ORIENT
Ancient Hindu literature treats in startling detail every conceivable
aspect of erotic manifestations. There are guides and manuals and
elaborate treatises and monographs devoted to particular topics: to
coital procedures, to male and female characteristics and tendencies, to
strange stimuli, and to amatory potions and philtres. Of all these
manuals possibly the Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana Malanaga, who is presumed
to belong in the fourth century A.D., is the best known. It is, in fact,
the most widely disseminated treatise on all phases of erotic practices.
The Kama Sutra furnishes specific information on the techniques of
sexual relationships, the virtues and defects of women, the degrees of
sensuality among both men and women, the criteria of beauty and
attractiveness, the most effective devices in the matter of dress and
hair arrangement, foods and cosmetics, perfumes, and the symbolic
language of love.
It also stresses potions, their component elements, their preparation,
and the type of philtres that are most favorable to the erotic
sensibilities.
The Hindu manuals also make special classifications of women according
to the degree and durability of their erotic sensations, their physical
appearance, and the osphresiological conditions arising from the pudenda
muliebria. Nothing is secretive, nothing is taboo. The primary and
universal activity, it is assumed, necessitates wide and deep and exact
and revelatory knowledge, so that the man or woman may function to the
fullest and most complete extent.
The male is also subjected to analysis, in an amatory direction,
according to physiological and erotic categories. The most personal, the
most intimate, the most normally cryptic and unspoken matters are
subjected to forthright description and comment. For example, one
subject discussed with the utmost candor is the intensity of the male
erotic potential and his general reactions to sexual conjugation.
Embraces and their varieties of erotic significance, postures and
degrees of proximity and physiological contiguity come under observation
and exposition. Especially the thirteen types of kissing, each in its
own way symptomatic of the intensity of the passion. The art of kissing
was itself so important in both ancient classical and Asiatic eroticism
that, in the Middle Ages, it reached a literary climax. Johannes
Secundus, a Dutch scholar, wrote a passionate amatory sequence of Latin
poems entitled _Basia_, Kisses, in which he exceeded the lyrical surge
and sway and the pulsating exultation of the Roman poet Catullus.
* * * * *
In the course of his surgical and medical experiences in various
countries, notably in the Orient, Dr. Jacobus X, the French army surgeon
who is the author of a voluminous corpus of anthropological matter
entitled _Untrodden Fields of Anthropology_ (2 volumes. Paris: Published
by Charles Carrington: 2nd. edition, 1898), the author gathered a great
deal of unique and miscellaneous and little known information on sexual
practices. In discussing potions, he dwells on cubeb pepper, a popular
item in the love philtres of the East.
A drink in which the leaves of cubeb pepper have been steeped, according
to Dr. Jacobus, produces pronounced genital excitation.
* * * * *
The Arabs were astoundingly prolific in producing manuals on erotic
themes, ranging over the entire field of sexual practices, normal and
perverted, to which man is physiologically bound.
The attitude adopted in such handbooks, however, is free from the
contrived prurient or lascivious tone that might possibly have been
expected, particularly in relation to occidental erotic literature.
There is apparent, on the contrary, a certain reverential humility, as
of one who treats a sacred subject for which supreme gratitude is to be
accorded to the ultimate and beneficent Maker. In this sense, therefore,
erotic matters have inherently a sanctity that is acknowledged by the
Arab writers again and again. As in the case of the Sheikh Nefzawi’s
_The Perfumed Garden_. Or in the amorous episodes that pervade the
corpus of tales of the _Arabian Nights_. Or in the _Book of Exposition
in the Science of Coition_, attributed to a certain theologian and
historian named Jalal al-Din al-Siyuti. Many Arab erotic treatises
actually introduce the subject with a devout invocation to Allah as the
creator and dispenser of such beatific and voluptuous pleasures as are
detailed in the text.
* * * * *
In one specific instance the Sheikh Nefzawi, after describing a
preparation for correcting amatory impairment, adds: This preparation
will make the weakness disappear and effect a cure, with the permission
of God the Highest.
