the history of fellatio

[silverwhisper]

the weirdest stuff pops up in my FB feed, like this salon article from 2000 about fellatio.

ed

 

[L8tnIt]

I just read it and found the wealth of discussion very enlightening. Thank you for sharing this.

 

[Carnevil9]

Well, blow me down!!

 

[KlaytonFrost]

Haha, I love the title. Very cool stuff.

 

[SamScribble]

'The population of 18th century Paris was 600,000, with 30,000 recorded prostitutes. That’s enormous.'

I'm not sure that 'enormous' is the right word, but that's one prostitute for every 20 residents! Can that be true?

 

[Bramblethorn]

'The population of 18th century Paris was 600,000, with 30,000 recorded prostitutes. That’s enormous.'

I'm not sure that 'enormous' is the right word, but that's one prostitute for every 20 residents! Can that be true?

This source gives a rough figure of 1 per 36, for 19th-century Europe, so that doesn't seem completely outlandish: http://www.english.uwosh.edu/roth/Prostitution.htm

Some more here, with a bit more explanation of why numbers were so high: http://samanthabvance.wordpress.com/presentation-page/

It makes a bit more sense if you understand that these aren't all full-time; there'd be plenty who were working another job during the day, and turning tricks to help make ends meet.

 

[Que]

Number was so high because serial monogamy and alimony hadn't been invented yet.