Category Archives: Sexuality

1861: Tory MP cleared of fondling himself at his window

Sir John Shelley (1808-1867) was a Conservative politician who served several terms in the House of Commons between 1830 and 1865. Shelley was “also a sportsman of some renown on the turf and with the trigger”, an “eminent agriculturist” and, from all reports, something of a ladies’ man.

In June 1861, Shelley, then the Tory MP for Westminster, appeared in a London court charged with gross indecency. Several witnesses testified seeing Shelley expose and fondle himself in the window of his apartment in St James Street. According to Mrs Susan Stafford:

“I was at the window and Sir John… came to his drawing room window. He had no trousers on but loose drawers and a white or light-coloured dressing gown. I distinctly saw him expose his person. He looked direct to [my house] and used his hands incidentally, and then kissed his hands towards our house. There were ladies and servants at our windows.”

Mrs Stafford’s housemaid also testified in a similar fashion. Miss Mary Griffiths, a relative staying with Mrs Stafford, said under oath that she saw Sir John:

“…standing at the window; he appeared to have some loose gown on and drawers but his legs were bare… He exposed his person and did it again several times in the course of the afternoon.”

Maria Hartley, a nurse, said she saw:

“Sir John at the first floor window, that nearest Piccadilly. I had known him by sight before… I saw him put his hands down and open his drawers and I turned away… I had seen him that day do it two or three times. I have seen him frequently since do it… On those occasions I saw his private parts naked.”

Sir John Shelley’s barrister responded by claiming the defendant had disrobed to his underwear due to the heat; the witnesses, he claimed, had accidentally spied him through a thin curtain. The judge accepted this, noting that Sir John was a “gentleman” and “it was only an illusion”. He dismissed the charge and Sir John “left the court unstained in character by this case”.

Source: Reynold’s Newspaper, London, June 30th 1861. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1909: James Joyce can’t make it to the post office

In 1909, the Irish author James Joyce was living in Trieste with his lover, Nora Barnacle. Then both in their mid-20s, Joyce and Barnacle’s relationship was intense but sometimes variable and tempestuous.

In October, Joyce returned to Dublin on business, leaving Nora alone in Italy for three months. During this separation they agreed to send each other erotic letters. Some of these letters survive today and their contents range from passionate and erotic, to smutty and fetishistic.

Topics explored in Joyce’s letters to Nora include oral sex, self pleasuring, buggery, flatulence and defecation. He referred to her as “my little f-ckbird”, “little c-ntie” and “my sweet dirty little farter”. Joyce also confessed to masturbating, either while writing to Nora or immediately thereafter.

On December 15th, a week before starting his return journey to Trieste, Joyce wrote to Nora:

“I am sure my girlie is offended at my filthy words. Are you offended, dear, as what I said about your drawers? That is all nonsense, darling. I know they are spotless as your hearth. I know I could lick them all over, frills, legs and bottom. Only I love, in my dirty way, to think that in a certain part they are soiled. It is all nonsense too about buggering you. It is only the dirty sound of the word I like, the idea if a shy beautiful young girl like Nora pulling up her clothes behind and revealing her sweet white girlish drawers in order to excite the dirty fellow she is so fond of; and then letting him stick his dirty red lumpy pole in through the split of her drawers and up, up, up, in the darling little hole between her plump fresh buttocks.

Darling, I came off just now in my trousers so that I am utterly played out. I cannot go to the Post Office now, though I have three letters to post. [So] to bed, to bed! Goodnight, Nora mia!”

Nora responded with her own erotic letters, however, none of these survive.

Source: Letter from James Joyce to Nora Barnacle, December 15th 1909. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1648: Charles I organises lavatory sexual liaison

In late 1647, King Charles I was detained in Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight. For more than a year the deposed king attempted to recover his throne – first by organising a counter-revolution, then by negotiating with parliament.

Charles also found time to initiate a sexual affair with Jane Whorwood, the stepdaughter of a prominent Scottish royalist. Whorwood was a married 36-year-old with bright red hair; according to contemporary accounts her face was scarred by smallpox but she was otherwise “well fashioned”.

From April 1648, the king and his mistress exchanged dozens of coded messages. According to letters deciphered by the historian Sarah Poynting, Charles told Jane Whorwood:

“There is one way possible that you may get a swiving [shagging] from me… you must excuse my plain expressions… you may be conveyed into the stool-room [lavatory] which is within my bedchamber while I am at dinner; by which means I shall have five hours to embrace and nip you.”