* * * * *
A Chinese amatory concoction, whose base was opium, was known as affion.
Reputedly, it had decided erotic effects: which, however, were of an
intensely violent nature accompanied by flagrant brutality. The fact of
opium as a major ingredient, however, was evidently an inducement to its
use.
* * * * *
Often small creatures, insects, reptiles, formed the base of amatory
philtres. In Africa, for example, the amphibious animal that belonged to
the lizard species and was named lacerta scincus was anciently ground
into powder and taken as a beverage.
This concoction was considered an aphrodisiac of remarkable potency.
* * * * *
A cogently recommended prescription in the famous Hindu manual, the
Ananga-Ranga, consists of the juice of the plant bhuya-Kokali, dried in
the sun, and mixed with ghee or clarified butter, honey, and candied
sugar. This potion, it is urged, is taken with great pleasurable
anticipation.
* * * * *
In Arabia, a highly recommended beverage, designed to strengthen and
maintain amatory energy, is camel’s milk in which honey has been poured.
The prescription requires consecutive and regular application.
Identical in intent, and somewhat similar in ingredients, is a kind of
broth prescribed by the Sheikh Nefzawi, the erotologist. It consists of
onion juices, together with purified honey. This mixture is heated until
only the consistency of the honey remains. Then it is cooled, water is
added, and finally pounded chick-peas. To be taken in a small dose,
advises Nefzawi, during cold spells of weather, and before retiring to
bed, and for one day only. The result, he promises, will be startlingly
successful.
* * * * *
A Turkish recipe recommends olibanum, which is frankincense, mixed with
rose water, along with camphor, myrrh, and musk, all pounded and
fricated together. The resultant mixture is sealed hermetically in a
glass. Then it is left for a day or two in the sun. Now the preparation
is ready for use: as a spray over the hands in washing, or on the body,
or on the clothing, with consequent impacts on the person and on the
erotogenic areas.
* * * * *
In the Orient, honey normally and regularly takes the place occupied by
sugar in Western countries. Hence honey is a common ingredient in many
foods, pastries and drinks. Basically, it appears repeatedly in
prescriptions designed as love-potions. It is, to take an instance,
frequently mentioned by Avicenna, the eleventh century Arab philosopher,
physician, and libertine, as well as by the erotologist the Sheikh
Nefzawi. Honey, compounded with pepper, or with ginger, or with cubebs,
in various proportions and variously formed into a consistent brew, is a
standard recipe in the amatory pharmacopoeia of the East.
* * * * *
Indian manuals on erotology contain many directions, suggestions, and
specific prescriptions relative to the increase of masculine potency.
Some of these prescriptions advise rare or unobtainable herbs. Others
are hazardous, and may occasion dangerous reactions. Some are merely
humorously and naively fantastic and impossible or futile of
realization: while occasional recommendations may be warranted and may
have some amatory validity.
A drink consisting of milk, with sugar added and the root of the
uchchata plant, piper chaba, which is a species of pepper, and liquorice
reputedly has strong support as an energizing agent.
Another milk concoction contains seeds of long pepper, seeds of
sanseviera roxburghiana, and the hedysarum gangeticum plant, pounded
together.
Still another recipe advocates milk and sugar, in which the testes of a
ram or goat have been boiled.
* * * * *
An Indian excitant, reputedly effective, is a kind of liquid paste
consisting of roots of the trapa bispinosa plant, tuscan jasmine, the
kasurika plant, liquorice, and kshirakapoli. All these ingredients, most
of them indigenous to India, are crushed together and the conglomerate
powder is put into a mixture of milk, sugar, and clarified butter, that
is, ghee. The entire concoction is then slowly boiled. This is
considered a potent amatory beverage, and is so recommended in the
manuals.
