Eros & Capricorn: A Cross-Cultural Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Techniques (John Warren Wells on Sexual Behavior Book 1)

by John Warren Wells

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  Miscellaneous Practices

  Along with masturbation, to be considered separately, anal and oral sex account form the greater proportion of extracoital copulatory experiences. Other modes of congress exist, however; the endless search for “a new way to do it” has yielded up any number of ways. The few methods listed below are generally limited in appeal and are either the special province of fetishists or fairly unusual experiments in varietism. It is possible that some of them scarcely exist in real life at all but appear only in erotic literature. They are here cataloged for the sake of offering as complete coverage of this subject as possible and for whatever interest or value they might possess.

  1. Copulatio inter mammae. The penis is thrust to and fro between the female’s breasts till orgasm is reached. The parties may lie in inverted order a la soixante-neuf with the male performing cunnilingus or may lie with their bodies facing in the same direction; in this latter case the performance may be concluded with the woman performing fellatio upon the man.

  2. Copulatio inter femorae. This practice—‌involving the placement of the penis between the thighs without penetration of the vagina—‌has been discussed earlier in our chapter on foreplay. It is often used as a coital substitute to preserve virginity, especially with very young females.

  3. Copulatio inter nates. This practice involves placement of the penis between the female’s buttocks, without its actual introduction into the anus.

  4. Underarm copulation. The penis is placed in the woman’s armpit, she presses her arm to her side, and the penis is thrust to and fro until climax is reached.

  5. Copulatio inter pedes. The woman’s feet are placed with the soles in opposition to one another and the penis placed between them; the male then makes copulatory movements between the feet or is masturbated with them by the female. The appeal of this posture for the foot fetishist is obvious.

  6. Copulatio per aurum. The penis is placed so that the glans is within the female’s ear, whereupon the male is masturbated, by himself or by the female, so that he ejaculates into the ear. Like the underarm, the ear is a rather obvious vaginal symbol, which no doubt accounts in large measure for the existence of these two phenomena.

  7. Copulatio per nasum. Similar to 6, with the nose rather than the ear serving as the receptacle for the male’s ejaculation.

  In the world of the pornographer, the possibilities for endless variations have long been exploited. Every crease or orifice of the female body may serve as a copulatory target for the penis; every protrusion of the male body may serve for stimulation of the female. In Sade’s Juliette, the Lady Clairwil tears out the heart of a child and uses it to masturbate herself. Juliette informs her that she “…used to know a man… who enjoyed the same sort of thing. He’d bore a hole in a still palpitating heart, drive his prick into it, and discharge.”

  In the same novel, the heroine cuts off the hand of another child, a young girl, and masturbates herself with the bleeding arm. Eye sockets and pierced navels are employed by male characters for copulation. The variety possible is as endless to catalog as it is pointless and revolting to contemplate.

  Eros and Capricorn

  Masturbation

  Masturbation is a fairly ambiguous term. When it refers to the private practices of a solitary individual, it embraces the entire range of autoerotic practices no matter how they are carried out. When applied as a term for caresses bestowed by one individual upon another, masturbation is essentially limited to manual caresses addressed to the genitalia. In a sense, the fact that masturbation is an all inclusive label for autoerotic acts ought to preclude its usage in duo-erotic sexuality. The physiological distinction is but one measure of the gulf between these two meanings of masturbation, On a psychological plane, all autoerotic activity is markedly different from all activity involving two or more persons, similarity in method notwithstanding.

  Our primary concern in this chapter is with autoerotic practices per se. The techniques we shall discuss are by no means limited to autoeroticism and comprise many stimulatory techniques often found in heterosexual and homosexual relationships. Manual stimulation of the male by the female and vice versa is extremely common, either as a prelude to further sexual activity or as an end in itself. Indeed, as we have seen, certain prostitutes known as fricatrices make a specialty of masturbating their clients to orgasm. Their techniques will be among those to be related in the following pages, although our discussion will center upon specifically autoerotic practices.

  Earlier in this volume we examined the general area of sexual morality and made special reference to the variable attitudes in regard to masturbation. It would be both tedious and repetitious, not to say irrelevant, to dwell at length on the several arguments for and against autoerotic activity. Sinfully or otherwise, and for better or for worse, it must be allowed that masturbation plays a key role in the sexual experience of most women and virtually all men at one point or another in the course of their lives. For many, it is a major source of sexual satisfaction during adolescence before coitus is available. For others it is an expedient when heterosexual activity is not possible. For sexual deviates, masturbation as an accompaniment to fantasy provides a sexual outlet that, if not beneficial or “healthy,” is at least not dangerous or obnoxious to society at large. For example the latent sadist who masturbates while imagining scenes of horrid torture is at least sublimating his sadistic impulses without visiting them upon another human being. For still other adults, masturbation is an outlet that occasionally serves as a desirable alternative to coitus, and for others incapable of the coital act for emotional reasons, it serves as a permanent means of sexual gratification.

