\u201cI think the most exciting thing was finding the world\u2019s oldest condoms,\u201d says Vincent van Vilsteren. \u201cThey were in Dudley Castle and were made from fish bladders in the 1640s. We can\u2019t be sure whether they were used.\u201d Van Vilsteren has a passion for sexual artefacts. He has spent the past couple of years collecting dildos, sculptures of penises and vaginas, Roman and Greek ceramics depicting copulating couples and early Catholic books on sexual practice from museums around Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The whole array is now at the Drents Museum in Assen, northern Holland, under the title of 100,000 Years of Sex, where it has been pulling in record crowds. \u201cWe have had almost double the normal number of visitors,\u201d says van Vilsteren, the curator. \u201cBut what amazed us was the audience. We thought we would get youngsters and people keen on sex, but the average visitor has been female, aged between 55 and 65. We call them the \u2018parel kettingan\u2019 \u2013 the \u2018pearl necklaces\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sure enough, the museum is packed with what we might call \u2018blue rinses\u2019 on the day I visit, arriving in excited packs of 12 or 14 at a time and positively rustling with expectation as they unclasp their spectacles ready for a good peep. Standing next to a couple of elderly ladies, all of us looking at a picture of reclining Roman, straddled by (and penetrating) a young girl, is a curious experience. It wasn\u2019t exactly embarrassing, just peculiar to find oneself with a shared interest in such ancient scenes of debauchery. But this is Holland, after all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cUsually, we get groups of men and women, but this time the men haven\u2019t been coming,\u201d says van Vilsteren. \u201cMaybe they think they won\u2019t see anything new.\u201d In terms of graphic scenes, this is probably true. There is little in 100,000 Years of Sex very far from the mainstream. A sculpture of the Roman god Pan having sex with a goat was pretty lurid, but where were the group scenes, the rampant lesbians, the sexual gymnastics which have surely been recorded over the millennia? Northern Indian temples, for example, are often festooned with sculptures of couples acting out the Karma Sutra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have only dealt with Europe; going worldwide would be too much for us,\u201d says van Vilsteren. \u201cBut nothing has been censored, it can be difficult to find things: museums don\u2019t want to lend items for long periods of time, and the Greek museums are all preparing for the Olympics so that was a problem.\u201d He managed to borrow some Greek items from the British Museum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Overall, the aim is to show how waves of sexual tolerance and inhibition have succeeded one another through the ages. The exhibition stops at 1900, so anyone expecting explicit photography or movies will be disappointed, but van Vilsteren points to the sexual liberation of the 1960s and 70s, not as a high water mark in sexual toleration, but simply as a period where \u201cthe yoke of Victorian repression was lifted from our shoulders\u201d. He thinks that society has become slightly less sexually tolerant in recent years, with increasing prosecution rates for people accessing internet porn, for example. \u201cWe shouldn\u2019t presume that we are the most liberal of all times,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Van Vilsteren is a dapper, well-groomed man with a faintly camp air, a trimmed moustache and a brimming enthusiasm for his subject. We tour the show and he guides me chronologically through the exhibits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His thesis begins with Stone Age man discovering shame (cf Adam and Eve) and beginning to cover himself in clothes, rather than parading naked and having sex all over the shop, like the monkeys we once were. This is the origin of the \u2018100,000 years\u2019 title. He\u2019s not claiming any real accuracy for this figure, it\u2019s just a stab in the dark, so to speak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Moving on, there are plump and large-breasted Venus statues dating from around 25 or 30,000 years BC. No equivalent male figures have been discovered, says van Vilsteren. \u201cI think men didn\u2019t make the connection between sex and birth until 14,000 BC,\u201d he posits wildly. By the 13th century BC, men (or possibly women) were scribbling pictures of hot sex action on their cave walls. The examples here are low on artistic merit, but you can see what they\u2019re driving at.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Van Vilsteren has robbed some graves for this show: one Bulgarian example has a gold penis shaft \u2013 like a long thimble \u2013 found in place along with a host of other ornaments. \u201cIt\u2019s not really useful: if you get erect you really have a problem,\u201d he sniggers. But if you\u2019re dead, this is less of a problem, perhaps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another grave, excavated in Denmark, has a female skeleton with a fancy buckled jacket and a kind of string skirt. \u201cThis was see-through,\u201d chuckles van Vilsteren. \u201cI call it Bronze Age sexy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once we reach the Greek and Roman periods, sexual adventurism really begins to kick in. \u201cAthens was full of nude statues, there were many bath houses, they were very used to the nude body,\u201d says van Vilsteren. \u201cGreek and Roman society was very different from the later Christian society because the Christian god is non-sexual. Greek and Roman gods did anything they liked \u2013 homosexuality, sex with animals, rape\u2026 So it was also quite normal in these societies to do the same. Although it may have been that they were used to this and projected their behaviour on their gods.