* * * * *
Ghee is commonly used in Indian culinary practice. It is also a frequent
ingredient in potions and compounds that are directed toward genital
excitations. A reputedly forceful agent of this sort is the following
recipe, in which ghee appears. Sesame seeds are soaked with sparrows’
eggs: then boiled in milk, to which ghee and sugar, the fruit of the
trapa bispinosa plant and the kasurika plant, as well as beans and wheat
flour, have been added.
* * * * *
Sparrows’ eggs and rice, boiled in milk with an admixture of honey and
ghee, provide what is considered an effective amatory stimulant.
A concoction of milk, honey, ghee, liquorice, sugar, and the juice of
the fennel plant is considered a provocative beverage.
* * * * *
Boiled ghee itself, taken as a morning drink in spring time, is
believed, in Hindu erotology, to form a positive excitant for amorous
practices.
* * * * *
Certain oriental plants that have special erotic virtues are mentioned
frequently in Hindu amatory treatises. Among such plants are: the
shvadaustra plant, asparagus racemosus, the guduchi plant, liquorice,
long pepper, and the premna spinosa. These are often used in compounds
to form a potion.
* * * * *
Among the diversified prescriptions, compounds, and philtres contained
in the Ananga-Ranga or in similar erotic manuals mentioned in this
survey, not a few are merely innocuous in action by virtue of their
innocuous ingredients. Others are merely ineffective, while still others
may be decidedly fraught with hazards and dangers in their reactions.
All potions and amatory concoctions, therefore, either alluded to or
described in greater detail in this present conspectus, are treated from
an academic or historical or solely informative viewpoint, not as ad hoc
specifics for any physiologically amatory condition whatever.
* * * * *
The Ananga-Ranga usually includes, among amatory items that form
energizing concoctions, plants, roots, blossoms, flowers that are
indigenous to India. Many of these plants have their modern botanical
designations in Latin terminology, while others still remain
unidentifiable or extremely rare.
Kuili powder, lechi, kanta-gokhru, kakri, and laghushatavari, compounded
as a mixture in milk, will, it is asserted, create manifest
physiological vigor.
* * * * *
An amatory drink concocted in the East is thus compounded: Pith of the
moh tree, well pounded and mixed with cow’s milk. It constitutes a
highly strengthening potion.
* * * * *
Among wealthy Chinese, lavish dining includes a special broth or soup.
This soup is particularly favored for its energizing and provocative
excitation. The soup is prepared from the nests of sea-swallows, highly
spiced. These nests are built from edible sea-weeds, to which cling
fish—spawn particles rich in phosphorus. As an erotic beverage, the soup
is reputed to be extremely efficacious.
* * * * *
Among Chinese in low economic levels, nuoc-man is used as a love
stimulant. It is an extraction of decomposed fish, prepared like
cod-liver oil.
* * * * *
The leaves of cubeb pepper, in an infusion, are considered in Chinese
erotology to produce marked amatory tendencies.
* * * * *
A very popular pill, whose composition, however, is not revealed to the
reader, appears again and again in the long picaresque, erotic Chinese
novel entitled _Chin P’ing Mei_. One of the characters, a monk,
recommends to the adventurous hero that a certain pill, to be taken in a
drop of spirits, has remarkable potency, which is specified numerically
and in the degree of its voluptuousness. The erotic effects, in fact,
are described by the monk in verse. The pill, yellow in hue, and ovoid
in shape, is of the utmost efficacy, over a long expanse of days, the
masculine vigor, described generously and enticingly, increasing with
each successive day and each amatory encounter.
* * * * *
From a genital gland of the musk-deer and also of a species of goat that
thrives in Tartary, a bitter, volatile substance is extracted, that is
termed musk. In the Orient, notably in Tibet and in Iran, musk has been
in use, in culinary preparations, for its assumed erotic virtues.
Musk, in fact, is pervasively associated with amatory sensations. To the
ideal woman, according to Hindu erotology, whose pulchritude and appeal
are beyond criticism, clings the aroma of musk, elusive, tantalizing.
