Sexe & ye Syngle Gyrle

August 21, 2015 6:55 PM

Thus Man’s most noble Parts describ’d we see;
(For such the Parts of Generation be;)
And they that carefully survey’t, will find,
Each Part is fitted for the Use design’d:
The Purest Blood we find, if well we heed,
Is in the Testicles turn’d into Seed;

Aristotle's Complete Masterpiece isn't by Aristotle, is no masterpiece, and is far from complete, but from its publication in 1684 well into the 1930s, it served as by far the most popular sex manual in the English language.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (4 comments total)

This is super neat!
posted by ocherdraco at 10:20 PM on August 21, 2015 [3 favorites]

“displaying the secrets of nature in the generation of man”

Said secrets of nature apparently involve a Yeti sea-nymph attended by a cherub in blackface. Maybe they’re secrets for good reason.
posted by El Mariachi at 11:56 PM on August 21, 2015

"The next Thing is the Clytoris, which is a sinewy and
hard Part ofthe Womb, repleat with spungy and black
Matter within, in the fame manner as the Side-ligaments
of the Yard [penis]; and indeed refembles it in Form; suffers
Erection, and falling in the same Manner, and it both
stirs up Lust, and gives Delight in Copulation; for
without this, the Fair Sex neither desire marital Embraces,
nor have Pleasure in ’em, nor conceive by ’em. "

Awesome. I had never heard of this.

This book ... I had never heard of this book.
posted by freecellwizard at 3:36 AM on August 22, 2015 [7 favorites]

Very interesting: thanks, Eyebrows McGee. It’s amusingly quaint in places, but elsewhere alarming (many of the suggested remedies, for instance) or even plain horrifying (as in the chapter Of Monſters and of monſtrous Births). On the more amusing side of things, I was struck by the method of determining which one of a couple is infertile by watering two handfuls of barley in either partners’ urine to see whose sprouts first… and also “what ſome Authors report, That a Loadſtone carried about the Woman, not only cauſeth Conception, but Concord between Man and Wife; which, if it be true, I wou’d have no married Woman go without one, both for her own and Husband”s Quiet.’ Fuckinge Loadſtones, how do they worke?
posted by misteraitch at 10:15 AM on August 22, 2015 [1 favorite]