Manual of Classical Erotology (De figuris Veneris)
General
Manual of Classical Erotology (De figuris Veneris)
Erotic literature; Sex customs -- Greece; Sex customs -- Rome
You ask whether tribads are still to be found in our days? If there are
none now, there certainly were some in existence in Paris only a short
time before the Great Revolution, if we are to trust the author of
_Gynaeology_, III., p. 428. There was a veritable college of tribads in
Paris, who went by the names of Vestals, holding regular meetings in
particular localities. There were a great many members, and of the
highest classes; they had their statutes with respect to admission; the
affiliated were divided into three degrees: aspirants, postulants, the
initiated. Before the postulant could be admitted to the secret of the
order, she had to undergo for three days a difficult probation: shut up
in a cell tapestried with lewd pictures, and ornamented with carved
Priapi of magnificent proportions, she had to keep up a fire with I do
not know how many ingredients, and arranged in such a manner that it
would go out if there was taken too much or too little of any of the
materials; on the four altars of the temple, which was adorned with
statues of Sappho, of the Lesbians she had loved, and of the Chevalier
d’Eon, who for so many years successfully dissimulated his sex, and with
splendid hangings, perpetual fires were burning. Kept English women,
too, did not recoil at tribadism, as the same author states, III., p.
394. He affirms that not long before the close of the last century,
confederacies of tribads, called Alexandrine confederacies, were still
in existence in London, though in a small number only.
Enough now of those who are, strictly speaking, included under the name
of tribads; but the word has a more extended signification. The term is
also applied to those women who in default of a real mentula, make use
of their finger or of a leathern contrivance, which they introduce into
their vulva, and so attain a fictitious enjoyment. Germany, I have
lately heard, has been ringing with complaints about this abuse. As
regards the leathern engine[133], called by the Greeks olisbos, the
women of Miletus, above all others, made it their instrument of
pleasure. Aristophanes, in the _Lysistrata_, 108-110:
“For since the day the Milesians left us in the lurch, not an
olisbos have I set eyes on, eight inches long,—that might give us
its leathern aid....”
Suidas under the word “****”:
“A virile member made of leather which was used by Milesian women,
as being tribads and immodest. It was also made use of by widows.”
The same author under the word “****”:
“Cratinus also says on this head: _Lewd_ women will be using the
olisbos.”
Hesychius quotes the same passage.
If you ask whether modern women, who have suffered the wrong of seeing
their beauty slighted, actually have recourse to this leathern
substitute, Aloysia Sigaea (Dialogue II) shall answer you:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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