them in the closet drama of his ritualistic whippings.

[Pg.360]

Thrale annotated Johnson’s comment about a woman making a man her slave by saying “this he knew of him self was literally and strictly true I am sure.” (Pg. 361) Johnson also told his biographer Boswell: “madmen… are eager for gratifications to soothe their minds, and divert their attention from the mistery which they suffer; but when they grow very ill, pleasure is too weak for them, and they seek pain.” (Pg.361-362)

Much like Sacher-Masoch, Johnson was definitely a highly demanding and controlling masochist, and much like Aurora Rumelin, Hester Thrale struggled to manage the boundaries between her own life and the demands of her ostensible “slave”. Even when Thrale was dealing with household renovations, sick children and a mother dying of breast cancer, Johnson sent her messages that alternated between grovelling and emotional blackmail, like:

It’s essential to remember our agreement. I wish, my protector, that your authority will always be clear to me, and that you will keep me in that form of slavery which you know so well how to make blissful. [Pg.363]

It’s well established that whipping was nearly universal in homes and schools of this time: Thrale beat her own children frequently, and Johnson had been on both ends of the rod as a student and as a teacher. Why men like Johnson and Jean-Jacques Rousseau became masochistic flagellants, and so many of their contemporaries didn’t, remains a mystery. Johnson was troubled by feelings of sing and guilt through his life, and it’s likely that bondage and flagellation, if only of a mild and largely symbolic nature, gave him at least momentary peace, both satisfying and punishing his sexual desires. Of course, a conservative could argue that Thrale’s reference to “using the Rod” was figurative, not literal.

Johnson’s use of “slavery” is also intriguing, as he was a staunch proponent of abolitionism. Perhaps he saw in slavery, as much as he despised it, a reflection of the abjectness he felt throughout his life, and a confinement that quieted him, and therefore used it as a metaphor.

There’s also the question of whether Johnson and Thrale’s relationship was sexual. There’s no indication that intercourse occurred between them, nor is it clear what Johnson felt when Thrale ministered to him: sensual pleasure or masochistic pleasure? Our modern definition of sex still privileges heterosexual coitus, and other bodily practices that do not fit it may not be considered sexual at all. In this relationship, you can see both a desire for a mother figure and for the physical sensations of confinement and flagellation, neither of which necessarily produce genital arousal.

Written by Dr. Samuel Johnson (approved)

 

[AndyRew00]

Victorian Nipple Rings – Part One

A longtime legend in the piercing community has it that during the Victorian Era, young women from England were briefly caught up in the fad of having their nipples pierced. It was all the rage, and then it went out of style.

It’s one of those stories, like Julius Caesar’s own pierced nipples, or King Tut’s stretched lobes, that seems made up, or at least padded with potential exaggeration. It’s the sort of thing that raises eyebrows, challenges how we think about Victorian Culture (The same people who supposedly covered their table’s legs because they too closely resembled female ankles were getting their nipples done?) and just plain seems impossible.

Except it’s all true, and then some. I’ll get to that. But first, we need some clarification.

The Victorian Era extends from 1837 to 1901, and that’s the reign of Queen Victoria – who apparently had the lifespan of a Highlander — in England. It’s the time of Charles Dickens, the rise of factories and the middle class. A time when gentlemen belonged to clubs and wore top hats and tails, and ladies wore steel ribbed bustles and wasp-waisted dresses and petticoats. Popular characters who lived the Victorian Lifestyle include none other than Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

If you want to know why a lot of people thought this was a tall tale, just imagine Dr. Watson saying, By jove, I think her nipples are pierced! It just sounds off somehow.

And people were, sort of, reserved. But they did not cover their table legs for propriety, that’s a popular myth. It was also an age of gambling, drinking, burlesque shows and pin-ups. There were theaters where you could go see women in lingerie racing chariots pulled by real horses. They also had erotica. Filthy, filthy erotica.

Like this lady doesn’t look like her nipples would be pierced, does she?
​

“…suddenly letting his ***** go as she felt the crisis coming, rammed a couple of her well-oiled fingers up his ******-**** and ******* him there…” That’s a scene from Forbidden Fruit, an erotic novel. That scene, by the way, is between a brother and sister, and it goes on to include their mother and aunt.

So they weren’t as prudish as we sometimes assume. The era is associated with stiff upper lips, but it could just as easily have been well oiled fingers.

I started trying to track down evidence of the nipple ring trend, and found plenty of other people on the trail, including some other piercing bloggers and Wikipedia. What everyone had in common was a guy named Stephen Kern, who published a book called Anatomy and Destiny in 1975.

It completely changes how you watch Downton Abbey.
​

Kern says, “In the late 1890s the ‘bosom ring’ came into fashion briefly and sold in expensive Parisian jewelry shops. These ‘anneaux de sein’ were inserted through the nipple, and some women wore one on either side linked with a delicate chain. The rings enlarged the breasts and kept them in a state of constant excitation…The medical community was outraged by these cosmetic procedures, for they represented a rejection of traditional conceptions of the purpose of a woman’s body.”

