Automatons, a swing bed and other erotic amusements of the 18th century

From the nineteenth century, the past eighteenth as soon as they were called. Some are the age of reason. Others — the age of debauchery. Still others recalled wigs and the slave trade. The fourth — empresses. It was all true. Especially debauchery.

For Russia, the eighteenth century began with Peter I and ended with Catherine the Great. Lomonosov reached with a fish train to He founded physical chemistry, discovered the atmosphere on Venus, organized the first scientific expeditions in Russia and invested in the development of the literary Russian language (which, to be honest, seemed impossible to many - so it was considered better to write in German or French).

Alexander Karamyshev for the first time published an extensive review of Russian plants. Ekaterina Dashkova defended the need for the letter e and inspired the champions of literary Russian to use it.

And in Europe, Jean-Pierre Blanchard flew around Paris in a balloon, the hard-of-hearing self-taught Guillaume Amonton discovered the law of physics named after him and the boiling point of water, Laura Bassi achieved the study of Newton's laws at the oldest universities in Italy, and Saint-Germain, Cagliostro and Casanova traveled around cities and countries, earning trust and chatting about magic.

Travel in general became almost commonplace, and the glory of Polish science could be obtained by a native Spaniard, and Russia by a German or a Briton. Spies dressed up as women, adventurers dressed up as men, and Empress Elizabeth gave balls at which such disguises were mandatory.

That was the age when the future empress of a great power could start her life as a maid for an ordinary pastor. When France recruited Poles to fight Britain in America. When a black face in Europe surprised no one, and a white face in Africa caused horror: the age of the slave trade and unbridled plunder of distant lands.

And it was also an age when ladies and gentlemen sometimes copulated with each other in front of each other after a good dinner. Peter I was famous for his particular shamelessness, who performed this action without being interested in the opinion of a lady (which even in those ancient times was considered ungallant) and in front of people who could not be called close friends.

It was also the age when ladies quietly changed clothes in front of relatives and friends while chatting in the boudoir — and it didn't mean anything like that.

The cousin tied bandages on his cousin's stockings without trying to molest her; the guests discussed the latest poetic news with the hostess, examining her breasts with the same cool interest with which they had looked at the paintings of nymphs in the living room before. Some ladies did not hesitate even to sit on a chair with a pot in front of old acquaintances.

Even in Shakespearean times, masked evenings meant the opportunity to sin unrecognized — to exchange a few words during a dance with a stranger or a stranger, so that later they could retire to a secluded place behind the curtain, indulge in amorous pleasures and immediately part without asking each other's names.

In the XVIII century, such amusements reached a special scale. In other courts, even masks were not required in order for the celebration to smoothly move from drunkenness to fornication.

Sometimes, catching up with a giggling lady with a fan, a hot cavalier found another cavalier in a suit — but he didn't even consider it a special problem. Such fun as getting pleasure from two sides was also popular — when a lady was lying under the cavalier, and another cavalier was attached behind the cavalier.

The holidays were decorated with other erotic jokes. So, Peter I could serve pies with a special filling on the tables of ladies and gentlemen.

In front of the cavaliers, a well-built midget girl got out of the pie and artistically read something from ancient literature. A "well-equipped" dwarf got out in front of the ladies on another table and also pretended to be something with the most relaxed look. The pies, by the way, were edible and were immediately eaten by the guests to crumbs.

However, masquerades hid not only fornication. Posing as a couple in love, spies met each other without fear, exchanging information (which sometimes did not prevent them from exchanging kisses — why not?).

For others, the masquerade turned into a way of life. Chevalier d’Eon, one of the most successful special agents of France, was known for wearing women's and men's outfits equally easily, and in the end the king ordered him to wear only women's clothes (with the right, however, to carry weapons and awards) and generally appointed him a woman.

