Evidence of Recent Connexion

[Errata]

All I'm saying is, it is possible for Jack to have satisfied himself sexually without availing himself of the usual orifice. Or even the unusual ones.

As far as determining what was on offer at the time... We know that the Kama Sutra was considered a slightly risque acquisition for a man of means. And there have been stories of men bringing a copy to their clubs to show off, but always securely wrapped. We also know that the mere possession of literature on birth control by a woman was illegal. Which is less a tale of a double standards than it is a tale of what women were exposed to vs. what men were exposed to. The whole "Lie back and think of England" mentality.

(There is a hilarious and probably completely false story about a lecture given by Margaret Sanger (the founder of Planned Parenthood) in the 40s with a little old lady in attendance who fainted dead away at the description of how a diaphragm works. When she came around people asked her why she came to the lecture if she was morally opposed to birth control. She replied that she was fine with birth control but that "If I had known what my husband was doing down there all these years and with what I would have poisoned his coffee!")

Fortunately the repressed Victorians did come out with quite a bit of pornographic literature. I've never actually read The Lustful Turk, but I know that it is the sort of standard male rape fantasy, where rape sexually awakens a virgin who then craves constant sexual attention, the usual tripe, but mostly featuring anal sex (which was then and is now practiced as a form of birth control). I think his bits end up pickled in a jar. But I would imagine that anyone who read these... "classics" would find that they contain a pretty good summation of what men wanted. Mostly sex acts that would be considered unusual but not perverse. I can't imagine two men having sex would appear in these novels as anything other than an example of immorality, an object of disgust. Those books don't sell. So If someone wants to know what the brothels offered, that's where I would start.

I've also been looking for the old Victorian birth control pamphlets for ages and can't find them. I know Annie Besant's "Laws of Population" is still around somewhere. But those would be the most frank sexual instruction women were ever given, so if I ever find them, I could say what sex acts were considered common knowledge amongst women.

[tji]

Serious research must be undertaken and no I'm not suggesting we hit the streets for an Historical comparison but the answer must exist somewhere ..and barring time machines ....uh.........Surely someone has ideas...

Hi Greg

I think the response 'i'm not touching that' is quite fitting here....

Tj

[GregBaron]

Sordid, sleazy and salacious...

Wow,

There's no where we won't go is there boys and girls? Our grandmother's would be horrified...........provided they weren't Whitechapel street walkers...

There seems little agreement on what services our ladies of the night provided and even less evidence of such...

While I doubt the solution to the case rests on this question, it does seem relevant in determining time frames, positions, sanitary devices, Jack's pathology etc.

I'm not sure literature can answer the question and I doubt police reports said things like "kneeling down blowing someone" on its reports. So where does that leave us?

Serious research must be undertaken and no I'm not suggesting we hit the streets for an Historical comparison but the answer must exist somewhere ..and barring time machines ....uh.........Surely someone has ideas...



Greg

[lynn cates]

'Pon my word.

Hello Robert. JTR nothing. Will you make a pun or no?

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

quid pro quo

Hello Simon. My understanding is that IF a favour is returned it must be in kind--not just a lick and a promise.

Cheers.
LC

[Robert]

Hi Lynn

I'm only about 60-40 on Stride being a JTR victim anyway, so I don't worry too much about the Stride murder. I'm pretty sure BS wasn't the killer, and I'm pretty sure her throat wasn't cut while she was performing the oral : too risky!

[Simon Wood]

Hi Lynn,

Very droll.

Victorian husbands were told that returning the favour would lead to them contracting cancer and also result in the death of their wife.

Regards,

Simon

[lynn cates]

Victorians

Hello Simon. Oral sex amongst the Victorians? I find that difficult to swallow.

Cheers.
LC

[lynn cates]

body placement

Hello Robert. But then the body placement is all wrong.

Cheers.
LC

[Robert]

Hi Lynn

Maybe Joan was suggesting that she was killed after performing the oral - either by her client or by another man who came along.

[lynn cates]

before or after

Hello Robert. Yes, I've heard that. But why place then in hand BEFORE the fact?

Cheers.
LC

[mariab]

Maria -The Channel being short and well plied (no pun intended), I'm certain that the French wouldn't have ever kept their secrets to themselves.

Absolutely. I'm just sayin', the French have had documentedly a more open attitude about it, and they've always ended up with a bad reputation. ;-)

Simon Wood is quite right. Concerning the technicalities of sexuality, there's been nothing new under the sun since the dawn of times.
If one has a look inside the engravings by Paul Avril in the 1890s, or any such literary works such as Gustave Flaubert's Salambô, Jules Michelet's Madame, even novels from the 18th century, such as the Abbé Prévost's Manon Lescaut (published in 1731), John Cleland's Fanny Hill (first published in 1748), Stendhal's Le rouge et le noir {The Red and the Black} (published in 1830), it's all in there to see: oral, anal, gay, lesbian, you name it. Without even mentioning the hardcore stuff, such as Sade, H. S. Ashbee, My secret life, etc..
Most plausibly the Victorians appear to have been more “experimental“ in the high and low classes rather than in the middle classes. Still, I'm reminded that Freud hesitated to publish his first book, then turned it into a self-censored second edition due to the fact that he was apalled and not keen in reporting about the overwhelming statistics of child abuse in the “best families“ of Vienna in the 1890s.

[Rubyretro]

Stride's cachous might have been to ameliorate the after-effects of oral sex

,

I've always thought that's what the cachous were for -and given the lack of bathrooms for working men, she surely needed them.

Errata -I think that double standards must have abounded. Certainly Helena Wojtczak's well researched book on Women Of Victorian Sussex paints a less stereotypical picture.

[Robert]

Some years ago a shrewd poster called Joan O'Liari suggested that Stride's cachous might have been to ameliorate the after-effects of oral sex, and that the stains on one of her hankies might not have been fruit stains.

Just thought I'd toss that in - I mean -

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

I doubt that oral sex was a new concept in Victorian Whitechapel.

Apparently, Cleopatra was famous for her blow jobs. The Greeks called her Meriochane, or "she who gapes wide for 10,000 men".

Also, according to legend, Osiris, cut into pieces by his brother and thrown into a river, was reassembled by his sister, Isis, who had to replace his one missing part with a clay version. She then blew life back into him via his new earthenware member.

I can imagine that working.

Regards,

Simon