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- Died on the fifth day of the seventh month, 1789 at the age of eighty-eight
I cleansed the mirror Harai arai
of my heart - now it reflects kokoro no tsuki no
the moon. kagami kana
Japanese Death Poems,
Yoel Hoffmann, ed.
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- Z., physician; neuropathic constitution, reacting badly to alcohol. Under ordinary circumstances capable of normal coitus, but as soon as he had indulged in wine he found that his increased sexual desire was no longer satisfied by simple coitus. In this condition he was compelled to prick a girl's buttocks, or to make stabs with a lancet, to see blood, and to feel the entrance of the blade into a living body, in order to have ejaculation and experience complete satiety of his lust.
Richard von Krafft-Ebing,
Psychopathia Sexualis,
1903
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- Died on the twenty-first day of the seventh month, 1791 at the age of sixty-nine
Family whispers Shinrui ga
with the doctor- winter showers isha ni sasayaku
pass through their sleeves. sode shigure
When Japanese told secrets, they used to raise the sleeves of their robes to the sides of their faces. The whispering voices passing through the sleeves (sode) are likened to the sound of a gusty winter shower (shigure).
Jikko expressed his own opinion about death poems thus:
"One evening a friend came to visit. We discussed haiku beside the stove and drank two or thre cups of saké. We recalled the death poems of the old master poets, and tears streamed down our cheeks. We consoled ourselves, saying that even if the man dies, his death poem remains forever. For this reason there are men who prepare a death poem while still healthy. This may seem like exaggerated readiness, but fate plays tricks on us all, and we never know when it will ordain us to die. If death comes suddenly, we will have no time to say a word. It can therefore be understood why people prefer to write their death poem before their time. Some leave behind a distorted poem and claim there is no harm in that, because haiku poetry does not disdain popular speech. These people become the laughingstock of future generations. Great poets create outstanding death poems, and thus they show the strength of art, which fails not even in the hour of death. And so we continued well into the night. . ."
Japanese Death Poems,
Yoel Hoffmann, ed.
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- X., aged thirty-four, greatly predisposed, suffered from antipathic sexual instinct. For various reasons he had no opportunity to satisfy himself with men, in spite of great sexual desire. Occasionally he dreamed that a woman whipped him, and then he would have a pollution.
Because of this recurring dream, he came to have prostitutes beat him as a substitute for love with men. Occasionally he would obtain a prostitute, undress himself completely (while she was not to take off her chemise), and have her tread upon him, whip and beat him. This act produced a powerful lust; only by licking the woman's foot could he further increase his sexual desire and attain ejaculation. Then disgust at the morally debasing situation occurred, and he retired as quickly as possible.
Richard von Krafft-Ebing,
Psychopathia Sexualis,
1903
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- The Root of the mandrake, or mandragora, often divides in two, presenting a rough appearance of a man. In ancient times human figures were cut out of the root and wonderful virtues ascribed to them, such as the production of fecundity in women (Gen. xxx, 14-16). They could not be uprooted without supposedly producing fatal effects, so a cord used to be fixed to the root and round a dog's neck, and the dog when chased drew out the mandrake and died. A small dose was held to produce vanity in one's appearance, and a large dose, idiocy. The mandrake screamed when uprooted.
Of this latter property Thomas Newton, in his Herball to the Bible, says, 'It is supposed to be a creature having life, engendered under the earth of the seed of some dead person put to death for murder.'
Brewer's Book of Myth and Legend,
J. C. Cooper, ed.
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- It is a curious thing that the prostitute who walks the outer Boulevards is reluctant to commit Sodomy. Those who are ready to indulge in it are hardly to be found except among the swell women who are to be met in the establishments of the great Boulevards, the Café Americain and others, and the Folies Bergéres, places where sharpers are mostly to be seen.
The women, called Five-pounders, make those foreigners who are restrained from pederastic practices by fear of black-mail pay very dearly for their anal favours. A remark which Fiaux owes to the kindness of a retired Commissaire de Police, is very significant on this subject. "People are much surprised to meet on the outer Boulevards, and in the most evil-reputed quarters of the city, with public prostitutes, street-walkers of the lowest type, naturally of a very common appearance, and - to complete the picture- considerably over forty years of age, who, when the client asks them for anti-natural acts, resolutely refuse. They say: 'For my part, I don't do those things. There are women for that!' or, 'Go to a brothel. There they'll do anything you want.'"
This statement is absolutely correct. In my private enquiry into Sodomy in France and in Paris more particularly, similar answers have very often been made to me. Is it owing to a dread of the illnesses which may ensue from anal coition, or is it the last sentiment of revolted modesty? I cannot say. What I have observed is that the greater number of those unhappy creatures who are ready to put themselves on their backs for forty sous, will go on without making any difficulty to "drawing the feather," and to buccal coition, the most filthy act of all, for a little extra money.
