Stähli has indicated, this was in no way gender-neutral; in antiquity, anal penetration was perceived at least potentially as a homosexual act. “The female posterior and that of a boy whom a homosexual lover finds attractive are, in principle, interchangeable.” In comparison with the much more highly valued charms of a boy’s bottom, a woman’s was always second best. “Homosexual epigrams from the Hellenistic period and the Roman Empire praise boys’ bottoms every bit as enthusiastically as the eulogies to women’s backsides”. As in the case of praise of women’s rears, the shape, form and colour of boys’ backsides are praised and described in detail. Far more often than the penis, the backside is seen as the decisive element of the desired boy’s sexual attractiveness. The desire to penetrate male rears is diverted to females. This is also the part of the body where sexuality is an expression of male dominance.
Contempt for the posterior no doubt owes its origin mainly to Christianity, which must have seen in it a heathen place of worship. At least since the thirteenth century, “unnatural indecency”, which included anal intercourse, was declared to be one of the worst of sexual sins, and the Church never ceased to condemn it most severely. Any danger that threatened the continuation of the species had to be abolished – thus, three sins against Nature were denounced more fiercely than ever; sodomy, masturbation and abstinence.
42. Courbouleix, circa 1935.
The Renaissance, however, did not only bring about a revival of the writings of the authors of antiquity. The new Humanism also led to an unusual valuation of sexuality. The confrontation with profane examples of classical literature led inevitably to recognition of the value of the erotic for Greek and Roman culture, a recognition that also encompassed the visual arts. For the “intellectuals” of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the greatest happiness consisted of a symbiosis of intellectual, sexual and culinary pleasures. Aretino[44] wrote glowing praises of callipygian charms. In his “Dialogues” he writes: “then he held the cheeks of her bottom apart with gentle hands – it looked as if he were turning the white pages of a missal – and looked at her backside, absolutely enchanted. It was neither a spiky bag of bones, nor a wobbly lump of fat, but exactly the right size and shape, a bit tremulous and curvy, shining like living ivory. The dimples that one is so glad to see on the chin and cheeks of lovely women adorn her posterior as well. The cheeks were tender as a mouse born and bred in a mill, completely covered with flour. And all her limbs were so smooth that the hand he put on her flank slid down to her calf, like a foot turning on the ice.” At least in Rome in the sixteenth century, anal intercourse was re-instated in its rights. This is the interpretation of several extracts from Aretino’s Sonetti Lussuriosi, for instance the depiction of a woman grasping the erect penis of a man who is pretending to protest, in order to put it into her anus:
(She)
Where do you want to put it? Tell me please,
In front or behind? Because it might annoy you
If during our play
It slipped into my arse.
(He)
O no, Madonna, a ride in the cunt
Doesn’t have that much sex appeal.
What I do, I do with the aim
Of not offending against custom.
But if you really want it anally,
Then it is decided —
Stick the arrow in the hole that we’ve always avoided.
You’ll see, it will do you good
Like medicine to an invalid.
And when I feel your hand on my prick
I’m so happy – when we fuck,
I’ll probably die of joy.
This is another very free rendering of another sonnet:
(She)
– If you don’t like my cunt, take me from behind
Only a liar would claim that he would ignore my arse.
(He)
This fuck in the cunt, the next in the arse.
I enjoy both, and so will you.
Aretino and many of his contemporaries were aware that many women disliked anal intercourse. The Sonetti Lussuriosi and the Dialogues of Courtesans repeatedly mention the fact that intercourse “from behind” was only a pleasure for the man:
(She)
From behind is a pleasure only for you.
In front for both of us.
And so your maid says:
Do it by the rules or not at all.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, pederasty was widespread among the educated aristocracy, just as it was in Greek antiquity – and also the desire to “treat women like men”. Especially the senior clergy showed a particular predilection for this phenomenon, which thus acquired the label “prelate’s dish” or “pleasures of the great and the good.”
Most lovers of boys, whether clergy, poets or aristocrats, were not homosexuals in the strict sense of the word but bisexual. They experienced the same pleasure that they got from sexual intercourse with boys when they “treated a woman like a man”. This pleasure was increased when the woman wore men’s clothes and so appeared to give the optical illusion of being a boy. This was something unheard of as it disregarded the Church’s strict prohibition. Nevertheless, Roman and Venetian courtesans were often happy to dress as men. Alfred Semmerau quotes a decree of 1578: “The licentiousness and brazenness of the courtesans and whores of Venice has grown to such an extent that, in order to attract and seduce young men, they have adopted, among other fashions, this new and uncommon fashion of dressing as men. Whores and courtesans are hereby forbidden to appear in the streets dressed as men, on pain of three years’ imprisonment and perpetual banishment. Gondoliers who assist them will be sent to the galleys for eighteen months…”
In another work of the period, the origin of the term “bugger” is discussed; this term for homosexual and anal intercourse is alleged to have developed from the fact that a king exclaimed “che buco raro” (what a rare hole!) on seeing his catamite’s anus. It was claimed that those who maintained that, on the contrary, the word was derived from “bucum errare” (to take the wrong hole), were misinformed. This type of etymology was the sort of intellectual word game that was very popular among bisexual writers’ circles.
43. Berthomme de Saint-André, 1927.
44. Jean Morisot, 1925.
Goethe was also indebted to the libertinism of antiquity when he wrote in his Venetian Epigrams of 1790; “I have also loved boys, but I prefer girls – If I am tired of them as girls, then I can still use them as boys”. Was Goethe thinking of the Roman poet Martial?
I spent the entire night with a girl
So wanton that no-one could satisfy her.
I was tired after all sorts of positions, so I asked her
To give me what boys usually give.
Almost before I’d made the request she agreed to it.
A girl’s “boyish garland”[46] was the ultimate aim of pleasure, and the bottom was an altar on which sacrifices were gladly made.
De
20 Apr. 1492–21 Oct. 1556; Italian poet.
This is a translation of a translation; that is, I have translated the German translation of the Italian original.
Nonce-word or neologism, obviously coined for this article. (Translator’s note).