Musk has long been involved in erotic practices, and its virtue in this
direction has been repeatedly emphasized in amatory manuals,
particularly among the Arabs. Even in tales and legends, in poetry and
in chronicles, the perfume of musk and its marked allure play no small
part in the creation of romantic episodes.
The tradition of musk as an amatory agent, arousing mental and sensual
erotic images and inclinations, lingers on into contemporary times. In a
popular mystery tale, _The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu_, by Sax Rohmer, the
plot centres around a sinister, super-intelligent Oriental operator
named Dr. Fu-Manchu. One of his hirelings is the woman called Kâramanèh.
Her nearness is sensed by the narrator, a certain Dr. Petrie. He detects
the perfume, which ‘like a breath of musk, spoke of the Orient.’ It
seemed to intoxicate the narrator, disturbing his rational faculties,
suggesting the beauty of the villainous Kâramanèh.
* * * * *
In the inexhaustible richness of world literature, in every country and
in every century, there are texts, memoirs, guides, novels, dramas,
poetry, sagas and legends that are devoted largely, occasionally
exclusively, to the amatory theme: from the Dialogues of Luisa Sigea to
Pietro Aretino’s lascivious sonnets, from the amatory epistles of
Alciphron to the lush and fantastic orgiastic extravagances of the
Marquis de Sade.
Among all this heterogeneous variety of treatment, viewpoint, and
exposition, there is the almost universally accepted standard text,
originally produced in Sanskrit by Vatsyayana, of the Kama Sutra, the
Apothegms on Love, the essence of amatory science, the distillations of
erotic precepts.
* * * * *
A certain plant named Pellitory of Spain, and, in Latin terminology,
Anacyclus Pyrethrum, has a traditionally credited amatory quality. The
plant is so considered in Arab erotological literature.
* * * * *
The Orient, knowledgeable in the virtues and characteristics of
numberless extracts and distillations, unguents and lotions, considered
ambergris, as a perfume, to be endowed with restorative, life-preserving
properties. Anciently, among the Persians, there was a tonic composed of
precious stones—pearls, and rubies, and gold, and powdered ambergris,
producing a pastille that was eaten with anticipatory amatory prospects.
In modern times, too, in the East, coffee is often drunk in which a
touch of ambergris has been intruded.
Very anciently, ambergris had reputedly amazing qualities, that would
produce, temporarily, a state of rejuvenescence in aged suppliants.
* * * * *
Almonds belong to the Orient. Their fragrance is entwined in Oriental
poetry, in Oriental legend, and in Oriental modes of living. It is
therefore not surprising that the almond, variously prepared, whether
powdered, or reduced to an oil, is associated with invigorating tonics.
_The Perfumed Garden_, the erotic handbook written by the Arab
erotologist the Sheikh Nefzawi, describes a number of preparations in
which the base is almond.
He recommends the eating of some twenty almonds, with a glassful of
honey, and one hundred pine-tree grains, just before retiring to bed. As
an alternate, there is chicken broth, with cream, yolk of eggs, and
powdered almonds.
* * * * *
In Eastern Asia there has always been, for untold ages, an awareness of
the stimulating effects of certain foods. So, among the Annamites, the
chief food was fish, which, according to certain anthropological studies
and investigations, gives an appreciably lascivious tendency to this
people.
Among other foods, they are addicted to garlic, which they consume in
large quantities, ginger, and onion, all of which have aphrodisiac
properties.
* * * * *
There are other erotogenic means, contrivances and manipulative devices,
mentioned in Hindu manuals, that are designed for ithyphallic
inducements.
* * * * *
The Orient has always been a rich source for erotic material. Formal
manuals, anthologies, poetry all stress amatory concepts, erotic
situations, amorous encounters. In 1907 the Mercure de France published
an Anthologie de L’Amour Asiatique, by a certain Thalasso. It ranges
over many countries of the Asiatic continent, describing the traits and
temperaments of the women of these countries from an amatory viewpoint.
