Category Archives: Sexuality

1742: New Jersey man makes himself “an eunuch”

In November 1742 the Boston Evening Post reported that Mister John Leek of Cohansey, New Jersey had:

“…after twelve month’s deliberation, made himself an eunuch… it is said for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake… He is now under Dr Johnson’s hands and in a fair way of doing well.”

According to the Evening Post, Mr Leek was following the example outlined in Matthew 19:12 which reads:

“For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others. And there are those who choose to live like eunuchs, for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Source: The Boston Evening Post, November 8th 1742. 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.

1677: Woman hanged for bestiality thanks to tail-wagging dog

In 1677 a married woman, Mary Hickes, appeared at the Old Bailey charged with bestiality. According to the prosecutor, Mrs Hickes:

“…to the disgrace of all womankind did commit buggery with a mongrel dog, and wickedly, devilishly and against nature had venereal and carnal copulation with him.”

A significant witness for the prosecution was a female neighbour, who “happening to cast her eye” into Hickes’ house:

“…saw such actions with a dog as are not fit here to be recited.”

But the key witness was the dog in question, who was summoned to the courtroom and “set on the bar before the prisoner”. Hickes’ fate was apparently sealed by the dog:

“…wagging his tail and making motions, as it were, to kiss her.”

Both Hickes and the dog were later hanged at Tyburn.

Source: Old Bailey Proceedings, July 1677, 11-1. 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.

1848: Abraham Lincoln represents accused pig fornicator

In 1848 William Torrance of Illinois, represented by future US president Abraham Lincoln, filed a defamation suit against Newton Galloway. According to Lincoln’s submission, Galloway had uttered “false, scandalous, malicious and defamatory words” to Aaron Vandeveer and “diverse good and worthy citizens”. Among Galloway’s remarks were claims that Torrance had:

“…caught my old sow and f–ked her as long as he could…”

And:

“…knocked up my old sow and it is now bellying down [heavily pregnant] and will soon have some young bills.”

Torrance and Lincoln demanded $1,000 in damages, however, the case was thrown out and Torrance was ordered to pay costs.

Source: Torrance v. Galloway, 1848, Abraham Lincoln Legal Papers. 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.

1728: British noble asks another about the action in Vienna

In 1728, the British diplomat Philip Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield, was stationed in The Hague. In October, he wrote to his fellow peer and diplomat, Earl Waldegrave, who was representing Britain in Austria.

Pausing from matters of state, Chesterfield enquired into Waldegrave’s “private pleasures”, asking whether he had taken mistresses in Vienna:

“As I know that both your rammer and balls are made for a German calibre, you may certainly attack with infinite success… So I expect some account of your performances. As for mine, they are not worth reciting… the warmest thing I have met with here between a pair of legs has been a stove.”

Several weeks later Chesterfield wrote to Waldegrave again, reporting that he had found the means to engage “a little into pleasures… provided it is at my own expense”.

Source: Letter from Chesterfield to Waldegrave, dated October 12th 1728. 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.

1877: French physician spies self-pleasuring seamstresses

Thésée Pouillet was a French physician who researched female sexuality during the mid-19th century. In his 1877 book De l’onanisme chez la Femme (‘The Onanism of Women’), Pouillet describes his visit to a Paris workhouse, where he observed two seamstresses using mechanical vibrations to self-pleasure. He spotted the first from the frantic speed of her pedalling and the excessive noise from her sewing machine:

“I looked at the person who was working it, a brunette of 18 or 20. While she was occupied with the trousers she was making on the machine, her face became animated, her mouth opened slightly, her nostrils dilated, her feet moved the pedals with constantly increasing rapidity. Soon I saw a convulsive look in her eyes… a suffocated cry, followed by a long sigh…”

Pouillet later witnessed a similar ritual, performed by a different worker. A female supervisor told him that such incidents weren’t uncommon in the workhouse, particularly among the younger workers, who sat on the edge of their seats to “facilitate the friction of their labia”.

Source: Thésée Pouillet, De l’onanisme chez la Femme, 1877. 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.

1866: Clergyman blames the French for masturbation in England

Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-1882) was an Anglican theologian and Oxford professor, known for his austerity and social conservatism. In mid-1866 Pusey launched a letter-writing campaign, penning missives to several English newspapers and journals to warn of the deadly peril of teenage masturbation. Just 50 years before, Pusey argued, the “despicable sin” was hardly known in England, and was:

“..unknown at most of our public schools. Now, alas, it is the besetting trial of our boys; it is sapping the constitutions and injuring in many the fineness of intellect.”

