The ‘French disease’ erupted in Europe in 1495.
Early Modern
“She was both Poxt and Clapt together”: Confessions of Sexual Secrets in Eighteenth-Century Venereal Cases
Olivia Weisser Furtive trysts. Regretful dalliances. Fleeting affairs. Sexual secrets were nothing new in the 1700s, but confessing them to a doctor became surprisingly common in published medical cases of venereal disease. In one instance, a woman consulted a surgeon for a common reproductive ailment known as “the whites.” She […]
Bestiality in a Time of Smallpox
Rob Boddice The news is rife with fearful accounts of disease — influenza is epidemic and measles is re-emergent — and debates about how to inoculate against them. Opponents of vaccination, meanwhile, are fanning the flames of fear. Measles, for example, is entirely preventable, but remains among us because of […]
Carnivalesque #107
Katherine Harvey Welcome to Carnivalesque #107! Carnivalesque is an interdisciplinary blog carnival dedicated to pre-modern history (to c. 1800 C.E.), and NOTCHES is delighted to be hosting the final edition of 2014. If you are already a NOTCHES reader, then fear not, there is plenty of material on the history […]
Sexual Curiosities? Aphrodisiacs in early modern England
Jennifer Evans The word aphrodisiac conjures images of oysters and chocolate, or perhaps peppers to ‘spice things up’. Nearly everyone knows that these foods have a long history of being considered aphrodisiacs. Yet it is worth devoting a little more attention to how these foods were described in the past […]
‘A Temporary Member’: ‘Hermaphrodites’ and Sexual Identity in Early Modern Russia
Marianna Muravyeva Russian history of sexuality is very problematic. We have yet a lot to discover about same-sex relationships, sexual variations and attitudes to various sexual practices on the Russian pathway to modernity. The little we know suggests that one’s sexual identity was subject to close scrutiny from the community, the […]
The Censorship of Female Pleasure: Cleland, Charlie Countryman, Cunnilingus
Katelyn Dykstra Dykerman What is it about a woman enjoying herself that is so threatening? It is not an idle question. Female pleasure, and female sexuality, seem to be cause for confusion, as well as a particular kind of hand-wringing, censor-inducing, violence-spurring anxiety. A few months ago, Evan Rachel Wood took to twitter […]