The wedding ritual has been accompanied, from one society to another, by a wide range of coital activities.

In various countries feudal lords were apparently entitled to deflower the young bride before releasing her to her husband. This "right of the first night" (jus primae noctis), known also in France as jus cunni and in England as marchette, appears to have been established on the historical evidence. Monks sometimes held the right: thus the monks of St. Thiodard enjoyed this right over the inhabitants of Mount Auriol.

We all(?) know the four-letter words fuck, cunt, cock, arse, shit, piss, and fart. Doubtless imaginative readers can think of others. It is convenient that dick has four letters, but such words as tit and prick do not oblige.

Edward Sagarin has suggested in his "Anatomy of Dirty Words" that there is only one four-letter word in the

The longest obscenity trial in English legal history was that of the Oz magazine under the 1959 Obscene Publications Act. The proceedings lasted for nearly six weeks in the hot summer of 1971.

It was also the first major obscenity trial which produced a guilty verdict since pre-Lady Chatterley days (1960). The trial was a remarkable affair with Judge Argyle able to make remarks such as "so-called defence experts" - in fact the experts including such people as Michael Schofield, Lecturer in Psychology, and Caroline Coon, director of "Release."

Few chastity belts date to a time anterior to the sixteenth century; and a fair number of those on exhibition are thought by experts not to be genuine. A number of well-authenticated specimens however do exist and there are representations in early MSS. One of these can be found in Konrad Kyeser von Eichstadt's military encyclopaedia, the "Bellifortis". The MS dealing largely with Kyeser's military experiences and dated 1405, is now in the library of the University of Gottingen: a girdle of chastity is shown and described. It appears to have been made of iron

It was found in the Kinsey Institute survey of sex criminals, that the range of median height was from 5 ft. 8 in. to 5 ft. 10 in. "Curiously enough the one group in which tallness would be an advantage in the modus operandi of the offence is the tallest of our groups: the average peeper stood 5 ft. 10 in."

Thomas Aquinas, despite St. Albert's liberal teaching, first branded contraception a vice.

Animals have been assigned, rightly or wrongly, a variety of sexual and other predispositions. Snakes were thought to be singularly lecherous, as were baboons and other apes. Various creatures have been granted a singular moral rectitude - for no obvious reason. The elephant ranked high among the "good" animals. Thus Pliny credited the pachyderm with every possible virtue: sense of honour, righteousness, conscientiousness, and above all a distinct sense of shame: "Out of shame elephants copulate only in hidden places... Afterwards they bathe in

Brothels and prostitution in general nave often served as a taxable source of revenue for municipalities, church, etc. One Pope, Clement II, even found a way of taxing prostitutes after they had died. He issued a bull requiring anyone who had ever engaged in prostitution to leave half of her property to the Church (if she had not made the contribution earlier). Prostitution was taxed in Spain, Portugal, Germany, Switzerland, France, and elsewhere. In Nuremberg in the Fifteenth Century, money spent visiting prostitutes was tax-deductible. No, I don't advise

Chastity belts are rare; many collectors are eager to possess a genuine one. Sir James Mann, Master of the Armouries at the Tower of London, managed to purchase one shortly before his death in 1962. It cost him around £350 and appeared to date from the early seventeenth century.

However, experts at the Tower have decided that it is a fake and sent it for sale at Christie's in March 1974. A spokesman declared that "It does not seem strong enough for its purpose."

As far as can be judged there is only one recorded case of a woman convicted of coitus with a non-human animal in the United States. It is the case of State v. Tarrant (1949: 80 N.E. 2d Ohio 509) mentioned by Kinsey, Masters and others.