Source: Cited in Sarah Poynting, ‘Deciphering the King: Charles I’s Letters to Jane Whorwood’, Seventeenth Century, vol.21, 2006. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1796: Napoleon dreams of Josephine’s “little black forest”

In March 1796, the French military leader and dictator Napoleon Bonaparte married Josephine de Beauharnais, a Creole widow six years his senior. Three days after their wedding, Napoleon left to command the French army in the Italian states. His new bride remained in Paris and started an affair with a 22-year-old cavalry officer.

Unaware of her infidelity, Napoleon penned a series of passionate, sometimes erotic letters to Josephine. In the most graphic of these, he wrote:

“How happy I would be if I could assist you at your undressing, the little white breast, springy and firm; the adorable face; the hair tied up in a scarf a la creole – good enough to eat. You know well that I have not forgotten the small visits [to your] little black forest. I give it a thousand visits and impatiently await the moment to be there… To live inside a Josephine is to live in paradise. To kiss the mouth, eyes, shoulder, breast, everywhere, everywhere.”

The general arranged a liaison with Josephine in Milan, however by the time he arrived she had absconded to Genoa with her lover. Napoleon discovered her infidelity shortly after; he became physically ill as a consequence and was temporarily unable to lead the army. He even wrote to Josephine threatening suicide.

Source: Letter from Napoleon to Josephine, dated November 21st 1796. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1509: Machiavelli throws up over ugly prostitute

A pensive and perhaps regretful Machiavelli

In late 1509, the political philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli, future author of The Prince, had a disturbing sexual encounter with a prostitute in Lombardy. He later described this incident in a letter to his good friend Luigi Guicciardini.

According to Machiavelli, he was “very horny without [his] wife” and was lured into the home of a washerwoman. Once inside she offered him the services of a woman with “a towel over her head and face”:

“I was now completely terrified, however since I was alone with her in the dark, I gave her a good hump. Even though I found her thighs flabby, her genitals greasy and her breath stinking a bit, my lust was so desperate that I went ahead and gave it to her anyway.”

When their liaison was over, Machiavelli managed to find a lamp and was able to shine a light on the woman:

“My God, she was so ugly that I almost dropped dead… a tuft of hair, half white and half black, the top of her head was bald which allowed you to see several lice taking a stroll… Her eyebrows were full of nits; one eye looked down and the other up. Her tear ducts were full of mucus… her nose was twisted into a peculiar shape, the nostrils were full of snot and one of them was half missing. Her mouth looked like Lorenzo de Medici’s, twisted on one side and drooling since she had no teeth to keep the saliva in her mouth. Her lip was covered with a thin but rather long moustache…”

When the woman spoke to him, Machiavelli was struck by her “stinking breath” and:

“…heaved so much that I vomited all over her.”

Letter from Machiavelli to Guicciardini, December 9th 1509. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1627: London woman accused of privy part boasting

In May 1627, two London women, Mary Peters and Elizabeth Welsh, accused each other of defamation in the city’s Consistory Court. Peters and her husband John, a clerk employed at the Tower of London, were tenants in Welsh’s house, near The Strand.

According to witnesses, both women had slandered each other with terms suggesting infidelity and prostitution. Another lodger testified that Peters had called Welsh:

“..a bawd, pocky bawd, toothless bawd, strumpet… [and] impudent whore.”

Welsh responded by accusing Peters of debauchery while under her roof. Welsh testified that her maid, Elizabeth Hobcock, told her of an exchange between Peters and the acclaimed poet Michael Drayton. According to Hobock’s report to Welsh, Peters:

“..did hold up her clothes unto her navel before Mr Michael Drayton… she clapped her hand on her privy part and said it was a sound and a good one, and that the said Mr Drayton did then also lay his hand upon it and stroke it and said that it was a good one.”

The claim was dismissed when Drayton himself took the stand and denied the incident ever occurred.

Source: London Consistory Court archives, fol.2r-3v, 11r-22r. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1793: A guide to London’s prostitutes

Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies was a long-running guidebook to some of London’s more popular prostitutes. It first appeared in the mid-1750s and was published more or less annually until 1795.