  In summary, autoerotic practices exist; they exist because they very definitely perform a variety of functions. Because they exist, and because they do perform these functions, a survey of sexual technique that neglected to examine masturbatory methods would inevitably fall short of its goal.

  Yet it seems inevitable that the author will be accused in certain quarters of having provided a how-to book for the onanist—‌a masturbator’s manual, or shooter’s bible, if either of these onerous puns may be permitted. At the risk of belaboring the patently obvious, let it be understood that this is in no sense the author’s intention just as our earlier chapters are not guides for the enjoyment of copulation but discussions of copulatory methods, so is the material to follow more a survey than a handbook.

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  Male Autoerotic Practices

  The most widespread male masturbatory methods are those which involve manual stimulation of the penis. “These methods may be employed until orgasm is reached or may be halted short of orgasm; the latter practice is found among men and boys who are thus able to delude themselves into thinking that they are not actually masturbating as long as they deny themselves the “reward” of orgasm, and is also put to use, especially in the Far East, by men practicing to withhold semen and thus enable themselves to prolong coitus. Masturbation seems especially suited to the development of this talent. In the Japanese erotic manual Lotus Buds, we read,

  The penis puller can learn to restrain himself. Because he sets the pace of his pleasure, because he controls and fixes this all the way, thus he can lead himself to the very brink of delight and hold himself from going past the edge. Again and again he may so taunt himself, until his penis learns to be its own master and he can hold himself back with a woman as well as alone.

  The following methods, practiced alone or in combination with one another, are commonly employed.

  1. The shaft of the penis is gripped in the hand, which in turn is moved up and down at a fast or slow pace in such a manner that the loose fold of skin surrounding the organ is worked up and down over the inner part of the penis. The friction is thus internal, rather than friction between the penis and the hand. On uncircumcised males, the foreskin is worked against the glans.

  2. The hand grips the penis less securely than
in 1, and the entire penis moves in and out of the hand as it would move in and out of the vagina in coitus. Either the hand or the penis may be moistened with spittle, oil, or some other lubricant in order to minimize possibly painful or irritating friction. Various erotic works mention cold cream, petroleum jelly, and similar substances as lubricants.

  3. The hand takes hold of the penis from below and flips it upward, and the process is repeated until climax is reached. This “flipping” may take the form of a jogging motion imparted by the hand or may be more in the nature of a steady slapping or beating, either gentle or not as the individual may desire.

  4. The hand grips the penis, either at the tip or along the shaft, and alternately squeezes and relaxes in rhythmic fashion until climax is reached.

  5. The hand rubs or massages the penis, most notably the underside of the glans.

  Masturbation without the use of the hands is most commonly managed by rubbing the penis against some foreign object. The masturbator may duplicate the motions of coitus with rhythmic pelvic thrusts while fantasying that he is engaging in coitus or indeed while indulging in any other fantasies that appeal to him. The masturbator may employ a pillow or mattress in this capacity. Prison officials have recorded countless instances in which captive felons have bored holes into their mattresses to stimulate vaginas and used them for masturbation.

  When this “rubbing” form of masturbation is performed upon another individual, the masturbator is known as a “frotteur.” Frottage is a rather common deviant practice, and the frotteur often receives the attention of the police. In crowded subways, the frotteur will maneuver himself in such a manner as to press his erect penis against the thigh, buttocks or loins of an appealing female, permitting the rocking motion of the subway car to hurry him to orgasm or occasionally helping the procedure with quick thrusts of his pelvis. Most frotteurs do this without opening their pants, but some actually remove the penis from their clothing to press it against their victims.

  The “partner” in frottage may not always be an unwilling one. In one of Henry Miller’s novels, the hero-narrator recounts an episode with a young woman whom he embraces outside a lavatory at a social affair. She is wearing a silk dress, and he clutches her and makes coital movements, thrusting his uncovered penis up and down against her dress and ejaculating upon the fabric. The episode is described as highly exciting and satisfying, and the woman as a very willing partner to the act, although she is later much disturbed to find her dress soiled.

  Both frottage and manual masturbation are often abetted with fetish objects. Fetishism is a generic term for any of a variety of sexual deviations in which a fetish object assumes unusual sexual significance to an individual. In The Sexual Deviate, Benjamin Morse, M.D., provides the following definition.

  What is a fetish? The definition is not so simple as it might seem. The best answer might be as follows—‌a fetish is the extraordinary preference for a specific part of the body, article of clothing, or other extrasexual artifact, carried to the point where the absorption on this fetish object becomes the dominant motif in the individual’s sex life… Indeed, almost any object may be a fetish object; I myself have been made aware of cases in which such an extraordinary preference was displayed toward everything from soiled sanitary napkins to ballpoint pens…

  Hair, fur, leather, shoes, female undergarments—‌all these are common fetish objects, and all of them may be employed in masturbation. This is standard procedure for many fetishists. Those deviates who steal or purchase female underwear generally use their bought or pilfered bits of lace in masturbation, either by rubbing against the objects or by wrapping the objects around the penis and manipulating the object with the hands. Glove, shoe, and fur coat masturbation has been recorded at length. Krafft-Ebing cites instances of hair masturbation with the aid of a partner, and The Sultan’s Wives offers the following mode of coitus, designed to appeal to this fetish.

