Posh porn from a not-so-posh play.
Also did you know the c-word comes from the Middle English word "coynte"?
Before we get into it, please indulge me as I shamelessly plug two events I’m hosting in London ~ the first one is next Thursday and is literally just for you!!! I’ve roped in
, , and , essentially the Three Graces of historical writing on Substack 🕊️ It’s going to be a lovely, intimate evening (at a very chic bookstore), with a panel discussion, Q+A, and some mellow networking.Tickets//info can be found here: Historians on Substack: Storytelling in the Digital Era
The second event is the latest in my seasonal symposium series (if you’re new here, I have very strong feelings about alliteration that can be traced back to english class in the third grade) and it’s happening on the 3rd of May at the Phoenix Garden in central London. For spring, we’re reimagining the ancient Roman festival Floralia, a hedonistic celebration of springtime, featuring scantily clad performances, ritual, and revelry. Our modern version will include a Roman FEAST cooked over fire, acrobats and dancers, live music, a poetry reading by Dakota Warren, personalised drawings by Carlota Santos, and much more.
You can find tickets//info here: Floralia 🌷
If a few flowery sentences haven’t quite sold you, a picture is worth a thousand words etc. etc. so here are some snaps from previous symposiums 🍇
winter Aphrodite’s Archer: An Evening with Eros and Psyche
autumn Garden of Earthly Delights
They are sumptuous/immersive/indulgent events that bring to life the ancient Greek practice of getting pissed under the guise of edification. I really cannot recommend them enough.
Now I know why you’re really here. I promised you posh porn so let’s get into it.
This week’s newsletter is really just an excuse to bang on about some pornographic drawings that I had NEVER heard of until a few weeks ago ~ thank you to my pal Erica who was at a queer theory lecture and sent me some pics, essentially instructing me to write this Substack.
The work in question is Aubrey Vincent Beardsley’s series of 8 drawings illustrating the ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata, written by Aristophanes in 411 BCE. If you’re unfamiliar with the play my GOD are you in for a treat.
Whatever way I slice this summary, you’re probably going to think I’m making it up or at the very least exaggerating but I promise you I’m NOT. Aristophanes just happened to write unbelievably outrageous, out-there smut, even by my standards. The TLDR is, the eponymous heroine Lysistrata convinces the Greek women to stop having sex with their husbands AND take the Acropolis hostage (??) to end the Peloponnesian War.
One minor issue, Lysistrata’s contemporaries are sex-obsessed. They have to be lightly bullied into the sex strike in the first place (see above for Beardsley’s depiction of Lysistrata haranguing her horned-up pals) and then they won’t stop banging on about dildos. The character Calonice bemoans the sexless state of affairs, complaining “I haven’t even seen a six-inch dildo, which might have been a consolation, however small.” (108-110). So the ancient size queen also managed to squeeze in a dig about dick-size. Another highlight, and possibly my favourite moment from any ancient play, a character known as the Third Wife is so DESPERATE for sex she pretends to be heavily pregnant, shoving a helmet under her clothes and claiming she is going into labour, so she can go see her husband. I just re-read it and cackled so I’m including it in full:
Lysistrata What are you moaning about?
Third Wife It’s my time— I’m going to have a child!
Lysistrata But yesterday you weren’t even pregnant.
Third Wife Well, today I am. Send me home, Lysistrata, and quickly. I need a midwife.
Lysistrata [inspecting her clothing] What are you saying? What’s this you’ve got here? It feels quite rigid.
Third Wife A little boy.
Lysistrata No, by Aphrodite, I don’t think so. It looks like you’ve got some hollow metal here. I’ll have a look. [Lysistrata looks under the woman’s dress and pulls out a helmet] You silly creature, you’ve got a helmet there, Athena’s sacred helmet. Didn’t you say you were pregnant.
Third Wife Yes, and by god, I am.
Lysistrata Then why’ve you got this helmet?
Third Wife Well, in case I went into labour in the citadel. I could give birth right in the helmet, lay it in there like a nesting pigeon. (740-60).
