“Erotic Flea Art” was mentioned very briefly in the straight dope classic “Is there really such a thing as a flea circus?” back in 82. Here’s the quote, “The intimate association of fleas and humankind down through the ages has given rise to many strange and wonderful things, of which the flea circus is by no means the most bizarre. Ask me about erotic flea art sometime. No kidding.” Was there ever any follow-up on this, or was it just a joke?
A Google search for “erotic flea art” turned up nothing.
This ought to be good. 
The original column is Is there really such a thing as a flea circus?
Welcome to the SDMB, sitebright. Since this is a comment on one of Cecil’s columns, I’ll move this thread to the Comments on Cecil’s Columns forum.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
John Donne famously used the flea as a motif in a classic erotic poem.
I wonder if this poem was what Cecil was referencing. Very strange and interesting though. Maybe i’m dense, but when I think erotic flea art I think visual media…not quite erotic flea poetry.
OTOH, Dogpile returned a number of sites, including sitebright’s post and Terminix …
The 1970’s Sharon McKnight porn flick “Autobiography of a Flea” is billed as “Based on the Victorian classic”.
There is such a book; I’ve seen it, though not read it.
It was published in London in 1887. It’s author was the extremely prolific and long-lived Anonymous.
You should see my collection of signed first editions! 
I just had to point out that there is something wrong about this…
Erotic Flea Art
Sample_the_Dog
Things that make you go…Huh? 
My curiousity got the better of me and I had to do some searching of my own. Apparently “autobiography of a flea” is written from the perspective of a flea “that has taken up residence in the vagina of a young woman”. A companion volume (aka rip-off) to “autobiography of a flea” called “Love Bites” is also available on amazon, also written anonymously.
Somewhat unrelated, there is a fetish out there that entails getting bitten on the penis by a flea (also popular are ants and mosquitos). At one time, it even had a Yahoo! group, but it seems to have broken up. It is almost always true, that where there’s a fetish…there’s pictures of a fetish. I’m sure this could be considered “art” by someone’s definition.
Ok, here’s a link to a pretty dry review of the currently out-of-print Power Unseen: How Microbes Rule the World, by Bernard Dixon.
It includes this tantalizing reference:
Still, Madden does say “literary”, so it may be that the “touching aside on the erotic flea” doesn’t touch on the visual arts.
“A Brief Aside Touching the Erotic Flea” is chapter 3 of Biography of a Germ by Arno Karlen.
Since this is a 2000 book, this phrase surely was borrowed from elsewhere.
Dammit, I want access to the erotic flea underground!
Out, ye Victorian pervs, ye Renaissance fetishists, show me yer precious candymaking secrets!
I just spent the last couple hours (unsuccessfully) searching for anything else that could even be closely related to fleas and their erotic ways, so believe me…i feel your pain mr. dog, i’m not expecting to find a playboy article on “ten ways to please with fleas” anytime soon…but i’ll keep my eyes open.
Erotic flea art at last!
Warning: Explicit (i.e., nude – no sex)
Go to Google Images and do a search under “flea peppers” (but don’t use quotation marks). You’ll get about 3 pages of Flea pix – he’s naked in about half of them.
How a guy can keep it up while playing bass in a gas mask is beyond me.
Ah, we’re back to the Middle Ages. There was a genre of painting in the later middle ages that could have been titled, “Let me find that flea for you my dear.” The pictures show a young woman facing the viewer while disrobing, with an older, dressed man, reaching toward her. The man is eather to the side, or his back is to the viewer, so that the viewer is looking over his shoulder.
Oh, and that medieval snuff box you have? It might be a flea box. Devoted lovers would capture fleas from their beloved and keep them as favors. The fleas contained their love’s blood, you see.
“There was a genre of painting in the later middle ages that could have been titled, “Let me find that flea for you my dear.””
This was continued at least into the early 20th century with sets of photograph postcards (often French - I have a set entitled ‘La Puce’) in which an attractive young man or woman becomes gradually more disrobed on each consecutive card, in order to search for an offending flea. They were often assisted by others (in the set I have, a young attractive mistress is assisted by her equally attractive maid).