Pusey offered a cause for this alarming increase in masturbation – the restoration of diplomatic relations, trade and travel with France since the Napoleonic Wars. Pusey suggested that self-pollution had crossed the Channel from the schools, barrack-houses and tenements of France, where:

“..it has for centuries been practised with a contemptible openness, often in groups.”

Source: Dr E. B. Pusey, letters to The Times and the Medical Times and Gazette, June 1866. 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.

1605: Fanny Heaven convicted, whipped for prostitution

In August 1605, a Bridewell court considered a charge of prostitution levelled against a widow named Fanny Heaven. The Crown’s main witness was a local bookseller, Olliver Sleepe, who testified about a conversation he had with a customer named Richard Adlington.

According to Sleepe, Adlington boasted of his sexual liaisons with Fanny Heaven, describing her as:

“..an arrant whore and he had spent 20 pounds on her… and she wore nothing on her that he had not paid for, not so much as the ruff about her neck… The said Richard laid his hand voluntarily on a Bible and swore by it that he had the use of the said Heaven’s body above 20 times carnally, and might do so as often as he pleased.”

Fanny Heaven was cross-examined and admitted to three sexual encounters with Adlington. She was found guilty and convicted of “whoring”, publicly whipped then set free. Adlington, who was married, was not punished by the court, though he was subject to public ridicule.

Source: Bridewell Court minute books, vol. 5, folio 51. 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.

1822: Breeches foil buggering bishop’s getaway

In July 1822, Percy Jocelyn, Bishop of Clogher and son of the Earl of Roden, was arrested for sodomy. Witnesses caught Jocelyn “deep in the act of buggery” with a young soldier behind the White Lion in Westminster. According to witnesses, Jocelyn was still wearing his bishop’s cassock, which was hitched up around his waist.

A different report says His Grace tried to make a getaway but was foiled by his own undergarment:

“The affair of the Bishop has made a great noise. The people of the public house have made a good deal of money by showing the place [where they were discovered]… The Bishop took no precautions and it was next to impossible he should not have been caught. He made a desperate resistance when taken and if his breeches had not been down they think he would have got away.”

Jocelyn was dragged through the streets and beaten up then handed over to city authorities, who released him on £1,000 bail. He immediately fled to Scotland, where he worked as a servant under an assumed name. John Moverley also absconded and was not heard of again under that name.

The 1822 incident was not Jocelyn’s first brush with accusations of sodomy. In 1811, one of his brother’s servants, James Byrne, attested to “indecent acts and propositions” made to him by the bishop. Byrne was sued for defamation. He was found guilty, fined heavily and publicly flogged.

Source: Report from July 30th 1822, cited in the Greville Memoirs, vol. 1. 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.

1741: Teenage princess has “monstrous flummey bubbies”

Just after his election to parliament in 1741, English writer Horace Walpole penned a letter to Lord Lincoln in which he commented on the development of Louisa, the 16-year-old daughter of George II. Walpole declares quite matter-of-factly that the princess’ large breasts might prove a temptation for the widowed king:

“Princess Louisa is grown so fat and, like the [late] queen, has such a monstrous pair of flummey bubbies that I really think it indecent for her to live with her father…”

Princess Louisa and her “flummey bubbies” married Prince Frederick of Denmark two years after Walpole’s letter. Their eight-year marriage yielded six pregnancies, the last of which killed her.

Source: Letter from Horace Walpole to Lord Lincoln, October 1st 1741. 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.

1663: Pepys fornicates with his mistress in a wine-house

In June 1663, English diarist Samuel Pepys reported a bout of public sexual intercourse with his mistress, Betty Lane, apparently in return for a lobster:

“With one word [I] got her to go with me and to meet me at the further Rhenish wine-house, where I did give her a Lobster and towse her [have intercourse] and feel her all over, making her believe how fair and good a skin she had… And indeed she hath a very white thigh and leg, but monstrous fat.”

According to Pepys, someone outside the inn happened to spy their liaison through a window:

“When weary I did give over, and somebody having seen some of our dalliance, called aloud in the street, “Sir! why do you kiss the gentlewoman so?” and flung a stone at the window, which vexed me… but I believe they could not see my towsing her; and so we broke up and went out the back way, without being observed I think.”

Pepys continued his affair with Betty Lane after her 1664 marriage, when she became Betty Martin. He also had at least two sexual encounters with her younger sister, Doll, in public houses.

Source: The diary of Samuel Pepys, June 29th 1663. 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.