As a result, d’Eon spent the rest of his life studying and preaching the ideas of feminism — either he felt what it was like to be a woman all the time, or he hoped in his new status to one day receive the same rights that were inherent to him from birth.

In old age, he also could not formalize a relationship with a woman who is supposed to be his unofficial wife — and she did not receive the right to inherit from him when he died. She could not even forbid, as a wife, to publicly examine his body — the whole of London made money bets, was d’The Eon is disguised as a man or an unmasked woman, so that the confirmation of the gender occurred in the presence of a certain number of the public.

In the eighteenth century, frivolous pictures decorated everything that could and could not be decorated. And no, it's not about nymphs and naiads from canvases — it was as erotic as the ubiquitous girls in swimsuits are now. Just a little.

Statues with an overtly sexualized plot have become very popular (as a rule, illustrations to ancient Greek myths, where someone was constantly raping someone) - they decorated parks a little away from the main alleys, where during the holidays in the summer ladies and gentlemen could begin to portray persecuted dryads and satyr pursuers.

In Russia, this fun was also not voluntary. Rich nobles arranged "Pleasure Gardens" for their guests, forcing serf beauties to run naked (often — part-time actresses). Often the children of unhappy women — the same naked "cupids" - had to illuminate and point the way to drunken satires.

Rich nobles made "seraglios" of the daughters of their less wealthy and very loyal friends in their homes. Prince Radziwill, for example, had such a harem. After a few years of playing with the "sultan", the girl got married with a generous dowry. The famous Potemkin, in general, did not hesitate to arrange a harem of his own nieces…

Very often in these seraglio walls were depicted with the most frivolous paintings - with anatomical details of what was happening. In addition, boudoirs could be painted simply with genitals.

According to legend, this is what the boudoir for the reception of lovers at Catherine the Great looked like. Frivolous drawings often appeared on the underside of the lid of a snuffbox or a paper box - despite the fact that a drawing with the same characters was placed outside, but in the most innocent form.

Due to the popularity of black servants, one of the frequent characters in such drawings was a black footman, then performing various actions with his white mistress, then simply showing her a phallus ready for battle. Strangely enough, black girls were rarely seen in such drawings.

The eighteenth century was obsessed with mechanisms and automata. Snuffboxes played music at the opening, shepherds and shepherdesses came out of the clock to dance, the future great playwright and special agent Beaumarchais invented the most accurate clock mechanism and adapted it to a tiny women's wristwatch.

Drawings with a secret were also popular. At first glance, they were absolutely innocent — for example, they could depict a gentleman resting on a sofa or a soldier standing near a garden lattice.

But it was worth arming yourself with a red piece of glass — and through it the picture was transformed. A lady drawn in clear lines appeared on it, and the gentleman showed a tense phallus, immersed or ready to dive into this lady. Such pictures not only entertained, but also subtly hinted to the guest a deep interest in her.

The devices used by women and men for pleasure seem unreasonably intricate from the twenty-first century.

So, in one museum of eroticism there is a chair of Catherine the Great, designed exclusively for ... self-satisfaction with the help of tickling with feathers! There is a long narrow slot in the seat of the chair, and under the seat there is a wheel rotating with the help of a special mechanism. Long fluffy feathers were attached to this wheel, which, passing through the slot, tickled the crotch of the lady in the chair.

In another chair of a similar purpose, an artificial phallus rose and fell into the hole in the seat, and the lady sitting in the chair (if it was intended for a lady) could control the mechanism by pressing the pedals. Hands were free for anything.

Swings were popular for erotic fun. Starting from looking at a swinging lady under her skirt - ending with a huge swing bed. Such a bed was supposed to move "along", echoing the frictions of the cavalier, and bring dizzying sensations.

By the way, the best cavalier was considered... a castrato singer. The Italians were so clever at bachelor boys that even those who could not sing could earn money: they retained sexual function without the possibility of fertilization. And if in the East only men were interested in castrates, then in In Europe, they were the favorites of women.