That represents just about everything anyone seemed to have on this. But I checked out Kern’s book and the above passage was cited to Eduard Fuchs, who published something called a moral history, where he talks about the Victorian Nipple Ring trend. The problem with Fuchs was that he wasn’t big on citing sources. He was like the Marco Polo of sex. So the whole thing looked more and more like a tall tale.

That’s what a lot of people figured it was.

Then I found The Golden Age of Erotica, published in 1965, which cited the same thing, except they said Fuchs got his idea from a magazine article. A magazine article, published in the 1890s, in Victorian England, about people getting their nipples pierced, and connecting those nipples with chains.

I’m not going to lie, I let this sit for a while. I wrote other blogs. There were easier stories to tell. I have deadlines. But like a fool, I’d opened my mouth. I’d told people. And everyone who heard about the Victorian Nipple Rings was like, “Wha?” and then they wanted to know more. It started coming up in conversations. Hey man, how’s that Victorian Nipple Ring article coming? And, you know what? I was curious too. Badly.

Something had to be done. I dusted it off and kept digging and then, one glorious day, I found the magazine: English Mechanic and the World of Science.

This magazine is filled with informative articles about small engine repair, electricity, how to build your own bicycle, along with more complex subjects like Chemistry and Medicine. Because in the Victorian Era, you could just lump everything together and call it Science. Each article – don’t worry, I’m going somewhere with this – has a number. People write in with questions and they quote the number and name of the article. The person who wrote the article answers them in future articles.

This isn’t really a good Victorian picture. But this guy looked so much like steampunk Mad-Eye Moody that I had to include it.
​

In other words, it reads like an 800 page mail-order message board.

In April of 1888, a man named Jules Orme, a Polish immigrant, wrote in to tell a story. When he was a schoolboy, a bunch of his chums went with him to have their nipples pierced in Lycee, which is what they called High School in France. So to recap, this guy, writing in 1888, got his nipples pierced, with a bunch of his friends, when he was in High School, in France.

And because this was a Victorian Era message board, this information was received with poise, and responded to in a respectful manner.

Just kidding. People went apeshit.

 

[AndyRew00]

Victorian Nipple Rings – Part Two

he letter that Jules Orme sent in to English Mechanic is astounding not only because it reveals an entire world of piercing culture in the 1890’s, but also because of the reactions it elicited. Sure, there were some doctors who chimed in, saying that piercing the nipple might cause a cicatrice, and that cancer could spread into such a cicatrice.

(Cicatrice is an old timey word for “scar”)

But it also generated responses like this one, from a lady named Constance, “My cousin Jack showed me the letter, and he is very desirous that I should have mine pierced and rings inserted.”

This woman could very well have had her nipples pierced. Also, that baby is probably dead
​

If you’re thinking Constance and her cousin Jack have an oddly close relationship, you are correct, they are apparently getting married during the following summer. But ignore that gross old timey detail, and you get a guy, telling his fiancé, that he wants her to have her nipples done.

Crazy, right? Wait, it gets better:

“I laughed at the idea, and said I did not believe the thing was possible; but he showed me that he was then wearing himself in his nipples some gold rings which were inserted last summer by a jeweler in London.”

Her cousin/fiancé ripped open his own bodice to reveal that he already had his nipples pierced. And if this sounds implausibly wild, just know that he isn’t the only one. In addition to Jules Orme, who said he had his nipples pierced with some of his school friends (And who also, in his letter, mentioned seeing a Polish woman with hers done as well), there’s Constance’s fiancé/cousin, and this lady named Fanny:

“Ever since I have had breasts I have worn rings which I had inserted in the nipples at the request of an intimate friend. I am now aged 20.”

And this guy:

“I have had personal experience of the matter, and have still several places where rings or wires could be inserted. But I should not like to have rings in my breasts, because I like a good rub down with a rough towel.”

And during the course of this discussion, absolutely no one says, “WTF? What are you guys talking about? Nipples? Piercing? What?” Nobody says that. Doctors chimed in to say it was bad to risk an infection (And since there weren’t any antibiotics, that was a real risk) and a number of learned men suggested that having nipples pierced would interfere with a woman’s primary duty, namely to feed children with said nipples.

Fanny addressed that complaint thusly, “[I am] the mother of a healthy family, and have experienced no difficulty in nursing all my children myself.” And Fanny had her nipples pierced for five years at that point, meaning she was originally 15 when they were done. That’s a little early, particularly at the urging of “an intimate friend” but it was the 1890s, so her intimate friend was probably both a blood relative and her fiancé.

The point is that Jules Orme’s letter opened up not only a world of Victoriana that includes the concept of getting nipples pierced, but a world where these things are common, well understood practices that elicit some indignation, but not much more than you’d get today from your conservative uncle who reminds you that your tattoos might look gross when you’re 80. (Or maybe when you’re 80 we’ll live in a world where your value isn’t determined by your appearance. Or you could get some clock tattoos and they’ll sag like Salvador Dali paintings. Back to the article.)
One notable complaint included the following, “In a savage country, where the natives are in the habit of leaving the breasts bare, one could understand the desire for adornment. But in England, where it is only the custom to expose about half, and when the rings would necessarily not be shown for decency’s sake, it is simply idiotic and absurd.”