The author quotes a Georgian popular song, that contains the essence of
the anthology. It is that the purpose of every man, every husband,
should be to devise varying amatory pleasures. He should know how to
renew the enjoyments of Aphrodite. He should be skilled in avoiding
monotony and satiety. Every woman of every country has her own
peculiarities, her own coyness, her own aggressiveness. The women of
Egypt, he says, are promiscuous, though beautiful. All the coquettish
arts are known to Persian women. The Abyssinians are slim and
well-formed and appealing in looks. The women of the Hedjaz are apart;
they maintain their honor and their modesty, and there are no harlots
among them. In Constantinople all the women, in pulchritude, resemble
Venus, but they are of varying degrees of chastity. Circassian women are
like the moon. Georgian women are very tender-hearted, and persistent
pleas will win the day with them.
* * * * *
The Orient is always prepared to experiment with strange objects, unique
devices, complicated contraptions, protracted and difficult treatments,
all for the ultimate purpose of recovering the libido, or protracting
the amatory span, or maintaining full and effectual vigor.
Take, for instance, a man’s molar tooth: and the bone of a lapwing’s
left wing. Place in a purse, under the woman’s pillow. Tell her of your
action. The result, presumably by means of the implied sympathetic
magic, will be very favorable.
* * * * *
A plant belonging in the satyrion species, called Orchis Morio, that is
native to the South East of Europe, particularly in the area near
Istanbul, is used in Turkey as an excitant.
* * * * *
The juice of the roots of the mandayantaka plant, the clitoria
ternateea, the anjanika plant, the shlakshnaparni plant and the yellow
amaranth, compounded into a lotion, constituted an Oriental invigorating
recipe.
* * * * *
Among the Japanese, a root highly esteemed for its amatory potential is
ninjin, which has properties analogous to those of the mandrake.
* * * * *
The Chinese are fond of a sauce called nuoc-man. Spiced with garlic and
pimento, this fish extract, similar to the Roman garum, is treated as a
stimulant, containing, as it does, genesiac elements: salt and
phosphorus.
* * * * *
As the West inherited and absorbed many cultural phases, views,
concepts, practices, mores from the East, it likewise acquired some of
the amatory and medicinal knowledge relating to electuaries and healing
methods, herbs and plants that might be contributory to health and
well-being, and, as an antique encyclopedic work suggests, an exciter to
venery. Thus Zacutus Lusitanus, Zacutus the Portuguese, a medieval
physician, author of a medical text entitled _Praxis Medica Admiranda_,
enumerates the ingredients of an amatory preparation. The composition is
as follows: Musk and ambergris, pterocarpus santalinus, both red and
yellow, calamus aromaticus, cinnamon, bole Tuccinum, galanga,
aloes-wood, rhubarb, absinthe, Indian myrobalon: all pounded together.
* * * * *
The most remarkable literary erotic production of China may reasonably
be considered to be the picaresque novel Chin P’ing Mei, the adventurous
history of Hsi Men and his six wives. It has been styled the Chinese
Decameron, but it transcends the scope, the contents, the variousness of
incident and characterization and sense of vivid reality manifested in
Boccaccio’s Decameron. The Chinese tale is full of a variety of scenes
and episodes, in the manner of the European large-scaled, spacious
novel. It is also permeated by a tone of ribaldry, a vein of salacious
eroticism, and a large number of episodes describing amatory
experiences. One particular scene deals with a species of pill, the
composition of which is not revealed, that has unique functional
effects.
* * * * *
In China erotic perversions were as numerous as in ancient Rome. The
cinaedus, the Gito who is prominent in Petronius’ _Satyricon_, is termed
in China _amasi_. Dr. Jacobus X, the French anthropologist, has a great
deal to say on this subject.
* * * * *
The Islamic concept of erotic practice is associated with devoutness. It
implies the transmission to man of the divine creative force. Thus the
erotic never becomes lewd or lascivious or prurient for the mere purpose
of lubricity. The Koran counsels physiological intimacy as a sacred
function, an ordained and enjoined rite. Omar Haleby ibn Othman, the
Arab erotologist, likewise chants the erotic act as an expression, a
manifestation derived from sacred sources. The erotic consummation has
lost its fleshly, earthy connotation. It has assumed a venerable and
venerated sanctity.
