Salacious Friday

The first sexual revolution: Pleasure principles | The Economist

An interesting review of a book here about how sexual mores changed dramatically in the mid 18th century:

By the mid-18th century sexual mores in England (and in much of Europe, too) had undergone a revolution, writes Faramerz Dabhoiwala, an Oxford historian who has spent much of the last 20 years researching the subject. This rupture was far more dramatic than anything that happened in 1963 when, according to the poet Philip Larkin, “sexual intercourse began”. Less than 100 years after the execution for adultery of Mary Latham, a young woman in Puritan New England, many people were thinking about sex in ways that would make some contemporary readers blush. The wealthy and powerful proudly and openly displayed their mistresses. A public agog for salacious gossip followed the lives of courtesans and high-society prostitutes (such as the oft-painted Kitty Fisher), and pornography was widely available.

...as Mr Dabhoiwala persuasively argues, the reasons for the first sexual revolution were complex and varied. The migration of people to big cities had made the bonds of traditional morality much harder to enforce, while the explosion of mass-printed media both spread ideas and exploited prurient interest in sexual shenanigans. Exploration also had an influence, as travellers returned with tales of very different sexual cultures. But the key driver, Mr Dabhoiwala believes, was the spread of religious tolerance and nonconformity, which eroded the church’s authority and let people define morality more personally.

But for salacious, somewhat unpleasant detail, you can't go past this:

The upper-middle-class members of the Beggar’s Benison club in Scotland, founded in 1732, apparently thought nothing of arranging meetings where they could drink, sing and fondle naked women. Such evenings were brought to a fitting climax, as it were, when they would communally ejaculate into a ceremonial pewter platter.

I hope they didn't use it for the haggis the next day.

UPDATE: Tim's comment, of highly questionable taste, makes me keen to clarify that "it" in the last sentence refers to the platter...

I have had a further thought: assuming there might have been something on the platter to identify its intended use and history, you really wouldn't want one accidentally turning up on Antiques Roadshow. Valuer (to sweet old lady owner) "Well, this is very interesting indeed: do you know what the intended use was? It's a bit surprising..."