Put What Where? (4 page)

The verses mortally offended the somewhat strait-laced Emperor Augustus. The poem, along with another, undisclosed error, got him banished to the freezing cold, primitive town of Tomis on the Black Sea. (He cryptically wrote, ‘two crimes, a poem and a blunder have brought me to ruin. I must keep silent.’) He continued writing poetry and begging to be allowed home, but to no avail. Ovid died in exile eight years later, in
AD
17. The persecution of his saucy poem did not, however, stop there. All Ovid’s works 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?

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 dried out.’

The authors also warned readers that they would be particularly unwise to go near women during their monthlies, because ‘Women are so full of venom in their time of menstruation that they poison animals by their glance; they infect children in the cradle; they spot the cleanest mirror; and whenever men have sexual intercourse with them they are made leprous and sometimes cancerous.’