Talking Dirty, Part 24. It's all about Asia.
(from the series The History of Sex, the History Channel)
* Starting with the 1st Dynasty of China (the Hsia family), around 1750 BC, the Chinese expression for intercourse was "clouds and rain." This metaphor described heaven making love with the earth, and represented perfect order, perfect balance. [Hmm. So if the missus told hubby she didn't want clouds and rain that day, it probably had nothing to do with the family barbecue coming up. Gotcha.]
* Master Tung Hsuan of ancient China said that if a man took the aphrodisiac known as the "bald chicken drug" for sixty days, he would be able to satisfy forty women. [And I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I'm selling, bub...] The recipe, unfortunately, has not survived.
* Second century bordellos in the city of Ch'ang-an had bamboo lamps with red coverings, leading some historians to theorize that this was the origin of the red light district.
* The practice of foot binding is believed to have started around AD 1000 with a palace dancer named Yao Niang, who wrapped her naturally tiny feet in bright silk strips when she performed for the court. The image soon became such a sexual turn-on, even husbands could not abide looking at the bare feet of their wives. Thus, though it permanently crippled their feet, girls and women forcibly suffered the pain of years of foot binding all the way up to the 19th century. [Was there EVER a time in history when women weren't in some kind of pain just to satisfy somebody? Cripes.]
* History's most erotic sex manual, the Kama Sutra (which also contains blueprints for courtship and marriage) was written by the sage Vatsyayana for polite Hindu society. The thing is: Vatsyayana was an acetic who led a life completely without earthly delights. He'd probably never had sex. [Some imagination, then. OR the dude was a poseur big time, on the down-low.] Poets often used the Kama Sutra as a thesaurus, so that their poems would not be explicit and offend the senses. For example: a poet well versed in the Sutra would say a woman's "girdle bells were shaking" to indicate she was on top. If her "ankle bells were ringing," she was on the bottom. [Yeah, they probably needed to "look up a word" every five minutes. LOL]
* The spawning of a rock classic: Back in the Middle Ages, Persian poet Nizami--a pen name--wrote an epic poem called Layli o Majnun, about two ill-fated lovers. (When Princess Layli's parents married her off to another man, poor Majnun went mad. He spent the rest of his days wandering naked in the desert, pining for his lost love.) It is said that Eric Clapton discovered a copy of the English translation of this poem (Layla and Majnun) in a bookstore, and was quite taken by it, for at the time he himself was suffering from unrequited love. This resulted in his famous song "Layla." [I don't know how true this is, but it sure is a cool story.]
Layla Live-Aid performance.
ETA: I've always preferred the slow, acoustic version of "Layla" that came later. Muy sexy.
Eric Clapton - Layla - Acoustic Version
* Starting with the 1st Dynasty of China (the Hsia family), around 1750 BC, the Chinese expression for intercourse was "clouds and rain." This metaphor described heaven making love with the earth, and represented perfect order, perfect balance. [Hmm. So if the missus told hubby she didn't want clouds and rain that day, it probably had nothing to do with the family barbecue coming up. Gotcha.]
* Master Tung Hsuan of ancient China said that if a man took the aphrodisiac known as the "bald chicken drug" for sixty days, he would be able to satisfy forty women. [And I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I'm selling, bub...] The recipe, unfortunately, has not survived.
* Second century bordellos in the city of Ch'ang-an had bamboo lamps with red coverings, leading some historians to theorize that this was the origin of the red light district.
* The practice of foot binding is believed to have started around AD 1000 with a palace dancer named Yao Niang, who wrapped her naturally tiny feet in bright silk strips when she performed for the court. The image soon became such a sexual turn-on, even husbands could not abide looking at the bare feet of their wives. Thus, though it permanently crippled their feet, girls and women forcibly suffered the pain of years of foot binding all the way up to the 19th century. [Was there EVER a time in history when women weren't in some kind of pain just to satisfy somebody? Cripes.]
* History's most erotic sex manual, the Kama Sutra (which also contains blueprints for courtship and marriage) was written by the sage Vatsyayana for polite Hindu society. The thing is: Vatsyayana was an acetic who led a life completely without earthly delights. He'd probably never had sex. [Some imagination, then. OR the dude was a poseur big time, on the down-low.] Poets often used the Kama Sutra as a thesaurus, so that their poems would not be explicit and offend the senses. For example: a poet well versed in the Sutra would say a woman's "girdle bells were shaking" to indicate she was on top. If her "ankle bells were ringing," she was on the bottom. [Yeah, they probably needed to "look up a word" every five minutes. LOL]
* The spawning of a rock classic: Back in the Middle Ages, Persian poet Nizami--a pen name--wrote an epic poem called Layli o Majnun, about two ill-fated lovers. (When Princess Layli's parents married her off to another man, poor Majnun went mad. He spent the rest of his days wandering naked in the desert, pining for his lost love.) It is said that Eric Clapton discovered a copy of the English translation of this poem (Layla and Majnun) in a bookstore, and was quite taken by it, for at the time he himself was suffering from unrequited love. This resulted in his famous song "Layla." [I don't know how true this is, but it sure is a cool story.]
Layla Live-Aid performance.
ETA: I've always preferred the slow, acoustic version of "Layla" that came later. Muy sexy.
Eric Clapton - Layla - Acoustic Version