In case you were wondering how much breast was exposed in Victorian England, the answer is “about half”. Also, for those playing Victorian Bingo, you can X out the word savage.

Doctor Cicatrice chimed in to say this, “That any sane person would either abuse themselves or recommend others (especially females) to do so, is something to be wondered at.”

The language they’re both using is very telling. One guy is saying, Sure, if your whole breast was exposed, then it would make sense. And the doctor is saying, This is a bad idea, but definitely if you’re female don’t pierce your breasts. In other words, they’re comfortable with the idea of piercings, under certain circumstances. So these guys might actually be less judgmental than your crazy uncle.

That woman? Nipples pierced. That man? Nipples, also philtrum, labret, bites and whatever else is behind that mustache. The children? Dead.
​

And those people are on the negetive side.

On the positive side, take this point from Rough Rubdown Towel Guy, “I am well aware that almost any portion of the skin may be safely pierced.” This guy has multiple piercings, and seems to know a lot about where and what you can have pierced, for a dude living in 1890. He goes on to suggest that rather than having her nipple pierced directly, Constance should have the skin just above the nipple pierced, so that the ring hangs down over the nipple, “like the setting of a jewel.”

Fanny, who has raised a family with her nipples pierced, also said, “I wish to draw “Constance’s” attention to the fact that my nipples were skillfully pierced.”

And this is probably the biggest, most important thing I’ve gleaned from the research. Even in the 1890s, the best advice people had was to seek out an experienced piercer. Not only did such people exist, but they had parlors and studios even back then, where piercings were done by experts. So these weren’t random people piercing themselves.

Constance’s fiancé/cousin had his done by a jeweler in London. Jules Orme went to a French piercer, Fanny had hers done by someone ‘skilled’ in piercings.

And next week, in Victorian Nipple Rings Part Three, I have a special treat. After the discussion in English Mechanic, Constance and her sister went to Paris and got their nipples pierced together in a French piercing studio, and she tells the whole story. The piercing process, the pain, the studio, the piercer, the aftercare.
It’s real piercing experience, 1890’s edition. Next week!

This kid is alive. If you made a dead child’s hair look like shark fin linguine, you’d go straight to hell.​

 

[AndyRew00]

Victorian Nipple Rings – Part Three

The year is 1889, and the place is London, England. When last we heard from Constance, she was writing in to English Mechanic and the World of Science to inquire about getting her nipples pierced. She had read the letter of Jules Orme in April of 1888, and in May of the following year Constance and her sister were heading to the “Paris Exposition”, which we can safely assume is the Exposition Universelle, aka the “World’s Fair” which would have started on May 6th.

So for nearly a year letters had flown back and forth and were published in English Mechanic, where several men and woman spoke of getting their nipples pierced and gave some anecdotes. One lady, named Fanny, had hers done and mentioned in her letter that after five years or so she’d taken them out.

“I should very much have liked,” Constance wrote, “to hear again from ‘Fanny,’ whose answer appeared in your number for May 10th, and to know what are the inconveniences she has experienced during her five years continuous wear of the rings. I think the troubles cannot have been very serious, or she would not have continued to endure them.”

Heedless of the answer, Constance and her sister Millie went to Paris to do the deed. They were going to get Victorian Era Pierced Nipples.

The story picks up after they got to Paris. Still nervous about side effects and issues (And keep in mind that responses in English Mechanic included doctors who claimed these women could get cancer from doing this. Cancer) they sought out an American woman who was trained in medicine. That lady did not know anything about it, but she asked the surgeon at the hospital where she was working and he got back with Constance and told her it would probably be fine.

Just a reminder: this lady is period appropriate.
​

And then he gave Constance and Millie some referrals.

“He knew personally one lady,” Constance wrote, “and had heard of others, who had undergone the operation. He kindly gave us an introduction to the lady mentioned, and we visited her. We found her very obliging, and she gave us all the particulars we wanted to know. She had been wearing the rings more than three years, and during that time had had two children.”

This woman gave Constance and Millie the address for her piercer, a Madame Beaumont.

Madame Beaumont, Constance tells us, is a “nice, pleasant, middle aged lady,” and she runs a kind of salon off the Rue de Rivoli*, where she does “little services” for ladies, like hair dye, nails and “corn doctoring”. She also pierces ears, and sometimes nipples.

(*The Rue de Rivoli was, and still is, literally one of the most fashionable streets in the world. Just an FYI, so you know this place wasn’t a dump somewhere)

Madame Beaumont has a huge collection of large gold rings specifically for piercing nipples, and she sits down with Constance and Millie and shows them her own nipples, which are pierced. Her daughter also has pierced nipples, and she shows Constance and Millie too, because this was before the internet and how else were they going to see?

