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Aretino
also wrote the celebrated whore dialogue Ragionamenti in
which the sex lives of wives, whores and nuns are
compared and contrasted. Later works in the same
genre include La Retorica delle Puttane (The Whore's
Rhetoric) (1642) by Ferrante Pallavicino; L'Ecole des Filles (The school for girls) (1655),
attributed to Michel Millot and Jean L'Ange.[25][26] and
The Dialogues of Luisa Sigea (c. 1660) by Nicolas
Chorier. Such works typically concerned the
sexual education of a naive younger woman by an
experienced older woman and often included elements of
philosophising, satire and anti-clericalism. Donald
Thomas has translated L'École des filles, as The School
of Venus, (1972), described on its back cover as "both
an uninhibited manual of sexual technique and an erotic
masterpiece of the first order". In his diary
Samuel Pepys records reading and (in an often censored
passage) masturbating over this work. Chorier's
Dialogues of Luisa Sigea goes a bit further than its
predecessors in this genre and has the older female
giving practical instruction of a lesbian nature to the
younger woman plus recommending the spiritual and erotic
benefits of a flogging from willing members of the holy
orders. This work was translated into many languages
under various different titles, appearing in English as
A Dialogue between a Married Woman and a Maid in various
editions. The School of Women first appeared as a
work in Latin entitled Aloisiae Sigaeae, Toletanae,
Satyra sotadica de arcanis Amoris et Veneris. This
manuscript claimed that it was originally written in
Spanish by Luisa Sigea de Velasco, an erudite poetess
and maid of honor at the court of Lisbon and was then
translated into Latin by Jean or Johannes Meursius. The
attribution to Sigea was a lie and Meursius was a
complete fabrication; the true author was Nicolas
Chorier.
A unique work of this time is Sodom, or the Quintessence
of Debauchery (1684), a closet play by the notorious
Restoration rake, John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester in
which Bolloxinion, King of Sodom, authorises "that
buggery may be used O'er all the land, so cunt be not
abused", which order, though appealing to soldiery, has
deleterious effects generally, leading the court
physician to counsel: "Fuck women, and let Bugg'ry be no
more"
Erotic Literature - The 18th century |
