Erotic Fantasy. Hans-Jürgen Döpp

      In antiquity, the admiring observation of the posterior was one of the common ways of evaluating a female. Competitions to discover the loveliest bottom were common. One of Alkiphron’s “hetaerae[38] letters” describes a wild symposium held by courtesans in which the spectacular climax is a dispute between two of them as to who has the prettier and more graceful bottom. The dispute is arbitrated by an exhibition: “First of all, Myrrhina loosened her girdle – she kept on her thin silken garment[39] – and swayed back and forth, so that her bottom trembled like thick, creamy milk, and she looked over her shoulder to watch its movements; she uttered soft sighs, as though she were in the throes of love’s ecstasy. But Thryallis didn’t let herself be intimidated, but went even further in shamelessness.

      “‘I’m not going to compete in thin robes’, she said, ‘and I’m not going to be coy, but I’ll be naked as in a wrestling match. Coyness has no place in this competition’. She cast off her garment and swayed her hips slightly. ‘Look’, she said, ‘see how even the colour is, how spotless, how pure, see my rosy hips and how they shade into my thighs, there are no bulges of fat visible, nor any bones, nor any dimples. And indeed, by Zeus, it doesn’t tremble like Myrrhina’s – and she smiled slightly. And then she demonstrated the play of muscles and swayed her buttocks so that the muscles danced across her hips, and everyone applauded and victory was awarded to Thryallis.” The decision was influenced not only by the appearance and characteristics of the posterior but also by the charm of the environment in which it was exposed.

      The well-known Judgment of Paris is the model for such beauty contests. A similar competition in Syracuse is at the base of the legend of the founding of a cult of Aphrodite. The two daughters of a simple peasant were competing to see which had the prettiest bottom; to judge between them they chose a young man of good family who promptly fell in love with the older sister while his younger brother fell for the younger sister. There was a double wedding and the two girls dedicated a temple to Aphrodite, to whom they gave the name “Kallipygos”, “She of the lovely Buttocks.”

      Exposure and demonstration of the buttocks is part of the repertoire of erotic gestures which prostitutes use to arouse their clients. Already in the fifth century B. C. admiration was being expressed for dancers who danced “with kilted-up skirts” and then undressed and allowed their posteriors to be admired.

      The posterior gained aesthetic recognition thanks to this exhibitionism; it is unjustly despised, because the charms of a beautiful bottom appeal to the aesthetic sense of both sexes. F. Th. von Vischer[40] states that it is the “peach-like shape” of the bottom which creates aesthetic appreciation. The effect of these sculptural charms explains why many content themselves with seeing the buttocks and derive sexual pleasure from the sight.

      We know from reports of the Papal Court of Pope Alexander VI that the erotic attraction of the posterior sometimes led to public orgies. One chronicle reports; “Once there was a dinner in the Apostolic Palace at which many distinguished courtesans were present. After the meal they were required to dance with the servants and guests, first dressed, then naked. After the dancing, flaming torches were placed on the ground and chestnuts were thrown between them, which the naked women picked up, crawling between the torches, bending and swaying a hundred times, while Cesare and Lucretia Borgia watched. This charming scene took place on the eve of All Saints’ Day 1501.” In England the predilection for the sight of callipygian charms gave rise to a particular type of prostitute known as “posture girls”.[41] This branch of prostitution seems to have arisen about 1750, as it is mentioned for the first time in many erotic writings of that time. For instance, The History of the Human Heart or The Adventure of a Young Gentleman (London, 1769) refers to “posture girls”, who “stripped stark naked and mounted themselves on the middle of the table”[42] in order to show off their attributes. The behaviour of these “girls” in a brothel in Great Russell Street is graphically described in Midnight Spy. Urbanus says, “There we see an object that arouses at once indignation and pity. A beautiful woman lies on the ground, showing that part of her body which, were she not dead to all sense of shame, she would eagerly seek to conceal. As she is given to drunkenness, she usually arrives at the house slightly tipsy, and displays herself in front of men in this indecent manner after two or three glasses of Madeira. Look, now she is being carried out like an animal. People mock her, but she is delighted to prostitute such incomparable beauty.” This type of anal-erotic voyeurism was particularly common in England at this time.

      39. Paul-Emile Becat, 1848.

      40. Paul Avril, circa 1910.

      This admiration of the posterior was definitely ambivalent, as expressed in accompanying fantasies of corporal punishment. That which is desired is also a “damnable” object, and not only in puritanical cultures. One’s own fascination has to be suppressed by punishing the desired object. Thus in the idea of flagellation (for which England was particularly notorious) there is a defensive reaction against one’s own desires. In Our Mutual Friend, Dickens has this to say of the cherubic Mr. Wilfer: “So boyish was he in his curves and proportions, that his old schoolmaster meeting him in Cheapside, might have been unable to withstand the temptation of caning him on the spot”.[43] A pedagogue in antiquity would undoubtedly have solved the problem in an entirely different way. A poem by Heine also satirises the motif of corporal punishment. In Citronia, from the “Last Poems”, he describes a schoolmistress sitting in her armchair: “And a birch-rod in her hand, with which she beats the little brat. The little one, who committed a trivial fault, is weeping. She lifts up the skirts and the little globes with their charming, lovely curves, sometimes like roses sometimes like lilies – ah, the old lady beats them black and blue. To be ill treated and insulted – this is the fate of beauty on earth.” In normal editions of Heine, the middle section of the verse is omitted. Another stroke of the rod, this time from the pen of the censor against the delightful lines. It is not far from pleasure in exposure of the posterior to anal intercourse; a beautiful object that is desired must also be possessed.

      In a study of The Posterior in Antiquity, Adrian Stähli indicates that, in vase paintings of the sixth and fifth centuries B. C. depicting the act of intercourse, the posture of anal intercourse is predominant or, if vaginal penetration is depicted, then it is in a position where the woman shows her bottom to the man, suggesting anal penetration to him or to anyone seeing the illustration. It is time to take a rear view of our idealised, posterior-less image of the Greeks. As Kenneth Clark emphasised: “This deeply rooted awareness, the recognition of the significance of physical beauty, protected the Greeks from the two evils of sensuality and aestheticism.” No – sensuality was increased by beauty! The classical object of libidinousness was – the posterior!

      41. Paul

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