Sex in Old Times – First Kinksters’ Predilections
Literary sources of ancient times please us with pictures of our forefathers’ gourmetish approach to sex: the millennia- and centuries-old stories replete with there described experiments and versatile means of sexual pleasure obtaining. True stories and fiction authored by people of old times prove individuality in terms of sexuality to be anything but a new phenomenon – just like the habit of finding answer to the question “What is it I really want?” or, to put it bluntly, “What is my kink?”
We suggest that you learn more about respective pursuits and delve into the luring issue of kinky historical figures, kinky fictitious characters and even cultures grounded on kinky sexuality.
Casanova of Japan
The Tale of Genji (ca. XI cent. AD) is the world’s first novel in the modern sense of the term. The story comes as a biography of Japanese Casanova, Prince Genji, who specifies and notes down his kinks while travelling over Japan. The chapter two deals with his describing features of the woman that arouse him: “the perfect woman should be loyal and cultured, but passive and willing to feign ignorance when the situation requires” - thus disclosing the behavioral kink of obedience (see the list of kinks in our article List of Kinks and their Definitions). As the story goes on, Genji proceeds to observe and describe sex as the underlying theme of everything around him and in this way becomes the world’s first literary “kinkster”.
The legendary kinkster - Casanova
Another notorious kinkster to be mentioned is the well-known Italian who laid down his adventures in The Story of My Life and whose name has become a common usage to denote a womanizer. In his memoires he gives a very vivid description of the “corrupting a partner” scene acting kink – a plan than took him several month to implement. Casanova sent a girl for training and in a year he could enjoy the way men were stroke by his ward who allured them by using the tricks she had learnt from her patron.
Founder of sadism
The French kinkster whose name has underpinned a whole layer of BDSM kinks culture, Marquis de Sade was a success in delving into kinky sex due to his love for freedom. Restrained neither by religious beliefs nor by respect for public opinion, he found his kink in tormenting and humiliating the other one as well as literary exhibitionism - telling stories about his gallant adventures.
His novel 120 Days of Sodom describes the kink that the book itself was used for: “listening to stories about others’ kinks and bringing them into life”. The grim humor and sadistic surrealism of the events described is the first thing one runs when reading the novel. Going deeper into details we can tell the characters of de Sade to be listening to stories about other people’ kinks and trying to do the same in their real life. The most amusing thing here is that representatives of BDSM culture in a way reproduce that done and described by de Sade thus becoming a part of his kink. This is the way the dead and gone de Sade takes active part in the life of thematic kinksters of our days.
Father of masochism
De Sade’s kinky line was further on succeeded by Herr Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. His autobiographical Venus in Furs underlain the term “masochism” having become a bible of kink men. It was there that another term – Femdom, meaning woman’s domination over men in sex – also stemmed from. Namely, from the protagonist’s desire to become a slave to a woman as divine as Venus:
“…but where shall I find the woman who knows how to rule, calmly, full of self-confidence, even harshly, and not seek to gain her power by means of petty nagging?”
In addition to bondage and whipping kinks Venus in Furs introduced the idea of the top taking care of the bottom. In her last letter Wanda tells Severin that the one and only goal she pursued was that of curing the protagonist from his infatuation with women.
Globaly kinky: what is kink in the frame of a culture
The archives of human history keep records of kinky cultures in which ‘fanciful’ sex was just the same significant as selfie is for the millennials of today.
Most of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome’ myths are heavy with descriptions of unusual sexual practices. Zeus, for instance, enjoyed turning into animals, while Bacchus wanted worshipping to be done in form of ecstatic ‘kinky-fests’ – boisterous bacchanalian festivities [Т1]. The gods were kept abreast with by Ancient Greece common people – they were arranging their kinky parties in compliance with calendar and used to hold them on an all too regular basis. Aphrodisias, Dionysias and Liberalias – these are the names of the days designated for mass orgies that the whole of the population was given the day-off to feast.
But they are not only Greeks with their abundant life who can be referred to as bold kinksters. The coasts of South America make another home for sex worshipping cultural communities.
Members of Matis tribe have a moral commitment of responding to sexual harassments of their cross-cousins of opposite sex, otherwise they would be reputed as “greedy for their own genitals”.
The Tahitians are also known for their love to public sex that was mentioned yet by Cook who described their meeting every possible need and passion openly and in the face of day.
Women of the Native American Mohave tribe have become known for their love for men’s multiplicity: historical records indignantly describe 10 to 12 men, some of them being brothers, sharing common wives. The kinky tribe seems to have enjoyed partners’ versatility and multiplicity.
In addition to surviving myths and true stories sexual culture of Rome is known by celebrations held in honor of Bacchus. The feasts were arranged no less than 5 times per month: the kink of the tradition followers involved the orgy by schedule known to us as bacchanalia.
The kink of mass orgies has for a great while been popular in Italy and Brazil: these are actually the “carnivals” that we know. Venetians conceived masks to secure the secrecy of their identity in the course of carnival pleasures. While Brazilians even coined the term "sacanagem" meaning 'let us experiment in the field of erotic experience in a particularly filthy style”. This word comes as a most vivid description of the process that is to be practiced at the carnival.
More about kinks
We didn’t have a goal of laying down a complete list of kinks: ancient kinks, as well as kinksters, are actually out of count. We just wanted to show kinky culture to be of considerable age and to encourage the inquisitive reader to do an independent study of other kinksters’ stories. More about kinks – in article "Perversion or Evolvement: What is a Sexual Fantasy".