# Goethe's \[I\]Faust\[/I\] and obscene/indecent gestures from way back in the day. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 7, 2013, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goethes-i-faust-i-and-obscene-indecent-gestures-from-way-back-in-the-day/652281 "2013-03-07T11:01:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Steken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Steken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steken)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2013, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goethes-i-faust-i-and-obscene-indecent-gestures-from-way-back-in-the-day/652281/1 "2013-03-07T11:01:13Z")
OK, so I was reading this book from the 1890’s, and a dude mentions hanging out with a bunch of Scandinavian libertines. During dinner, one of them exclaims: “Aren’t we alive? Aren’t we eating? Aren’t we drinking? And don’t we have yet _another_ pleasure…”, whereupon he “did that gesture, by which the witch in _Faust_ recognizes Mephisto.” It is quite clear that the gesture indicates sex – but what might the specific gesture have been? Reading the referenced scene directly in _Faust_ doesn’t really help – the stage direction only mentions “eine unanständige Gebärde” (“an indecent gesture”), without providing precise details. Your bets, gentlemen. Was it the forceful _[bras d’honneur](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bras_d'honneur)_? The time-honoured “[wanker](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanker)”? That thing where you jam your hand into your underpants and then puts a finger through your fly? Or maybe just the good old “forming a circle with the thumb and the index finger of the left hand and then repeatedly poking that hole with the index finger and the middle finger of the right hand”? (No, I don’t need an answer fast.) ETA: Could a mod please fix the title? Wanted to italicize Faust, but fucked it up somehow. ---
**Author:** ![Hellestal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Hellestal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hellestal)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2013, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goethes-i-faust-i-and-obscene-indecent-gestures-from-way-back-in-the-day/652281/2 "2013-03-07T11:45:41Z")
I’m not generally one to trust psychoanalysts, but from the [Jahrbuch des Psychoanalyse, Band 22](http://www.goethe-psychoanalyse.de/Publikationen/jahrbuch22/jahrbuch022_02.html), it says: > [@](#): > > Anale Phantasien werden in der Szene auch angedeutet durch eine Gebärde, die Mephisto macht (Regie n. 2513). „Er macht eine unanständige Gebärde." **Für spätere Aufführungen des Faust I ließ Goethe den Mephistodarsteller anweisen, daß er sich als unanständige Gebärde auf den „Hintern" zu schlagen habe** (Erler S. 668). Darauf die Hexe: „(lacht unmäßig) Ha! Ha! Das ist in Eurer Art!" (2514). He slaps her ass. That is straight from Goethe himself, at least according to the cite they have. ---
**Author:** ![Steken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Steken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steken)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2013, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goethes-i-faust-i-and-obscene-indecent-gestures-from-way-back-in-the-day/652281/3 "2013-03-07T11:58:15Z")
> [@Hellestal](#): > > I’m not generally one to trust psychoanalysts, but from the [Jahrbuch des Psychoanalyse, Band 22](http://www.goethe-psychoanalyse.de/Publikationen/jahrbuch22/jahrbuch022_02.html), it says:He slaps her ass. > > That is straight from Goethe himself, at least according to the cite they have. Thank you! But are you sure it’s _her_ ass that he slaps, rather than his own? (My German is too damn rusty these days.) ---
**Author:** ![Hellestal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Hellestal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hellestal)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2013, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goethes-i-faust-i-and-obscene-indecent-gestures-from-way-back-in-the-day/652281/4 "2013-03-07T12:15:54Z")
> [@Steken](#): > > Thank you! But are you sure it’s _her_ ass that he slaps, rather than his own? (My German is too damn rusty these days.) Well, that sure is a “sich” there, not a “sie”. (My German ain’t what it used to be, either.) My imagination tends to run away with me. Whenever I see Mephisto make a “gesture”, my first thought is always [Steve Martin](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VmtNntThPo) (maybe NSFW). ---
**Author:** ![Mops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mops/32/16494_2.png) [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2013, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goethes-i-faust-i-and-obscene-indecent-gestures-from-way-back-in-the-day/652281/5 "2013-03-07T13:38:15Z")
I am a bit confused about the text cited by **Hellestal** (acc. to the site: Rolf Tiedemann: Zu Freuds „Eine Kindheitserinnerung aus Dichtung und Wahrheit", Jahrbuch der Pychoanalyse vol 22, pp. 257 ff). Goethe’s stage instruction I’d understand as the actor slapping himself on the buttocks - how the author makes the jump to from there to ‘anal fantasies’ I don’t understand; normally when you slap yourself or someone else on the buttocks that would refer to the posterior as a secondary sexual feature not to evacuation, wouldn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Steken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Steken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steken)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2013, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goethes-i-faust-i-and-obscene-indecent-gestures-from-way-back-in-the-day/652281/6 "2013-03-07T13:46:30Z")
> [@Mops](#): > > Goethe’s stage instruction I’d understand as the actor slapping himself on the buttocks That would make sense, in the context. Nothing in the book I mentioned (not _Faust_ itself but the one that mentions _Faust_ - see the OP for details) indicates that there were female buttocks present at the time of the indecent gesture in question. It seems more likely, then, that the cheeky libertine slapped his own ass. ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2013, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goethes-i-faust-i-and-obscene-indecent-gestures-from-way-back-in-the-day/652281/7 "2013-03-08T03:21:58Z")
Maybe it was The Fig [http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumb\_302/1219612745vqadA0.jpg](http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/thumb_302/1219612745vqadA0.jpg) The renaissance version of flipping the bird. ---
**Author:** ![moriah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b2d939/32.png) [@moriah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moriah)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2013, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goethes-i-faust-i-and-obscene-indecent-gestures-from-way-back-in-the-day/652281/8 "2013-03-08T05:49:48Z")
Did he bite his thumb at her? ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2013, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goethes-i-faust-i-and-obscene-indecent-gestures-from-way-back-in-the-day/652281/9 "2013-03-08T11:19:13Z")
i don’t really get the slapping your ass gesture in context. Maybe he really bent over , spread his checks, and did an Ace Ventura line delivery. ---
**Author:** ![Steken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Steken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steken)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2013, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goethes-i-faust-i-and-obscene-indecent-gestures-from-way-back-in-the-day/652281/10 "2013-03-08T11:46:21Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > i don’t really get the slapping your ass gesture in context. Well, much like getting “a piece of ass” means (in modern American slang) “having sex”, I guess slapping your _own_ ass could, in another time and culture, mean the very same thing. Most of the _other_ gestures mentioned seem to function as insults, á la “fuck you”, which isn’t what we’re looking for here. The lusty Dane’s gesture clearly meant “fucking” (the verb), rather than “fuck you” (the insult). ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2013, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/goethes-i-faust-i-and-obscene-indecent-gestures-from-way-back-in-the-day/652281/11 "2013-03-08T15:12:01Z")
> [@Steken](#): > > Well, much like getting “a piece of ass” means (in modern American slang) “having sex”, I guess slapping your _own_ ass could, in another time and culture, mean the very same thing. > > Most of the _other_ gestures mentioned seem to function as insults, á la “fuck you”, which isn’t what we’re looking for here. The lusty Dane’s gesture clearly meant “fucking” (the verb), rather than “fuck you” (the insult). If that were the case, I’d expect something more like the “plunging right index finger into a circle made by the left thumb and forefinger”, but maybe that was too crude and direct. The point of coded gestures was to convey meaning succinctly, often without being so overt. It could be some at-the-time common gesture that wasn’t fossilize for our benefit in written or drawn works of the period, and so is lost to us (As “quoz”, as cited in _Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds_ would be to us today, had someone not recorded it.