Madame Beaumont has also invented a set of clamps specifically for nipple piercing. “Like a sugar tongs in form, but instead of the spoons at the ends of the legs there is a pair of small tubes about one inch long, and in a straight line with each other, so that when the nipple is grasped between the inner ends of the tubes by means of a screw in the handle, a piercer* can be passed through the whole without any chance of deviating from its proper course.”

(*Constance will, regularly, refer to a ‘needle’ as a ‘piercer’)

This semi-medical device freaks Constance out.

“I must confess I felt very qualmish, and almost repented having consented to it.”

But she does it anyway, because she’s the older sister, and Millie is into it and she doesn’t want to chicken out in front of her little sis.

What follows is the procedure, word for word, from Constance’s letters:

“I partially undressed and seated myself on a couch by the side of Mdme. B., who passed her arm round my neck and held me steadily. Mdme. B. then bathed my right breast for a few minutes with something which smelt like benzoline*, and seemed almost to freeze it. She then adjusted the instrument to the nipple, and screwed it up securely, and then, almost before I was aware of her intention, she plunged the piercer through the tubes. I scarcely felt its passage through my nipple, which seemed almost insensitive. She then unscrewed and removed the tongs, leaving the piercer still sticking through the nipple, the point of a ring being then put into a hollow in the base of the piercer, the ring was passed through the nipple and closed. The whole operation, excepting the bathing, did not, I believe, occupy a minute. I felt scarcely any pain; and only a drop or two of blood flowed, which was at once absorbed by a little styptic wool**.”

“Yes, I’m familiar with a number of ladies with pierced nipples. Why are you laughing?”​

*Benzoline is like gasoline, except it’s made from coal and tar.

**Styptic wool is treated with iron chloride and is highly absorbent, it also causes blood vessels to contract slightly and thereby slow or stop bleeding.

Her other nipple was even faster and even less painful. Millie got hers done (Gave a little gasp of shock when the first nipple was pierced) and then they were out on the streets of Paris with padding on their breasts.

Beaumont told them this as they left: “… we were the first English ladies who had visited her for the purpose of having their nipples pierced, but that she had had several American ladies visit her, and many from France and other parts of the Continent.”

Constance says that when the piercings were irritated she and her sister would soak them in camphorated water, which is kind of like soda water and which M. Beaumont recommended. She kept the padding going for six weeks, to the keep her corset from rubbing against the piercings.

And that is the story of how you got your nipples pierced in 1889.

 

[AndyRew00]

From Manly to Sexy: The History of the High Heel​

Why do women wear high heels? Because men did..............

Men were the first sex to don the shoe. They were adopted by the European aristocracy of the 1600s as a signal of status. The logic was: only someone who didn’t have to work could possibly go around in such impractical footwear. (Interestingly, this was the same logic that encouraged footbinding in China.)
​

​

Women started wearing heels as a way of trying to appropriate masculine power. In the BBC article on the topic, Elizabeth Semmelhack, who curates a shoe museum, explains:

In the 1630s you had women cutting their hair, adding epaulettes to their outfits…

They would smoke pipes, they would wear hats that were very masculine. And this is why women adopted the heel — it was in an effort to masculinise their outfits.

The lower classes also began to wear high heels, as fashions typically filter down from elite.

How did the elite respond to imitation from “lesser” people: women and workers? First, the heels worn by the elite became increasingly high in order to maintain upper class distinction. And, second, heels were differentiated into two types: fat and skinny. Fat heels were for men, skinny for women.

This is a beautiful illustration of Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of class distinction. Bourdieu argued that aesthetic choices function as markers of class difference. Accordingly, the elite will take action to present themselves differently than non-elites, choosing different clothing, food, decor, etc. Expensive prices help keep certain things the province of elites, allowing them to signify their power; but imitation is inevitable. Once something no longer effectively differentiates the rich from the rest, the rich will drop it. This, I argue elsewhere, is why some people care about counterfeit purses (because it’s not about the quality, it’s about the distinction).

Eventually men quit wearing heels because their association with women tainted their power as a status symbol for men. (This, by the way, is exactly what happened with cheerleading, originally exclusively for men). With the Enlightenment, which emphasized rationality (i.e., practical footwear), everyone quit wearing high heels.

What brought heels back for women? Pornography. Mid-nineteenth century pornographers began posing female nudes in high heels, and the rest is history.
​

Lisa Wade, PhD on February 5, 2013

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[AndyRew00]

' Leather dykes on their way to Oxford Street Gay Pride, 1988 '

History of BDSM ‏@HistoryofBDSM Feb 26​

 

[AndyRew00]

Slave Positions....

 

[AndyRew00]

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Forbidden BDSM

Link is broken ,so has been taken down​

 

[AndyRew00]

' From Freud to America: A short history of sadomasochism '
The Marquis de Sade might have given his name to sadomasochism (SM), but responsibility for the terms might be more​

The Marquis de Sade might have given his name to sadomasochism (SM), but responsibility for the terms might be more accurately handed to Freud.The terms sadism and masochism were only coined during the rise of psychoanalysis in the 1880s, but sexual historians agree that the behaviors have existed for far longer; activity that could be classified as sadomasochistic appears often in medieval stories of courtly love, for instance. Despite research that shows that 15 percent of the American adult population has engaged in SM at some point, bondage remains a marginalized activity. A history of humanity’s long liason with leather.

