For years, Egyptologists were puzzled by why a phrase that translated as “playing the harp” was from the context obviously meant to be an idiom for sex. Then they finally found out: someone found a statuette of woman playing a harp while straddling a giant log-sized penis.
By far the best username/post content pairing I have ever seen.
If memory serves he is an archeologist over in that neck of the woods …
That’s like asking Bruce Wayne if he’s Batman…
This is an urban legend. It’s more usually told about piano legs. The reason for the leg covers was nothing sexual, it was simply to protect them from damage from bored children taking piano lessons and kicking at the legs in frustration.
The version I heard was that it was to cover up cheap woodwork.
Public pretension changes from time to time but people have always been people. There’s nothing new under the sun and there were never any good old days.
As has been stated before every single form of communication - cave paintings, sculpture, stage plays, novels, etc. - first became popular through pornography.
Yes, I always think the whole thing about cave drawing of women with big tits being “fertility symbols” or some other earth mother nonsense is hilarious: they are drawings of women with big tits. They need no more explanation than exactly the same drawings scratched into schoolboy desks or graffitied on walls
Presumably the same compilation that was released in France as Polissons et galipettes and in the UK on DVD as The Good Old Naughty Days.
I saw it prior to the DVD release when it screened at the National Film Theatre as part of the London Film Festival about 10 years ago. It had easily sold out their largest theatre. (Taking advantage of the censorship loophole that the NFT is a private club and hence not covered by the BBFC when it comes to screening hardcore porn; the latter only later passed it for sale outside of licenced sex shops on grounds of historical interest.)
Two details remain with me as having been surprising. The bit involving the dog. And the quality of the original intertitles. I wouldn’t have expected porn films to have required much in the way of captioning in the first place. But these were pretty elaborate, even to someone who’s seen plenty of silent films, and they even came complete with “bonus material” leud drawings in the margins.
So, Peter Morris and alphaboi, you have sent me in pursuit of more information. I found it difficult to believe that it was an either/or and rather guessed that the answer was that some Victorians did these things for modesty reasons and others for more utilitarian reasons.
It appears from sites I’ve encountered that there has been considerable contemplation upon issues of Victorian virtue and, as most things historical, is currently being reinterpreted through the filters of today’s views of sexuality. Revisionist can keep me hopping.
Here’s a somewhat humorous and modern commentary on the naughtiness of piano legs:
I’ve missed my window to edit. The link isn’t working. You can find the article at “Classical Values,” the March 13, 2007 entry.
Read The Victorians: What We Think We Know About Them and Why We’re Wrong by Matthew Sweet.
And the 1920s were anything BUT puritan! They were a time of sexual liberation – much like the 1960s. Hemlines went up, women began bobbing their hair, for example. Women now were able to vote, which was a huge deal. Why do you think it was called the Roaring Twenties?
As for 1920s porn, from what I gather, that’s right around the time catalogs stopped featuring vibrators – because they began to appear in porn films. (Sorry, no cite for this)
Tangentially related- the delightful cartoon Hark, a Vagrant turned me on (pun intended) to some of the lesser-known works of James Joyce, obtainable here (NSFW text): ht tp://loveletters.tribe.net/thread/fce72385-b146-4bf2-9d2e-0dfa6ac7142d. Naughty Jimmy! This is circa 1909.
The Museum of Inca History in Lima, Peru, has a building entitled “Sala Erotica”. Pornographic pottery. Rooms of it. Kinky, weird, whimsical…you name it, they had it. The Incas were master sculptors and stoneworkers, and their works in this area were eye-opening. The guide told us it was their most popular exhibit.
We bought a bunch of postcards.
In support of Toxgoddess: The Moche culture of the Andes actually depicted lots of interesting sex acts in their pottery. My Anthro professor wouldn’t show us the most explicit but I had this feeling he had an extensive collection of slides of these pots. I forgot the dates but on Wiki it says 100 to 800 AD.
Here’s the Ain Sakhri Lovers figurine. It’s from Ain Sakhri, near Bethlehem in Israel/the West Bank, it’s about 11,000-12,000 years old, and it’s the oldest sculpture we have of two people making love.
Khajuraho temples in India is one of the most explicit sex objects ever seen. The entire building covered in them.
full on. I like the chick giving a BJ. Another one gives a handjob to a guy hugely endowed.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_OVDyh75veVk/TOIR_CC9U-I/AAAAAAAACBE/QCXcy2fWkFE/s1600/khajurahoTemple1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://divyadarisanams.blogspot.com/2010/11/tantra-temples-in-india-khajuraho.html&usg=__q8AdtQVGboT7-xf2qFUMtg7U5Yo=&h=334&w=500&sz=119&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=1rV3kIfHgDCn0M:&tbnh=121&tbnw=174&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dkhajuraho%2Btemple%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3DESO%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26biw%3D1143%26bih%3D693%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=118&vpy=76&dur=2743&hovh=183&hovw=275&tx=80&ty=93&ei=50kOTbfjGtSrnAf_wdjjDQ&oei=50kOTbfjGtSrnAf_wdjjDQ&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=23&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0
Harrumph . . . Yes, well, porn’s one thing and religion’s another . . .
There’s a theory among archeologists about the Venus of Willendorf – a well-known bit of prehistoric art that portrays a naked women with large breasts – that is may have been a keepsake to remind the man of his girlfriend back home. It was made of stone that is not native to where it was found. There are other, similar, figures that may have been carved for the same reason.
“When virtual reality will let Joe Sixpack make love to Claudia Schiffer in his den for hours at a time, it’ll make crack look like Sanka.” - Dennis Miller