* * * * *
In the ancient Orient and even in much later ages, the phallus was an
object of veneration not in a prurient or lustful sense, but as the
source of procreation, the emblem of maternity. For sterility was the
major, the primary curse. Hence any means might be exercised to
counteract this catastrophic condition, this mark of divine disfavor,
this racial blight. Hence too among certain ethnic communities as well
as in Biblical literature the stranger, or the occasional traveler, or
the concubine, was offered conjugal status, for the sole purpose of
effecting generation.
Horror of sterility drove women to ceaseless supplications, to priapic
invocations, to priapic contacts, to secret devices, and to magic aid.
In the East, there was the belief that to walk over certain stones was a
remedy for such sterility. In Madagascar a stone was held in reverence
as promoting both agricultural and human fertility. In obscure regions
of the Pyrenees Mountains, as well as in France, similar stones were
believed conducive to amatory excitation and also to fertility. And
these stones were merely worn and weather-beaten vestiges of the
original phallic shapes or other analogous forms.
In India, too, the lingam and the yoni were pervasively revered
throughout the continent. There were temples lined with hundreds of
lingams, garlanded with flowers, anointed with ghee in continuous
adoration.
* * * * *
A mixture of rose water, powdered almonds, and sugar is an old Arab
drink that was commonly considered to correct incapacity. So too with a
mixture, cooked together, of cloves, ginger, nuts, wild lavender, and
nutmeg.
* * * * *
The Koran contains prescriptions that govern the daily life, material
and spiritual, of Moslems. For amatory purposes, which in themselves
imply a sacred function, certain perfumes are recommended as stimulants.
Musk is most frequently mentioned and used. Also camphor, essence of
rose, olibanum, and cascarilla.
* * * * *
The erotic theme in general is always associated, in Arab texts, with
reverence and sanctity, never with prurience. The Arab erotologist Omar
Haleby asserts that the Prophet himself advised recourse to invocations
in the case of physiological incapacity.
The erotic consummation, repeats Omar Haleby, must be considered as an
act inspired by the divinity. It is the why and the wherefore of the
entire cosmos, the divine law of the conservation of the human species.
* * * * *
To promote physiological vigor, Moslem tradition recommends frequent
cold ablutions. Nourishment also holds an important position, and
specific suggestions of food are made. Fish caught in the sea are
helpful. Also: lentils and truffles, mutton boiled in fennel, cumin, and
anise: eggs, especially the yolk, and saffron. Dried dates have a value
in this respect, as well as honey and pigeon’s blood. Effective
electuaries may be compounded with these ingredients.
* * * * *
An old Oriental manual, putatively basing many of its assertions on the
secrets of the Kabbala, classifies various types of love: Lust and
passion and the rarer, ultimate, absolute spiritual love. Amatory
emotions are enumerated and guidance is offered in several directions.
Women are placed in various categories, according to their physical
traits, their personal attractions, their sensibilities.
As a general counsel of perfection, particularly for celibates,
corporeal hygiene is enjoined at all times. The routine of Nature
itself, it is suggested, is an exemplary mentor, involving alternations
of rest and work in due moderation. In the matter of consumption of
food, too, restraint is advised. Food should be taken in silence,
slowly, and while facing the East. Adherence to such prescriptions, it
is stressed, will produce a corporeal and spiritual balance free from
violent entanglements.
In the case of the woman, there are thirty-two points that, in their
totality, produce perfection and beauty for the allurement of men. These
points include whiteness of skin, dark hair, pink tongue, small ears,
and moderate height.
Other Oriental handbooks elaborate, on the other hand, on all the
possible permutations conducive to amatory consummations. These almost
exclusively follow Hindu, Arab, and Turkish tradition.