1785 - Comte Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade, better known as the Marquis de Sade, publishes Les 120 Journes de Sodome (The 120 Days of Sodom). His fantasy novel, along with the works Justine and Juliette, depicts graphic sexual violence. In his time, the Comte de Sade was better known as a philosopher and revolutionary; but today he’s forever entangled with fetish.

1869 - Austrian noble Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (1836-95) publishes “Venus im Pelz” (Venus in Furs), a semi-autobiographical work about a man who convinces a woman to make him her slave. The beautiful woman, the Venus in furs of the title, becomes cruel and abusive while trying to sexually please. The Romantic era work caused an outrage in Sacher-Masoch’s home city of Lemburg and has been subject to frequent bans ever since.

1885 - German psychologist Richard von Krafft-Ebing publishes Psychopathia Sexualis, which coins the terms “sadism” and “masochism” and describes sexual disorders in which acts of cruelty and bodily punishment become sexually pleasurable. At this time, the two “sexual anomalies” are understood as distinct: sadism involves finding sexual pleasure in inflicting pain on another person; masochism involves ceding control of a sexual situation to another person.

1889 - The founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, analyzes sadomasochism as part of a number of disorders arising from the repression of the subconscious. Freud describes masochism as a perversion common in women and sadism as a perversion common in men, arising from pent-up violent energy.

1929 - British psychologist and founder of sexology Havelock Ellis finishes his seven-volume polemic Studies in the Psychology of Sex. Ellis refutes Freud and Krafft-Ebing by arguing that there is little distinction between sadism and masochism as the two are complementary emotional states. Ellis creates the modern conception of SM, noting that sadomasochists use pain to create pleasure and violence to express love. Ellis also refutes Freud and Krafft-Ebing’s claims that sadism is a stereotypical male sexual response and masochism a stereotypical female sexual response.

1947 - Alfred C. Kinsey, a former Harvard professor of zoology, founds the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University in Bloomington (now called the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction).One year later he publishes the infamous Kinsey Report, in which 12 percent of female and 22 percent of male respondents say they experience an erotic response to a sadomasochistic story, and 55 percent of females and 50 percent of males report having responded sexually to being bitten.

1954 - French author Pauline Rage publishes L’Histoire d’O (The Story of O), a fantasy of female submission to unknown sexual dominators. The work wins the French literary prize Le Prix des Deux Magots and spurs a revival of popular sadomasochistic fiction common (in weaker forms) in the early 1800s.

1972 - BDSM (Bondage, Domination, Sadism and Masochism) arises as part of larger gay male culture. Affiliated with the leather and biker subcultures, the BDSM practitioners described by Larry Townsend in the popular book “The Leatherman’s Handbook” create an “old guard” culture with formal rules and fixed playable roles. Sadomasochism becomes increasingly affiliated with the American gay community.

1978 - Lesbian feminists in San Francisco, including writer Pat Califia, found Samois, an organization that garners national attention for its sexually explicit manual on BDSM. Samois becomes the torchbearer for a number of BDSM organizations that gain popularity in the 1970s and 80s.

1981 - Scientists identify AIDS, sparking widespread fear in the gay community and increased homophobia among Americans. The rise of BDSM coincides with the spread of AIDS. Activists suggest that BDSM reduces the risk of disease by providing an alternative to actual intercourse.

c. 1990 - The Internet allows people with specialized sexual interests to explore otherwise taboo activities and to connect anonymously. This brings an explosion of interest in and knowledge about SM, dramatically changing the culture to become more inclusive and less secretive.

Written By Annie Lowrey
Annie reports on politics and economic policy for New York magazine. Previously, Lowrey covered economic policy for The New York Times. Prior to that, she covered the economy as the Moneybox columnist for Slate. Lowrey joined Slate in 2010 as part of an effort to revamp their coverage of Business and the Economy. She was also a staff writer for the Washington Independent and served on the editorial staffs of Foreign Policy and The New Yorker.

 

[AndyRew00]

' A brief history of spanking '

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Recently there was an entry on a web forum from someone who suggested that general interest in spanking and any form of BDSM or SBF only emerged, maybe in the 1950s, but probably did not get going until the permissive society in the 1960s.

Now it is certainly probable that until the 20th century it was not considered a valid form sexuality, but sexual interest in flagellation, as it was known, has a long history.

Although in times past it may well have been disguised and dressed up as something considered more wholesome for its age.

In ancient Egypt, for instance it was forbidden to whip your wife on her breasts unless she deserved it. Whipping her on the buttocks was your sacred duty and her lot in life, naturally.

The Egyptians even had a cult for it, Isis. This was a cult where the gods where honoured by whipping girls in temples. Wives, daughters and slave girls could also be expected to whipped by their husbands, mothers and masters in honour of the gods. Indeed it may have been considered a dishonour if they were not.