Dr. Jacobus X,
Crossways of Sex: A Study in Eroto-Pathology,
1904
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- W., aged twenty-five, merchant, claimed to be untainted, never had a severe illness, had never masturbated; rarely had pollutions after his nineteenth year, mostly without sensual dreams. Since his twenty-first year coitus rarely, with the sexual act akin to masturbating inside a woman's body without any pleasurable feeling. W. declared that he made these attempts solely through curiosity, and soon gave them up altogether as desire, gratification, and ultimately even erection were absent. He never had any leaning toward his own sex. His deficiency did not seem to cause him any worry. There were no abnormal manifestations in the ethical and aesthetic field.
Richard von Krafft-Ebing,
Psychopathia Sexualis,
1903
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- To haul a person under the keel of a ship, either by lowering him on one side and pulling him across to the other side, or, in smaller vessels, lowering him at the bows and drawing him along under the keel to the stern. Falconer's describes it as "a punishment inflicted by the Dutch navy," which suspends "the culprit by a rope from one yardarm, with a weight of lead or iron upon his legs, to sink him to a competent depth, and having another rope fastened to him, leading under the ship's bottom, and through a block at its opposite yardarm; he is then repeatedly and suddenly let fall into the sea, where passing under the ship's bottom, he is hoisted up, on the opposite side of the vessel, to the yardarm. As this extraordinary sentence is executed with a serenity of temper peculiar to the Dutch, the culprit is allowed sufficient intervals to recover the sense of pain. . . This punishment is supposed to have peculiar propriety in the depth of winter, whilst the flakes of ice are floating on the stream; and . . . is continued till the culprit is almost suffocated for want of air, benumbed with the cold of the water, or stunned with the blows his head receives by striking the ship's bottom." The practice was largely abandoned in favor of punishment by the cat-o'-nine-tails at the beginning of the 18th century.
Dean King,
in A Sea of Words: A Lexicon and Companion for Patrick O'Brian's Seafaring Tales
What isn't mentioned in
Falconer's is that "culprits" were often cut to ribbons by the sharp barnacle shells which would build up on a ship's hull. Keelhauling was a truly damaging punishment, which mangled its victims and was commonly fatal.
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- In another observation which treats of a young woman who, some years before her marriage, indulged in reciprocal Saphism with one of her girl-friends and who, unable to resist the love which she bore her friend, imposed, so to say, the obligation upon her husband of living with her, and thus forming a household of three, the third member of which was in this case a woman and not a man, as usually happens under these circumstances; in this case, the characteristics of Saphism are most marked. I have observed an exaggerated development of the clitoris, an extreme laxity of the hood, a thickening of its free edge, an hypertrophy of the clitoridian frena, a considerable volume of the clitoridian gland which is continually turgescent, of a violet colour and displaying a very pronounced mesial projection.
Martineau,
Leçons sur les Déformations Vulvaires et Anales
quoted in:
Dr. Jacobus X,
Crossways of Sex: A Study in Eroto-Pathology,
1904
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In Catalunya, as elsewhere, the approach of Christmas brings with it scenes of the Nativity. The Catalan alone, however, have added
a shitting man to the representation of Christ's birth. Since the 18th Century, this shitter, known as a
caganer, has left his steaming turds near the Messiah.
- . . . take a closer look and you spot the small, half-hidden figure of a man, squatting, trousers half-down, seemingly oblivious to the sacred scene around him. He is merrily doing his business, leaving a less-than heavenly deposit on the ground below.
The 'caganer', the small model figure that appears out of nowhere this time of year, is a figure peculiar to a Catalan Christmas. But quite why he or she is there seems a mystery to many. (The word caganer, by the way, graphically illustrates what he is doing.)
Far from an irreligious symbol of disrespect, the caganer represents the mundane in the midst of the divine, humanity in the face of godhood- and is a powerful symbol of the fertilization of the earth and the hope for an abundant harvest. When an exhibition of the figurines was presented in California, American Catholics couldn't contain their indignation. Something had obviously been
lost in translation.
- "I know that American society is more strict with its religious ideas than we are in Catalonia," said Marti Torrent, founder of the 70-member Association of Friends of the Caganer, who added that what the caganer does is natural. "Even the king has to do it every day or at least every other day."
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- In No. 18 of the same ward there is a young woman, 24 years of age, a cook, who displays the most characteristic signs of Saphism. The clitoris is so voluminous that it resembles the penis of a child about four years of age. Its length is 3 centimetres. The gland is enormous, flattened and club-shaped; it is detached from the hood with the greatest facility. For about the last two years Saphism has been performed daily and sometimes even three or four times in a night. In this woman you will also find the physical signs which characterize masturbation when it is practised from childhood. Thus the nymphæ are so elongated that they are hanging down between the thighs. They are of a black colour, like shagreen, velvety upon their internal surface, which is sprinkled with a large number of hypertrophied follicles.
Martineau,
Leçons sur les Déformations Vulvaires et Anales
quoted in:
Dr. Jacobus X,
Crossways of Sex: A Study in Eroto-Pathology,
1904
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