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Excavations at Pompeii have yielded a great wealth of sexual paraphernalia and archaeological evidence of wanton behaviour. For the Romans, a phallus was a symbol of good luck; householders would display a winged penis outside their doors, or have bells hanging from it. \u201cIn Holland we still call testicles \u2018bells\u2019,\u201d he reveals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Romans also prefigured the modern souvenir shop gag of making teapots with penis-shaped spouts. One fine example here was supposedly unearthed by the German Kaiser Wilhelm II (Queen Victoria\u2019s grandson), but rumour has it that his minions would bury objects deliberately for him to \u2018discover\u2019. Other Roman bits and pieces include coins, engraved with a range of sexual positions, which are thought to have been used as currency for prostitutes: the coin you give indicates how you want to be serviced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pompeii also bequeathed us some of the most vivid written sexual graffiti ever composed. \u201cDuring the wine harvest festival, Veneria sucked off Maximus. Her holes remained empty, only her mouth was full,\u201d van Vilsteren translated for me, shooting a naughty grin. \u201cYou have had eight different professions \u2013 you\u2019ve been a builder, a merchant\u2026 [etc], but once you\u2019ve done cunt licking you\u2019ve tried everything.\u201d Another simply reads \u201cPromus fellator\u201d (\u201cMaster of sucking\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All this lasciviousness comes to an end with the ascendancy of the Catholic Church in Europe. While there are few artefacts from this period, the church is revealed as being quite extraordinarily obsessed with sex. Between 700 and 1200 AD there grew a tradition of writing \u2018penitentiary books\u2019, detailing how society should behave. Around a third of these rules applied to sexual matters, van Vilsteren estimates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At their most extreme, penitentiary books forbade sex on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, for three days after getting married, in the daytime, when menstruating, when pregnant, when breastfeeding, in the week before Easter, during Advent, on feast days and fast days, in church, naked. You should not try to enjoy sex and only do it if you want a child. It\u2019s a wonder the species didn\u2019t become extinct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the 11th century, Bishop Burchhart of Worms took the genre one stage further. Drawing on unexpected reserves of imagination, he wrote (in Latin) that his flock should be sure not to have sex with animals, or with their own children. And women should absolutely never have sex with one another using a strap-on dildo. (\u201c\u2026aut machinamatu in modu virilis.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One physical representation of sexuality manifested by Catholicism was the tradition of Sheela-na-gig: a gargoyle-like stone carving found on dozens of Irish (and a few English) churches. These small figures are of naked women with their vaginas wide open, sometimes using their hands to prise their labia apart. \u201cThe vagina would often be touched by the congregation,\u201d says van Vilsteren. \u201cWe think they were supposed to bring fertility. Or else they were meant to distract the devil and leave the congregation undisturbed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dildos loom large in the later parts of the exhibition. A particular favourite of van Vilsteren's was found in nearby Zwollen in the Netherlands. Dating from the 17th century, it has a pump action that, he guesses, was either meant to heighten a woman\u2019s orgasm, or (more mundanely) to clean herself. These days it would serve nicely as a gay woman\u2019s impregnation tool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A dildo made of glass was found in the cesspit of a 17th century German nunnery. Experts believe this was another early joke item, used for drinking and causing much merriment as the abbess held it tenderly in her hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And here are the Dudley condoms \u2013 some of the only British entries into the sexual hall of fame \u2013 looking like desiccated autumn leaves, carefully placed on top of penis-shaped polystyrene plinths. Of the ten retrieved from the castle, five were found wrapped one inside the other, either for storage or (says van Vilsteren) because the user was especially cautious. It can\u2019t have been much fun. Five layers of condoms, all made of fish bladder? And we question why the English have a reputation for being poor lovers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Swedish condom made of sheep\u2019s bladder has survived far better. It is extra large, still looks vaguely useable, and comes with a handy instruction leaflet. \u201cSoak the membrane in milk and put it on before having sex with a prostitute,\u201d it advises. Condoms were not, apparently, used for contraception in these times, but as a barrier against syphilis, first identified as a sexually transmitted disease in the 17th century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A final section of the exhibition has early female nude photographs, all dimpled bottoms and acres of pubic hair, looking a bit nonplussed and chilly. Van Vilsteren points out that while the Victorians had an admiring view of classical civilisations, they found the sexual elements embarrassing. Museums would create secret cabinets to house the dirty stuff. These are now widely accessible, though in the Naples Museum of Archaeology, for example, you have to make a special reservation to have a peek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the exhibition is deliberately unsensationalist, it does throw up many curiosities and amusing flourishes. Quite suitable for a broadminded granny, I\u2019d say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
100,000 Years of Sex is showing at the Drents Museum, Assen, until 8 February 2004 and will then go on tour to various European cities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the 11th century, Bishop Burchhart of Worms took the genre one stage further. Drawing on unexpected reserves of imagination, he wrote (in Latin) that his flock should be sure not to have sex with animals, or with their own children. And women should absolutely never have sex with one another using a strap-on dildo. ('aut machinamatu in modu virilis.')<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":80,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[21],"yoast_head":"\n