If I were to ask you to name a historic method employed to discourage sex, you might mention the chastity belt. Relatively well-known, the chastity belt was an uncomfortable device worn in centuries past by women (and possibly less-frequently, men) in order to prevent sexual activity. Typically made of metal, a chastity belt was worn around the waist and locked into place, making removal impossible without a key. Seen below is a chastity belt displayed in Venice, Italy. Notice the jagged metal teeth.
I am tempted to chalk up the once-widespread use of the chastity belt to the unfortunate status of women as second-class citizens at the time. After all, if female genital mutilation is sadly alive and well in some areas of the world in 2011, could more respectful treatment of women have been expected in that less-progressive era? I would guess not. Men went off to do battle, and kept their property – sorry, their wives – literally locked up so that no one could touch them. American women were given the right to vote ninety-one years ago. It’s not hard to fathom that a couple centuries earlier, the commonly-held opinion of the era was that attaching a locking device that might resemble a cheese grater to a woman’s genitals was a sensible thing to do.
That’s when I learned of a practice called infibulation. Simply put, infibulation in males refers to the practice of altering the penis by drawing the foreskin over the head, punching multiple holes, and suturing the whole thing shut. Though presumably rare today, in ancient Rome infibulation was commonly practiced on slaves to ensure celibacy. Now I’m sure that any males reading this are wincing at the thought of such barbarism, but it bears noting that athletes, actors and other performers in Ancient Greece (all of whom traditionally performed naked) submitted to this practice voluntarily – or carried it out themselves – in order to show respect for the social norms of the day; at the time, public display of the head of the penis was considered obscene. Talk about suffering for your art! (*Rim shot*)
Infibulation was re-introduced in the 19th century as a proposed cure for a number of social ills, including overpopulation – a German medical professor proposed that all poverty-level bachelors undergo the procedure for this purpose – and of course the grand bogeyman itself, masturbation. As with the performers in Ancient Greece, young men presumably seeking to avoid the fires of Hell gleefully volunteered to be infibulated at the behest of one Doctor David Yellowlees, at the time the superintendent of a Welsh insane asylum. Seeking to “make erection so painful that it would be practically impossible and seminal emission extremely unlikely” – thus somehow preventing mental disorders including epilepsy – Yellowlees set a trend of sexual torture that spread throughout the supposedly enlightened world.
I got the idea for this post from www.cracked.com. Debuting in 1958 as a publication in the vein of Mad Magazine, Cracked enjoyed a print run that lasted more than half a century, peaking in the 1970s but failing to match the popularity of its better-known competitor. Cracked disappeared from newsstands in the mid-’00s, was briefly resurrected as a glossy Maxim-style magazine, and currently exists as a popular humor website dealing with a wealth of topics from social issues to popular culture. A recent article posted at cracked.com is entitled “The 5 Most Horrific Ways People Have Tried to Discourage Sex“. If you were subjected to old wives’ tales about hairy palms, give this one a read and see how truly horrible your formative years might have been.
OMG!!!
Yeah…people are scary. Thinking sex is bad is horrifying…with grizzly results.
Thanks for the education.
-H