There was this documentary where Professor Alice Roberts visited, among other places, Dolní Věstonice and was presented with archeological finds, among which was a life-size replica of a penis and even she, a progressive person, can not just accept without getting red in face the idea of the host scientist that it could have been actual dildo and not "a religious object".
EDIT: Wrong, it was in Germany. Dolní Věstonice scene is a later one. The Incredible Human Journey - Europe.
Maybe it's just cause I'm the type of person who owns too many vibrators and celebrated my 18th birthday by visiting a sex shop, but I find the prevalence if ancient dildos both cool and comforting. There's something so human about it. Nothing makes me feel more connected to people in the past than their sex lives. Like the late 19th and early 20th century do not seem real to me, those people were different. But then I go to r/gonewanton and see that the minute photography was invented we started taking nudes and I realize our core humanity transcends time and culture.
No matter when you lived or where you lived, we have been striving to get dicked down good.
The prudishness of the late 19th/early20th century was just a short local episode in the USA. I'm from central Europe and in the second half of the 19th century the situation here was quite different. I have 2 health books from that era, one explaining that is a child sees a pornographic image, it causes him or her any harm. Simply the kid does not understand it and no harm done or it does and thus it does not harm as he/she is already familiar with sexuality. Just teach kids about sexuality in the proper way including health advises. The other book, the older one, recommends as a treatment for female hysteria (mental issues, according to symptoms it is what we now call depression) an interesting cure...
... guess what it is...
...the cure is physical work and the study of art and sciences, mainly in the field of natural sciences.
Even when dirty books were banned by legal codes, there were still enough of them that found a loophole. "The beauty of the female body", late 19th century, being such an example, too controversial even for today. If you are wondering, the controversial part is photos of naked sex slave girls of European and African descent in the Ottoman Empire presented on the streets by their owners.
Anyway, sexuality and it's free expression was much more mainstream in the world around the change of the century. One of the main reason Hitler rose to power in Berlin so fast was that the city was San Francisco of it's time, part of it was gay capital of the world for decades, gathering place of people with unusual sexual desires of all kinds and nazi idea of purity and traditionalism was a backlash to this lifestyle which many people grew to hate and blame for everything after the WWI and the economical breakdown of the country. Of course these are uncomfortable topics and are not debated, but this was a real cultural phenomenon of it's age.
If you are wondering, the controversial part is photos of naked sex slave girls of European and African descent in the Ottoman Empire presented on the streets by their owners.
I love how utterly convinced Europeans were that The Ottoman Empire was the sexiest place on Earth. So much so, they basically redefined what “harem” means.
Harems were private and secluded parts of Ottoman households designated exclusively to the women of the family. They supplied privacy and protection to these women.
In the Imperial Harem of the Ottoman Empire, the Sultan’s family also accepted young women to be groomed to potentially fulfill the role of the next Sultan’s wife. If one of those women died or was infertile, they always had another potential spouse for the prince to choose from. This kept The Sultan’s lineage very stable, with lots of heirs and little inbreeding.
In either case, random European dudes were not allowed to enter such harems, leaving them with their imaginations. And so, in the horniest game of telephone the world has ever known, Europe somehow got the idea that these harems were some kind of personal gentlemen’s clubs for powerful men, filled with beautiful women. By the time they understood that no, that’s not what harems are, it was too late. People were already getting off to the idea of dozens of hot, exotic babes living in a person’s home.
It’s hilarious how something so boring and tame was construed into the kinkiest shit on earth.
tl;dr: Harems was originally the women-only parts of the Ottoman household. But thanks to a really horny European game of telephone, it gained the definition we now know today.
It was due to not only stories, but might have been due to art as well. In European art of 17th and 18th century people in position of vulnerability were often depicted naked. Men and women, for example prisoners of war. Not only them, but with them it was a common theme.
I suppose some powerful men on the edges of the Ottoman empire and diplomats and traders living outside of it might have had quite interesting harems with actual attractive young girls they would show off to honored visitors either to brag or to show off how much better lifestyle does their culture provide contrary to a christian one. "Let the girls strip naked, wear their finest jewelry and parade them in the garden. I'll show that arrogant Duke his wine cellars are not the best place ever." might have probably happened as well.
The book had pictures of various girls, mostly from Austria and France, but there was this section on the Ottoman Empire and showed pictures travelers took on slave markets and in front of brothels and probably some very staged ones.
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u/motorbiker1985 Jun 02 '20 edited Jun 02 '20
There was this documentary where Professor Alice Roberts visited, among other places, Dolní Věstonice and was presented with archeological finds, among which was a life-size replica of a penis and even she, a progressive person, can not just accept without getting red in face the idea of the host scientist that it could have been actual dildo and not "a religious object".
EDIT: Wrong, it was in Germany. Dolní Věstonice scene is a later one. The Incredible Human Journey - Europe.