Bestiality and Breeding Hogs

One of the creepiest articles I've ever read. (Considering what I read, that's pretty spectacular).:

Where Are Animals in the History of Sexuality?

Underwear, Outer Anatomy

from https://www.behance.net/gallery/Womans-anatomy/7522513

Get this out of your nightmares.

From Here.

Reading too much about Ebola?

Here are some other CONTAGIONS to diversify your reading.

Transi Statues

See the full article from Slate

MAKING VISIBLE EMBRYOS

through history

How to Create the Perfect Wife

If you want to read about an abolitionist who adopted an orphan girl to train her to be his wife, boy, do we have the book for you!

The Photographs of Herbert List

The Artwork of Cristin Millett

From http://www.cristin-millett.com/

Check it out!

On Interpretation, Intention, and Teaching

And novelists on whether symbolism was intentional by Mental Floss. (The answer is no).

--

One of the biggest problems teachers and professors in the humanities face is that the intent of the author or artist doesn't account for the reach of what they have insinuated or what has been interpreted by their works. We can all agree that many 19th-century writers were racist or misogynistic according to our standards, but that was part of the cultural milieu, not their intention.

In any case, it's not easy in the humanities to take something at face value--face value undercuts what a single work might have meant to many readers and viewers.

Everything a novelist or artist does is likely for a reason, whether it be a sign of something or a whim, but even whims have an undercurrent. If I took the time to create something really big, I would want every part of it to play into the whole. This is not always the case, but in creating such a work, the author/artist’s psyche has a role in the matter, whether he/she is aware or not.

Early Modern Fashionisto

A cool blog blending historical fashion with modern:

THE FIRST BOOK OF FASHION

Birth Control before the Pill

Onion juice, weasel testicles and Coca-Cola douches: 8 horrifying historical birth control methods

via Salon

And a note on the lack of birth control for many women across the globe

The World's Most Beautiful Anatomical Theaters

From Atlas Obscura:

Under The Knife, Episode 1 - The Clockwork Saw

Make Your Own Dildo!

From Schlecky Silberstein

Posture Pageant

Because sometimes pageant winners have to be more than naked.

Also from Neatorama!

Biological Kaleidoscopes

Neato arrangements of single-celled diatoms from Neatorama!

Tunnel of Love

Making whoopie in an MRI machine.

To be compared with Leonardo da Vinci's version from the late 16th century:

And an article on how this revises da Vinci's theory of sex.

Thanks AZ!

Cat Viruses

All the things VICE ever wanted to you know about toxoplasmosis HERE.

Thanks AZ!

On Heart Burial

Again, from Atlas Obscura:

Recent find looking through the Medical Heritage Library: 

From HERE

New Blog on the History of Sexuality

NOTCHES: (re)marks on the history of sexuality

There are simply too many cool things to share, from the history of aphrodisiacs in England to animals in the history of sexuality to cunnilingus in the middle ages!

QUIZ: Can You Survive Yellow Fever?

The Appendix has something between a quiz and a choose-your-own-adventure story that teaches history through narrative. Amazing!

Can you survive?



And more on BODIES from The Appendix.

Things You Never Knew Existed/Didn't Exist

Some great stories from Atlas Obscura:

BASTARDS OF THE BESTIARY: EIGHT MYTHOLOGICAL CREATURES TOOGROSS, SAD, OR MONSTROUS TO BE LOVED

THE SKELETON LAKE OF ROOPKUND, INDIA

and

ESSENTIAL GUIDE: BIOLUMINESCENCE

Comedy Break

From George Takei and related comments on Facebook:

An Animated Film on Anton van Leeuwenhoek

Sweet sketch from the author of Bioephemera, Jessica Palmer, of a specimen at the Hunterian Museum, London:

Victorian Sex Tips

Because Cosmo has nothing on THIS article in Salon.

A few examples:

In the book, Becklard states: “The mouth of the uterus, be it known, is very narrow, so narrow in fact, that the fecundating principle would not enter it, but that it craves it, and inhales it by real suction — a proof, by the way, that a rape can never be productive of real offspring.”

…

If one is trying not to beget a child, Becklard advised that, immediately after the conjugal act has occurred, “dancing about the room before repose, for a few minutes, might probably have that effect.” This is, of course, contrary to logic (and to the plot of Dirty Dancing, which is where we get all of our sex advice).

…

another book titled Sexual Health: A Plain and Practical Guide for the People on All Matters Concerning the Organs of Reproduction in Both Sexes and All Ages by Henry Hanchett, encouraged parents “to run their children around throughout the day in wild play so the children would be too tired to masturbate before bed.” Female children weren’t much of a concern, as they were believed to have a “low, almost nonexistent sex drive, so only truly deranged females would succumb to the temptations of masturbation.”

And so much more HERE

Measuring Prayer in 19th-Century England

"That July, three months before he set sail [for the United States], the London Contemporary Review published an anonymous letter, 'The Prayer for the Sick: Hints towards a Serious Attempt to Estimate its Value,' along with an introductory note by [John] Tyndall. The letter suggested that, if organized correctly, the efficacy could be tested experimentally through quantitative methods. Tyndall had purposefully picked a fight--what became know[n] as the 'Prayer-Gauge Debate'--the contours of which helped shape the age of scientific naturalism."

From The Age of Scientific Naturalism, edited by Bernard Lightman and Michael S. Reidy

Taking Care of Medieval Business

MEDIEVAL TOILETS

or ‘pissyngholes’

And a picture of a guy trying to relieve himself and ending up in the Thames

Is that a leg or are you just happy to see me?

From Panaceia's Daughters by Alisha Rankin

DOES YOUR ZOMBIE HAVE RABIES?

A great segment by Studio 360 on medicine and pop culture

The Work of Victoria Diehl

Based on:

And some other creepy stuff HERE

Halloween!

It's almost that time, so here is some music to consider for your playlist:

And a non-classical, pretty obvious one:

Demon of Philosophy

From HERE

For a long time I've been interested in Christian writers who warn against curiosity. This is an actual illustration of it! I think...

ASK THE PAST

One of the best blogs I've ever seen!

http://askthepast.blogspot.com/

Some favorites include:

How to Keep Your Cat, c. 1470

How to Play With a Cat, c. 1658

and

How to Behave in School, c. 1595

Thanks DH!

Listeriniana

From the New York Times article on Listerine:

The [stink] lab is kept between 91 and 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit to resemble a real human mouth where bacteria can flourish. Linger inside, and the smell can stay on one’s clothes for hours.

“At this point, I don’t consider it gross anymore,” said Tara Fourre, Listerine’s principal scientist, who has worked at the lab for more than a decade. “But when I go home, my family thinks it’s gross because they can smell it on me.”

…

Early ads suggested customers apply Listerine to their scalp to clear up dandruff, or to put the antiseptic in their “cuts, scratches and small wounds.”

…

If Listerine has more recently localized its uses, so, too, has it widened its audience. No longer do its ads try to scare women into buying mouthwash, lest their bad breath ward off potential suitors (“always a bridesmaid” was a popular early ad slogan) or even their families (“It makes you unpopular with your own children”).

And some vintage ads, because there is a treasure trove of awful here:

Um...