I’m sorry, the way she doubles down and claims that she was going to give birth INTO the helmet like a bloody pigeon. Just sensational 🐦
So, the point is, giving up sex is not easy BUT my god is it effective. In the words of Sarah Pomeroy, the Greek men “are brought to their knees by sheer sexual starvation.” The First Athenian delegate really rams this point home (HA), saying “My cock is bursting out of its skin and killing me!” (1136). Also, when Lysistrata is finally ready to negotiate with the men, she sends a naked woman to collect them (obviously), instructing the aptly named Reconciliation to lead them by their cocks if they don’t offer their hands (1118).
Above we have Beardsley’s depiction of Lysistrata — sure her hand placement could be read as an attempt at modesty but I choose to take it as a suggestion that her vow of celibacy wasn’t necessarily without personal cost (her other hand is literally cupping the head of a gigantic penis, so it doesn’t feel like much of a stretch). Also, the title of this particular drawing is how I learnt the etymology of the word c*nt (some mild self-censoring as I’m aware that as an Australian I am uniquely desensitised to the word) — the word “queynte” was used by Chaucer in Canterbury Tales as a euphemism for female genitalia about six hundred years ago. Now let’s look at a smidge of art history to contextualise the actual drawings.
Beardsley was working throughout the tail end of the art nouveau period, a period defined by the increasing freedoms enjoyed by women at the time. Although society was relaxing a bit, Beardsley’s work, particularly his depictions of women, still managed to scandalise the hell out of his Victorian audience. Jan Thompson writes,
“The "Beardsley Woman" often appeared particularly diabolical to a prudish bourgeoisie. Ordinarily a rather robust female, she is represented as an erotically aggressive, often malevolent figure.”
Beardsley was censored repeatedly throughout his life as an artist — a lot of his work has been published posthumously, gaining proper traction in the sixties (makes sense). He also, quite famously, created illustrations for the one and only Oscar Wilde (Beardsley got dropped by his publisher when Wilde was arrested).
Let’s circle back to the gigantic penises.
To make sense of them, we’ve got to go back a bit further than the swinging sixties. The ancient Greeks were very into their theatre and they were VERY into props. During the Old Comedy period, the actors often wore gigantic leather penises as part of their costume. These prop phalloi (plural of phallus, a fancy word for penis) were a key part of Dionysiac worship ~ the Greek god of theatre was also the god of fertility and excess 🍆 so as WILD as these massive members may appear, they’re not quite as anachronistic as you might think. They’re actually, weirdly, accurate.
Aristophanes’ Lysistrata immortalised the first ever collective sex strike (as far as I’m aware). This fictitious idea, first used for comedic value, has evolved over millennia, taking on a variety of modern forms. From the Liberian sex strike of 2003, which helped end a civil war, Spike Lee’s 2015 film Chi-Raq, (the women withhold sex to protest gang-related gun violence in Chicago), to the 4B movement (which first originated in South Korea and was taken up by women in the US after Trump was elected a second time), women withholding sex to achieve a particular political or social outcome is a) nothing new b) something that clearly still resonates today. Aristophanes is so FUN and so are these drawings but I can’t bring myself to hit publish without briefly mentioning how a collective sex strike exposes the lengths women will go to when other avenues for asserting their agency aren’t available.
References
Aristophanes. Lysistrata.
Beare, W. “The Costume of the Actors in Aristophanic Comedy.” The Classical Quarterly 4, no. 1/2 (1954): 64–75.
Pomeroy, Sarah B. Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity. New York, Schocken Books, 1975.
Thompson, Jan. “The Role of Woman in the Iconography of Art Nouveau.” Art Journal 31, no. 2 (1971): 158–67.
Wilson, Simon. “Wilde, Beardsley, Salomé and Censorship.” The Wildean, no. 51 (2017): 45–82.
On the Liberian sex strike you should read Helen Morales’s article in Greece and Rome (2013).
Wait, there's an article? A lot to unpack....I got lost in the draw and then woken up cold water splash on face, whoa nelly at the lingam drawings. But the initial seemingly invitational photography of the ladies at the table ("will there be a steamy story sequence?") had me anticipating... (oh nice photographed thematic postcard!) Where was I? 🧠