The cult of Isis was later transposed to ancient Rome, where senator’s wives indulged in ‘religious parties’ where they were whipped, all to honour the gods of course.

The Romans themselves had their own religious flagellation practices. Women were flogged during the Lupercalia, an ancient Roman pastoral festival, held in February to drive out evil spirits and purify the city, releasing health and fertility.

The fertility aspect was the most important as the Romans believed that thrashing women on the bare bottom made them fertile. Young women were often taken to a temple by their sponsors and spanked over the lap in public to make them fertile. In the days of the Old Republic it was routinely done by the bride’s mother before her marriage.

The bride to be would be escorted by her mother to the appropriate temple and after an offering to the gods and the blessing of the priestess she would put across her mother’s knee and either spanked with the flat of the hand or more likely quite vigorously thrashed with a martinet.

So deeply held was the belief that spanking women’s bottoms made them fertile that one Roman general cautioned his colleagues not spare the rod on their daughters “for you cannot whip them too harshly, even if it not be justly done, then at least they will be better in the begetting of grandchildren.”

Tiberius himself used this as a justification when summoning the wives and daughters of his senators to his orgies. It would be naive to think that he had anything but a sexual motive.

William the Bastard, renamed the Conqueror by the Victorians, is said to have had a healthy spanking relationship with his wife Matlida. She is said to have refused to marry him, despite a promise by her father that she would, after saying very publicly that she was too good to marry an illegitimate man. William felt slighted by this, not withstanding it was true, and is said to have ridden to her house and spanked her in front of his men and her neighbours.

Afterwards when he agreed to set aside the betrothal vow. But she took back her objection saying, “She would do well in marrying such a strong man.”

Legend has it that he took her to task when ever she needed it and that she did not “greatly object.”

Catherine de Medici, the Queen and Regent of France between 1533 and 1589, is said to have spanked her maids. It is said that she summoned them and stripped them naked to be beaten for her amusement.

According to one story, she spanked a lady-in-waiting, herself a noblewoman, over her knee before the whole court for the crime of criticising her for her cruelty.

Another story about her is that she once flogged all her ladies-in-waiting on the bare bottom before her entire court because she was “displeased with them.”

Meanwhile in England the teenage Princess Mary, the future Mary I was spanked on the orders of her step mother Anne Boleyn. It is thought that she was so resented by Anne, that her servants birched her for the least offence. There is even one story that Anne herself once held Mary down and applied a slipper to her bottom.

A few years later another future queen of England, Lady Jane Grey, was also birched by her mother and her governess on the orders of her father. This was well illustrated in the movie with Helena Bonham-Carter, although in fact Jane was flogged in this manner over several months.

There was nothing unusual about Lady Jane’s treatment. At the time, women of good birth were often birched. The flogging of Tudor gentlewomen was usually carried out in the long gallery, as the name suggests, a long room that was hung with family portraits of long dead ancestors who would look down on the miscreant in disapproval.

However, the real champions of domestic discipline were the Russians.

Even in the court of the progressive Tsar, Peter the Great 1672–1725, women’s bottoms were not safe. Peter often “used the methods of a despotic landlord, the whip and arbitrary rule.” He is rumoured to have beaten his beloved wife Catherine. Her views on this are not known but this would have been considered quite normal in Russia at the time and for centuries after.

It was the usual custom that teenage girls were married to someone of their father’s choice, and after the usual formalities, the father would bring the girl to stand before him to be introduced to her husband-to-be. The father would administer a light, and sometimes not so light, whipping and then hand the whip to the future husband.

The Russian Orthodox Church sanctioned and encouraged the husband to discipline his wife by beating her. A wife would expect to be whipped and think her husband weak if he did not.

In 1556 a marital manual called the Household Management Code, written by a monk named Sylvester, ordered that a disobedient wife should be whipped.

It laid down strict rules about the submission of women to their husbands, stipulating obedience and loyalty.

If this sounds harsh, under Russian law a disloyal wife could be buried up to her neck and left to die.

During 18th century the future tsarina, Catherine the Great, was caned by her husband as apart of her ‘military discipline’ when they played his favourite game of drilling toy soldiers.

Perhaps she acquired a taste for it as years later when her lover, Mamonov eloped and married a 16-year-old, Catherine was furious. She is said to have sent her secret police, disguised as women of all things, to pursue the couple and when caught, Catherine had the girl whipped.

Up until the 19th century in the British Isles it was legal to beat your wife with a stick as long as it was no thicker than your thumb. That is well known, but fewer know that this law was only abolished in Sark during the 21st century.

Not all of the above was fun for the participants, but in four thousand years or more some one must have enjoyed it at least once.

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[AndyRew00]

' Another short history of spanking '

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It has been said that the first spanking in history was when Eve went over Adam’s knee after they were expelled from the Garden of Eden. However, before there was even a Bible the ancient Egyptians had already incorporated spanking into their religion.

To the followers of the goddess Isis spanking was actually a sacred duty. In the temple female slaves had their bottoms whipped to honour the goddess of motherhood and fertility. This made such an impact that centuries later the Greeks and Romans adopted the habit and held their own spanking parties to promote fertility.

