History Thing 006 - Pass the Bread Sticks
THIS POST IS NOT REMOTELY WORKSAFE, unless you work in an adult shop.
So now that you've stepped past the foreboding warning, are you sitting comfortably? Good, then we'll begin.
If you had to guess how old the dildo was, what would you guess? When do you suppose it was invented?
How does 'around the time Troy was getting its arse kicked by a madman with a wooden horse' sound? In fact, the Trojan war (and the general tendency for wars to take a really long time at the time and take the vast bulk of people with attached penises in any state to use them away from their homes) was indirectly responsible for the invention.
Because the funny thing about Ancient Greece is that while they had slightly weird views on women, they were perfectly aware that they liked sex and thought that was pretty much fine, because the men were also fond of having sex with them. But what happens when your husband (and the mailman, and the pizza delivery boy, and all the firemen etc.) disappear off to the other side of the friggin' empire for years at a time.
Well, either heavy to industrial strength lesbianism (which considering it's named after a Greek island, yeah, definitely an option), or, the ladies all head down to the local baker.
Yes, I did mean to say baker. Ancient Greek dildos were pretty much made of bread, which brings whole new meaning to both food porn and yeast infections (to be fair, this would have been a salt dough - y'know, the stuff you made Christmas decorations with in school that then baked hard and kinda shiny? That stuff. Not quite 'bread' in the way we think of it, but certainly bread-esque). They were, for the most part, used by women whose husbands had buggered off (and were likely busy buggering their shield mates into the bargain) to kill things.
Later on, dildos were made during the Renaissance out of carved wood or leather and were about as comfortable as you're imagining they would be (I mean, I assume they were made before that as well, but I don't know what of), up until the Victorian era when some bright spark started making them out of glass. Presumably after staring too long at a test tube.
But if you were Greek or Roman (although, some evidence suggests that the Romans thought dildo-making was an excellent plan, presumably because they were especially debauched nutcases [more on debauched Roman nutcases next time], and that they may well have been made of leather or glazed pottery at various times and various places in the Empire. I have no trouble believing this, because orgies would clearly be more fun with penises that could be handed around), it was a bread stick for you.
With apologies to anyone no longer able to visit an Italian restaurant or a French bakery.
So now that you've stepped past the foreboding warning, are you sitting comfortably? Good, then we'll begin.
If you had to guess how old the dildo was, what would you guess? When do you suppose it was invented?
How does 'around the time Troy was getting its arse kicked by a madman with a wooden horse' sound? In fact, the Trojan war (and the general tendency for wars to take a really long time at the time and take the vast bulk of people with attached penises in any state to use them away from their homes) was indirectly responsible for the invention.
Because the funny thing about Ancient Greece is that while they had slightly weird views on women, they were perfectly aware that they liked sex and thought that was pretty much fine, because the men were also fond of having sex with them. But what happens when your husband (and the mailman, and the pizza delivery boy, and all the firemen etc.) disappear off to the other side of the friggin' empire for years at a time.
Well, either heavy to industrial strength lesbianism (which considering it's named after a Greek island, yeah, definitely an option), or, the ladies all head down to the local baker.
Yes, I did mean to say baker. Ancient Greek dildos were pretty much made of bread, which brings whole new meaning to both food porn and yeast infections (to be fair, this would have been a salt dough - y'know, the stuff you made Christmas decorations with in school that then baked hard and kinda shiny? That stuff. Not quite 'bread' in the way we think of it, but certainly bread-esque). They were, for the most part, used by women whose husbands had buggered off (and were likely busy buggering their shield mates into the bargain) to kill things.
Later on, dildos were made during the Renaissance out of carved wood or leather and were about as comfortable as you're imagining they would be (I mean, I assume they were made before that as well, but I don't know what of), up until the Victorian era when some bright spark started making them out of glass. Presumably after staring too long at a test tube.
But if you were Greek or Roman (although, some evidence suggests that the Romans thought dildo-making was an excellent plan, presumably because they were especially debauched nutcases [more on debauched Roman nutcases next time], and that they may well have been made of leather or glazed pottery at various times and various places in the Empire. I have no trouble believing this, because orgies would clearly be more fun with penises that could be handed around), it was a bread stick for you.
With apologies to anyone no longer able to visit an Italian restaurant or a French bakery.