In one view, Eve tempting Adam is the first case of sex in advertising, though perhaps this is not normally what we think of by the phrase. Another candidate for the title is a woodcut produced in 1491 by a Belgian publisher to promote a new translation of “Histoire de

This superlative, like many of the others, is a matter of opinion. But for this one a fair number of people seem to opt for Racine. Racine has been represented as seeing love as a passion – “that is, something suffered by mankind, a thing imposed upon mankind from outside

This form of cannibalism has featured in a number of court cases. Ornella Volta gives us a number of graphic cases in which cannibalism has been linked to sexual pleasure. Gilles Garnier killed a young girl with his hands and teeth, and took a piece of her flesh home to

According to Havelock Ellis, the term erotic fetishism was devised by Binet in 1888. Ellis had some interest in sexual terminology. He himself, for example, claimed to have invented the term “Eonism” for transvestism.

The idea of an effective sperm bank has appealed to eugenically-minded individuals for a good few centuries. Such arrangements have only recently become practically feasible. The first two sperm banks, set up in Iowa City and Tokyo, both began life in 1964.

In 1564 the “De Morbo Gallico” of Gabriello Fallopio (1523-1563) was published posthumously. Here the Italian anatomist described the linen sheath he claimed to have invented. Made to fit the glans of the penis it was devised essentially as a protective against venereal disease. The foreskin had to be pulled

Plastic vibrators, generally used by women as a dildo device, can also be employed by men, e.g. by homosexuals – sometimes with strange results. In a letter to the “British Medical Journal,” June 30, 1974, two writers from London’s St. Bartholomew’s Hospital bring to the attention of readers “a new

Today we tend to take the brassiere in our stride. Some unhappy folk are still nervous about it and their unease gives scope for simple-minded comedy in West-End theatre and elsewhere. The most controversial bra ad in America was that of the early fifties – those unpermissive times when the

According to “Yu Fang Mi Chueh” (“Secret Codes of the Jade Room”), a Taoist sex manual written not long after the birth of Christ, it is possible to judge a woman’s sexual features by scrutinising her face”A woman with a small mouth and short fingers has a shallow porte feminine

In the Eastern Han Dynasty (A.D. 25-220), a group of Taoist philosophers created Yin Taoism, firmly rooted in the importance of human sexual expression. This school of Taoists wrote volume after volume of sex manuals including “Su Nu Ching” (Manual of Lady Purity), “Yu Fang Mi Chueh” (Secret Codes of