The interesting thing about spanking and other forms of corporal punishment centred on the buttocks is that rather than being directed at children the practice was original reserved for women.

As a recent article points out, “Spare the rod, Spoil the child” is not from the Bible but was in fact written by Samuel Butler in his satirical poem Hudibras to ridicule the Victorian lifestyle.

Another article written in 1966 by John Barry said:

Spanking has a long history, probably as long as the Oldest Profession. Documented incidents even date back to Ancient Greece. Then it was customary for childless women to visit the temple of Juno in Athens, to be cured of sterility by the priests of Pan. The women had to lie face down on the temple floor, and be whipped with a lash made of goat’s hide. The priests clearly were aware of the erotic powers of the whip, but history does not tell us whether or not the resultant children were sired by the whip-wielding priests.

It goes to describe how the Roman story-teller, Virgil, describes the feast of Lupercalia, where naked men danced in the streets beating every woman they came across.

Also, as my previous article said the Romans followed a tradition for ensuring the fertility of brides to be. The girl was placed across the knees of the ‘sponsor’, and then the girl’s bottom was bared and strapped to the accompaniment of clashing cymbals. This theory that whipping would make barren women fertile was popular right up until the sixteenth century.

Indeed Queen Claude of France was said to be barren and remained childless for the first 15 years of her marriage. To counter this severe threat to the French state she was soundly and regularly spanked. In fact after undergoing a daily spanking on the bare bottom for some time it was said that her ordeal was occasionally augmented by using rods.

After 15 years of this treatment she did have several children!

The curious thing about this period in French history is that at a time when belief in flagellation for fertility began to wane erotic whipping became more common in the French court. Ladies bottoms were even frequently whipped in public. This was particularly curious because at the same time the Church had begun to advocate whipping for the purging of sins.

The church even defined different types of whipping; superior was whipping on the back, usually reserved for men, while an inferior whipping referred to spanking and chastisement on the bare bottom, generally reserved for women. It was common for women, after confession, to retire to a priest’s room and have her bare bottom birched while resting on a specially designed kneeler.

This dichotomy of religious and erotic practices seems to have been confused even at the time. A 50-year-old Jesuit, Father Giraud, wound up in court for spanking the very pretty 25-year-old Catherine Cadiere, an alleged French witch who he had confined to a nunnery for this very ‘service.’

In fact the later trial of Catherine Cadiére in 1731 formed part of the basis for the pornographic novel Thérèse Philosophe.

Nor was he the only priest to follow this practice. Father Cornelius Adriason founded a punishment called the Cornelian Discipline, and became famous for flogging female bottoms. In the 1550s he became involved with Marie-Ann Leveque, a niece of the Mayor of Bruges, Belgium. As her confessor he customarily whipped her and other young women half-naked, but for him Marie-Ann deserved an extra-special penance. He stripped her completely naked and after her whippingis said to taken advantage of her.

Around the same time Catherine de’ Medici’s favourite sport, to quote from her biographers, was to order serving girls and ladies of her court to be stripped naked and thrashed in front of her. This seems to have begun as a punishment but as time went by this custom evolved into a kind of spanking party. At a banquet in 1577, she made the most beautiful and noble ladies of the court serve half naked. She personally spanked them on the buttocks with the palm of her hand, with great blows and fairly rough handling.

It seems that spanking has been ambiguous at the very least when it comes to motivations.​

 

[AndyRew00]

' Is this the world's first pornography? The incredibly explicit images carved in north-west China 4,000 years ago '

• The Kangjiashimenji Petroglyphs depict of an intense fertility ritual
  
• Uniquely for the ancient world, they explicitly show a wild orgy
  
• They are thought to date back to the second century BC

These remarkable images show some of the earliest known examples of what we these days might dub pornography. The Kangjiashimenji Petroglyphs, in Xinjiang, north-west China, depict an intense fertility ritual the likes of which is almost unique in the ancient world. That's because while most prehistoric art presents images that are abstract and disembodied, this tableau appears to explicitly present our sex-crazed ancestors in the midst of a wild orgy.

Kangjiashimenji Petroglyphs: The first scene shows nine massive females, each about two metres high, dancing arond in a circle, while a second transexual figure on the left is partially reclining as if about to fall into a trance​

The petroglyphs - thought to date back to the second millennium BC, although their exact age is difficult to determine - were discovered in the late Eighties by Chinese archaeologist Wang Binghua. Jeannine Davis-Kimball, an expert on Eurasian nomads, was the first Westerner to see them and detail them in scientific journals. Nevertheless they remain little known. One of her descriptions of the tableau is featured on the website of theCenter for the Study of Eurasian Nomads, where she is currently executive director.