  The girl had firm youthful breasts and slender legs, taut buttocks and a sweet and tender vulva fringed with soft brown curls. The hair on her head was as long as Ali had ever seen. He took her hair in his hands and buried his face within, breathing in her fragrance. He bid her to lie down upon the divan, and visited kisses on all the parts of her body…

  Next he arranged her upon her back on the low divan and arranged her hair so that it lay over her body, trailing down to frame her breasts, down over her plump belly, down to her loins. The hair flowed over her loins and covered the sacred spot between her thighs. Ali’s weapon pierced between the carpet of silken hair and found its sheath, and as he rummaged in her his pleasure was multiplied a thousand-fold.

  Mock coition with female substitutes of one sort or another, though hardly “common,” does occur, and certain manufacturers cater to males who desire to masturbate in this fashion. One underground company doing business in the United States supplies a rather astonishing variety of artifacts, generally of rubber, ranging from a simulated vagina to a life-size rubber female, faithfully molded in complete detail and retailing for several hundred dollars. The rubber female may be filled with warm liquid to create the illusion of human body temperature, may be positioned as the masturbator desires, the artificial vaginal canal may be moistened with a lubricant designed to simulate vaginal secretions, and the masturbator may engage in whatever form of vaginal coitus he desires with his artificial partner.

  Certain authors of science fiction have postulated fictional societies in which androids—‌humanoid robots—‌ are produced for sexual purposes, most especially for use in situations when men cannot avail themselves of female companionship, as on long space voyages or expeditions to alien planets. Such possibilities are not so remote—‌the rubber ladies already in existence come close to android status and sexological literature already records the case of a rather eccentric male who traveled all around the world with a rubber woman as his constant sexual companion, carrying the nonsense so far as to dress his woman-size doll in clean clothes every morning and to persist in dining with her aboard ocean liners!

  Merchant seamen often put artificial female substitutes to use in much the same fashion, either purchasing items specially manufactured for the purpose or displaying ingenuity of their own. A piece of raw beef liver may be used to simulate the texture of the vagina; this seems to be at least common enough so that a parade of obscene jokes has been built up around the practice.

  Another legend, perhaps apocryphal, concerns a seaman who used a rubber vagina for sexual relief for fear of becoming infected with a venereal disease through connection with a prostitute. A shipmate of his went into port one night and did in fact become so infected and, in malicious humor, subsequently masturbated by means of the first sailor’s artificial vagina. The owner of the rubber affair later had the startling experience of contracting gonorrhea from an artificial vagina. Such a remarkable turn of events would seem to be enough to turn a man into a raving lunatic, but the denouement of the legend has been lost, so one can only speculate upon the possibility of it all.

  Both the raw liver and the rubber vagina represent masturbatory methods designed to provide a sensory situation similar to that encountered in coitus. The object pressed into service is desired not for its fetishistic associations but because it either duplicates the vagina or serves as a satisfactory substitute in its own right. Several other objects are occasionally used in much the same fashion.

  In Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, one character allows that he has found a new manner of masturbating and proclaims its superiority to coitus. He goes on to explain that he takes an ordinary apple, cores it, fills it with cold cream, and works it up and down on his penis, supposedly creating a tremendous sensory response that leads speedily to a sexual climax of considerable impact.

  Anal masturbation is occasionally used by some males, either as a supplementary element of manual penile masturbation or, with those inclined toward the passive role in anal intercourse, as an end in itself. Tools employed for this purpose
range from the individual’s own fingers to all the various and sundry objects used by women for vaginal masturbation—‌candles, pieces of soap, dildos, vibrating fingers, and so on.

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  Female Autoerotic Practices

  According to the statistics that have gained the widest acceptance, female masturbation is considerably less prevalent than male masturbation. Almost all males indulge in the practice at one point or another in the course of their lives, but only two-thirds of the women report masturbatory experience. One authority has suggested that two-thirds of the women in America report having masturbated while the other third lie about it. A somewhat more subtle explanation lies in the fact that it is a good deal easier for a woman to masturbate without being aware of precisely what she is doing; thus many women may have masturbated during adolescence without ever consciously identifying the practice as such.

  Males can scarcely practice masturbation without knowing what they are doing. The two functions of erection and ejaculation are physically obvious ones. When a young man handles his penis until it becomes erect, he is made aware that his handling has had a distinctly sexual effect. When further play leads to increased excitement, culminating in orgasm, he is provided with an acute sensation and is further supplied with concrete evidence of the nature of his deed in the form of ejaculated semen.

  In contrast, a female may engage in any number of distinctly masturbatory practices without being forced to see them for what they definitely are. Although female masturbation may very easily be carried on to the point of orgasm, it may just as easily be stopped far short of climax; there is no physical demand for an ejaculation comparable to the male’s discharge of sperm, and, for many women who have never had an orgasm, there is no psychic need for periods of moderate sexual excitement to culminate in that fashion.