The list offered summaries of each lady’s age, appearance and demeanour, as well as an assessment of their sexual services. Prices were also included: they ranged from sixpence to in excess of two pounds. The 1793 edition of Harris’s List’s included entries on Mrs Russell of Fludger Street, Westminster:

“…[who] is a fine plump girl, at the age of 28, rather dark hair and eyes… much in vogue with the bucks and bloods of the town who admired her more for her vulgarity than any thing else, she being extremely expert at uncommon oaths…”

Mrs Brooks, who lives next to the pawnbroker on Newman Street:

“A genteel lady, about 23… with well formed projecting bubbies that defy the result of any manual pressure, panting and glowing with unfeigned desire, and soon inviting the gratification of senses.”

Mrs Pierce, 19 St George’s Row, Apollo Gardens:

“She is still in her teens, with fine dark eyes and hair, her mouth opens to display a regular set of teeth… [with] pretty panting bubbies… in bed she will twine and twist, sigh and murmur, pant and glow with unfeigned emotions, and never be tired of love’s game, whilst the blind boy can find the way in…”

And Mrs Harvey of Upper Newman Street:

“…is a tall genteel lady, about 26… a brown beauty and very agreeable, has fine eyes, and a good set of teeth. She became a proselyte to the sport of Venus very young… She is very active and nimble and not a little clever in the performance of the art of friction [and] she understands the up-and-down art of her posteriors as well as any lady of her profession.”

Source: Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies, 1793 edition.

1529: Silver rings help pilgrims deal with erectile problems

In the late 1520s, Sir Thomas More penned a defence of the Catholic church that also included a condemnation of obscure and superstitious rituals being practised in some areas.

One of the sillier examples described by Sir Thomas occurred at an abbey in Picardy, near the mouth of the Somme. The abbey, dedicated to St Valery, had become a shrine for men suffering from kidney stones, impotence and erectile problems. It attracted visitors from across western Europe, including some from England.

Seeking the blessings of St Valery, these pilgrims sometimes left offerings peculiar to their impairment:

“..Just as you see wax legs or arms or other parts hanging up at other pilgrimage shrines, in that chapel all the pilgrims’ offerings hung about the walls, and they were all men’s and women’s private gear [genitalia] made out of wax.”

More also describes a particular ritual carried out at the abbey, apparently intended to help pilgrims with their impotence and erectile problems:

“At the end of the altar there were two round rings of silver, one much larger than the other, through which every man puts his privy member, not every man through both… for they were not of the same size but one larger than the other.”

Source: Sir Thomas More, Dialogue concerning Heresies, 1529. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1876: Tsar’s mistress misses his “fountain” and its “injections”

Yekaterina ‘Katia’ Dolgorukova became the mistress of Tsar Alexander II in 1866, after the Russian emperor paid a series of visits to her finishing school. Alexander was 47, Katia was just 18. Four years later, the tsar installed Katia in apartments close to the Winter Palace. She used a secret passageway to enter Alexander’s quarters for passionate and sometimes torrid bouts of “bingerle” (their code word for sex). Alexander sometimes sketched Katia in the nude after which, according to his letters, they “clenched each other like hungry cats”.

The pair paused their affair in 1876 after the premature death of their third illegitimate child. Alexander’s doctors were also concerned that the tsar’s active sex life was having a detrimental impact on his health. During this period of abstinence, Alexander and Katia exchanged a series of emotionally charged and sometimes erotic letters, the latter writing:

“I feel so heavy but I am not grumbling because it is my fault. And I confess that I cannot be without your fountain, which I love so… After my six weeks are over, I count on renewing my injections.”

Alexander and Katia married morganatically in July 1880 following the death of his wife, Marie of Hesse. Nine months later Alexander II was assassinated in St Petersburg, his legs blown off by a bomb hurled by anarchists. Katia and their three children watched the late tsar’s funeral from an alcove; they were not permitted onto the floor of the church.

Source: Letter dated November 30th 1876, cited in Alexandre Tarsaize, Katia: Wife before God, 1970. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1612: Umbilical cord length determines other appendages

Jacques Guillemeau was a French surgeon who specialised in obstetrics, a prolific writer and a physician to the Bourbon monarchy. Writing in 1612 Guillemeau says the amount of umbilical cord left untrimmed after birth will determine the size of a man’s tongue and penis:

“…the navel must be tied longer or shorter, according to the difference of the sex, allowing more measure to the males… because this length doth make their tongue and privy members the longer, whereby they may both speak the plainer and be more serviceable to ladies… the gossips commonly say merrily to the midwife; if it be a boy, make him good measure… but if it be a wench, tie it short.”

Source: Jacques Guillemeau, Child-Birth or the Happy Delivery of Women, trans. 1612. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.