The Kangjiashimenji Petroglyphs are carved in bas-relief in a sheltered grotto, at the base of a massive red-basalt outcrop in Tien Shan, about 45 miles west of Urumchi, the capital of Xinjiang province. The cast of about 100 figures, which range in size from more than nine feet tall to just a few inches, are taking part in what is obviously a fertility ritual. Almost all are depicted in the same ceremonial pose, in which their arms are held out and bent at the elbows with one hand pointing up and the other pointing down.​

Location: The petroglyphs are carved in bas-relief in a sheltered grotto at the base of this red-basalt outcrop in Tien Shan, in Xinjiang, west China
​

'In addition, human figures, floating heads, meandering dogs, static felines, and heraldic animals fill voids,' Dr Davis-Kimball writes. 'To the ancients each image most surely represented some aspect of the ritual.' It is believed that the larger-than-life hourglass figures that begin the tableau represent females, with their stylised triangular torsos, and shapely hips and legs. These figures wear conical headdresses with wispy decorations. Males, on the other hand, are depicted as smaller triangles with spindly stick legs, bare heads and mainly erect penises - dubbed 'ithyphallic' in archaeology speak. Many of the figures appear to depict transexuals combining both male and female features. Ithyphallic but wearing female headgear and chest decorations, they sometimes also wear masks and may depict shamans. 'In general, the figures are represented in a dance so intense that some have fallen into a trance or state of ecstasy,' writes Dr Davis-Kimball. 'Others are about to engage in sexual intercourse with the obvious intent of procreation as small embryonic images evoking chorus lines emphasise the significance of this act.'The various animals add notes of ambiguity, yet provide additional clues to place the tableau in time and space and provide some historical basis.' She distinguishes eight separate scenes in the tableau, four of which are fully formed and the remainder of which appear to be sketches.

Sex crazed: The second scene of the petroglyphs. It is believed that the larger-than-life hourglass figures that begin the tableau represent females, with their stylised triangular torsos, and shapely hips and legs​

The first scene shows nine massive females, each about two metres high, dancing arond in a circle, while a second transexual figure on the left is partially reclining as if about to fall into a trance. It is the only scene withoug ithyphallic men, although the transexual featured does have an erect penis. 'It wears a female headdress with antenna and a “bra” ...' writes Dr Davis-Kimball. 'Although its torso and legs are stylized as the male and it is ithyphallic. 'Both arms, raised over its shoulders, have deviated from the normal dancing position.
​

'To complete the scene a single human head and two pairs of heraldic animals, probably goats — one pair markedly ithyphallic — are interspaced between the female dancers.' It is the second scene identified by Dr Davis-Kimball that appears to show the wildest orgy of all. In it sixteen figures - 10 female and six male - look set to begin having sex, with one particularly unusual one on the left wearing a monkey mask and probably representing a shaman. 'As it is ithyphallic it is also a bi-sexual representation and it appears that it about to copulate with a small female with splayed legs whose vulva is explicit,' she writes. Next to it is a headless male who looks like he's trying to have sex with another transexual figure. At the centre of the scene is another prominent transexual figure who appears about to have sex with a smaller female with splayed legs whose private parts are quite explicitly rendered.

​

Another large female figure seems to have two heads, and is positioned in the foreground as if leading the dance. Dr Davis-Kimball describes how it is stained stained red, 'perhaps suggesting heat'. Nearby, below the figure wearing the monkey mask, are a pair of ithyphallic striped feline animals surrounded by three bows which appear to have arrows which are about to be discharged. The third scene is smaller more crudely rendered, containing nine figures, three female and six male, all apparently about to have sex.

​

Dr Davis-Kimball identifies two images which stand out. 'First, the male at the left with testicles and grossly exaggerated penis attempts to mate with the second important figure, the adjacent female,' she writes. To this female’s left are three more males eager for their turn to have sex with her. Dr Davis-Kimball adds: 'In this scene the importance of progeny is emphasized with the portrayal of two rows of small anthropomorphic figures.

The third scene: Many of the figures appear to depict transexuals combining both male and female features. Ithyphallic but wearing female headgear and chest decorations, they may depict shamans​

Ancient: The final scene, which appears according to one writer 'a lot like a frat party'. It shows 14 characters, seven of which have erect penises, apparently in the midst of a frenzied dance​

The final scene contains no obviously female figures at all, and one writer for Slate described it as looking 'a lot like a frat party'. It shows 14 characters, seven of which have erect penises, apparently in the midst of a frenzied dance.

Near the bottom is a single male, who appears to masturbating alone with a stream of babies emanating from his penis. Curiously for their location, all the figures presented in the Kangjiashimenji Petroglyphs appear to be Caucasoid, which fits in with other evidence which suggested the residents of this region of what is now China were nomads with European characteristics. Dr Davis-Kimball believes the tableau was probably some kind of storyboard for groups of cultic leaders that was used until about 850BC. '[This] interpretation of the tableau is reasonable as follows,' she writes. 'Many personages are represented, with about half being female (priestesses) and the other half being males (priests).'Slightly more than half the males had assumed a bisexual gender role, being ithyphallic and cross-dressing as priestesses with high headdresses.

'All these personages are engaged in a ritual fertility/procreation dance with some engaged in symbolic copulation that would result in procreation. 'Lines of tiny images are, figuratively, the resulting progeny.' If she is correct, that makes ancient pornography rather more meaningful than today's.