were burned as obscene by the Dominican reformist preacher Girolamo Savonarola, in Florence in 1497 (though Savonarola met the same fiery fate himself a year later, after he upset the Vatican). And as late as 1928, an English translation of Ars amatoria was banned from America by US Customs.
The authorities might well remain reluctant to allow one of the late classical world’s other guides on lovemaking to be published. The Affairs of the Heart is effectively the inner monologue of a bi-curious male. Written by Lucien (or very possibly someone doing a rough imitation of his work) around AD 4, it records the disputes between a straight philanderer and a gay pederast over whose sex life is more honest and pleasurable. The straight guy wins, and the text recommends that male readers should choose wives over young boys – not least because they last longer: a woman is desirable from maidenhood to middle age, whereas boys pass their prime as soon as their beard starts to grow. What’s more, it adds, a woman can be used sexually just like a boy, thus offering ‘two roads to pleasure’. Bonus, eh?
Where to Do It
Outdoors
Marie Stopes, Married Love (1918)
There are some who do realize the sacredness and the value of nature and sunlight. There must be many beautiful children who were conceived from unions which took place under natural conditions of nature and sunlight.
But beware cops and other vermin
Dr Alex Comfort, The Joy of Sex (1972)
Outdoor locations in wild areas are often flawed by vermin, ranging from ants and mosquitoes to rattlesnakes and officious cops.
And certainly not in these places
Ananga Ranga of Kalyanamalla (Stage of the Love God), by the Indian poet Kalyan Mall (16th century)
In the presence of a holy man, a respectable old person or a great man
By rivers or streams
Next to wells or water tanks
Temples
Forts or castles
Guard-rooms, police stations, or other government places where prisoners are held
On a highway
In someone else’s house
Forests, meadows or uplands
Cemeteries
The consequences of carnal connection at such places are disastrous. They breed misfortunes. If children are begotten, they turn out bad and malicious.
Low light, on top of the blankets
Rennie MacAndrew, Life Long Love: healthy sex and marriage (1928)
Intimacy should always take place on top of the bed rather than beneath the blankets, so that each can enjoy seeing the physical charms of the other. Exhibitionism is not a perversion as a prologue to the consummation of love. Ideally, intercourse should be performed in a dimly lighted room, certainly not in the dark.
NO SEX PLEASE, WE’RE MEDIEVAL ENGLISH
In the unenlightened Britain of the Middle Ages, the Church was hard at work cementing the foundations for centuries of sexual double-standards and miserabilism.
Its moral leaders could not actually ban sex – they had to be practical, and intercourse was the only reliable way that mere mortals could fulfil God’s command to go forth and multiply. Nevertheless, the clergy shared St Paul and St Augustine’s wholehearted distaste for this undignified and bestial act – especially if anyone appeared to be having fun while performing it. Lust was a tool of the serpent of Satan, which turned the natural and sinless act of marital baby-making into something damnably hellish. Enjoying marital sex (rather than only putting up with it) constituted a venial sin. Adultery or fornication, moreover, constituted a mortal sin. Celibacy was the safest recommended route to heaven.
So when the local peasants sought advice on the physical side of marriage, the clergy were less than encouraging. One of the Church’s authoritative sources of sex do’s and don’ts consisted of an obsessively detailed inventory of acts that was apparently compiled by St Theodore of Tarsus, the Archbishop of Canterbury, from AD 668 to 690. In fact The Penitential of Theodore didn’t contain any do’s – they were all don’ts. The banned list included everything from receiving oral sex and masturbation, to bestiality and simply enjoying a cuddle with your spouse on holy days. Each offence was accompanied by a prescribed punishment, which could have you fasting regularly, getting whipped or paying penance. Masturbating would get you sentenced to 40 days’ penitence – and the same punishment applied for anyone who tried, but failed, to have sex for fun. Lesbians got three years, while male gays got ten. Anyone who slept with their mother got the maximum – 15 years – and were only allowed to change their clothes on Sundays.
Medieval doctors often took a different approach, however. They saw sex as essential to health and warned that long-term celibacy could lead to a dangerous build-up of ‘seminal humours’. They were heavily influenced by Galen, the first-century Classical doctor whose theories provided the backbone of European medical practice for centuries and whose cures, such as frequent bleeding, must have helped to kill millions. But Galen’s influence on lovemaking medicine would have been popular: physicians recommended regular, though not excessive, sexual intercourse to release their patients’ seminal humours. They added that the best moral way that single people and widows could stay healthy was to masturbate. Galen even recommended that physicians or midwives place hot poultices on the genitals of celibate women, causing them ‘to experience orgasm, which would release the retained seed’. The Church naturally disagreed, saying masturbation could only be excused if it was unintentional. But how do you prove you were having a wet dream?
As for sex guides, the contemporary De Secretis Mulierum has a strong claim to be one of the most deceitful, nasty and wicked ever published. Its title translates as The Secrets of Women and the work purported to be about women’s health. The contents, however, reflect the vicious paranoia of its misogynistic authors. It was written most probably in the thirteenth or early fourteenth century – possibly by Albertus Magnus, the theologian and scientist, or more likely by a disciple. It was published with the ostensible aim of helping to unravel the mysteries of creation for celibate monks and clerics who, theoretically at least, would be unfamiliar with a woman’s reproductive parts. Subsequent editions carried additional comments by other scholars, and the book steadily grew into a bizarre testament to medieval Englishmen’s warped attitudes to women and their bodies.
They seemed in particular to be rather frightened by the idea of sex with females, warning: ‘The more women have sexual intercourse, the stronger they become, because they are made hot by the motion that the man makes during coitus. Further, male sperm is hot because it is of the same nature as air and when it is received by the woman it warms her entire body, so women are strengthened by this heat. On the other hand, men who have sex frequently are weakened by this act because they become exceedingly
