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Sex & Seduction chronology project data
600s BC Lucretia is quoted as saying “The sole love potion I ever used was kissing & embracing, by which alone I made men rave like beasts & compelled them to worship me like an idol”
581 BC Sappho is able to return to Lesbos, after spending years in exile
500 BC Greek priests use dildos to deflower virgins (because they believe the hymen is dangerous to mortals)
350s BC BC Olive oil is first used as a lubricant
56 BC Claudia Pulchra Tercia (Clodia) takes a number of lovers, including the poet Catullus & his friend Marcus Caelius Rufus. Clodia is later accused of being a seducer and a drunkard
48 BC Cleopatra VII Philopator of Egypt allies herself with Julius Caesar, they become lovers
41 BC Cleopatra VII Philopator of Egypt allies herself with Mark Antony, they become lovers
1 BC Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid) writes a series of books “Ars Amatoria”(The Art of Love), the guiding theme being the art of seduction
1 AD First written Chinese Herbal states that Ginseng functions as an aphrodisiac
2 AD Oysters documented as an aphrodisiac food by the Romans
4 AD Brahmin priest Mallanaga Vatsyayana writes “The Kama Sutra”
40 AD Valeria Messalina challenges a Roman prostitute named Scylla to an all-night sex competition. Scylla gave up at dawn when each woman had taken 25 lovers, but Messalina saw no reason to stop until late the next morning
50 AD Pliny the Elder writes that Ginger is an aphrodisiac
162 Claudius Galenus writes that “Hysteria is a disease caused by sexual deprivation in passionate women” & prescribes intercourse or masturbation
270 St.Valentine is martyred on February 14th
325 The First Council of Nicea decree that sex is “for procreation only”
380 Coelia Concordia is the last known Chief Vestal Virgin
384 St.Augustine prays “Da mihi castitatem et continentiam, sed noli modo” (Make me chaste and pure, but not yet)
391 Theodosius I disbands “The College of Vestal Virgins”
655s Mirrors introduced as sexual accessories (Lady Wu Chao, wife of Emperor Tai Tsung, places sheets of reflecting glass around their bed)
814 Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne (Carolus Magnus) dies after producing 12 children by five women he married & a further 8 children by at least five concubines
904 Start of The Rule of the Harlots
955 Papacy of Pope John XII
963 End of The Rule of the Harlots
1135 Henry I of England dies, setting a record for the English monarch with the most Illegitimate Children (about 20-25)
1152 Birth of Richard I of England
1161 Henry II of England organises the “Stews” (bathhouses with opportunity for sex)
1174 Henry II of England acknowledges Rosamund Clifford as his mistress. His other mistresses included Ida, Countess of Norfolk, and a woman named Ykenai
1177 Andreas Capellanus writes “The Art of Courtly Love”
1205 John I of England marries off his illegitimate daughter Joan to the Welsh prince Llywelyn the Great. His mistresses included a woman named Clemence, his first cousin, a woman named Hawise & several unknown mistresses
1275 The Statutes of Westminster establish the age of consent for girls as 12
1308 Dante Alighieri (in his Inferno) writes that Seducers will be sent to the 8th level of Hell, where they will be “whipped by horned demons”
1327 Edward II of England is sodomized to death with a red-hot poker
1382 The word “Sex” is invented
1385 Rape (as an adjunct to warfare) is prohibited
1386 Geoffrey Chaucer coins the word “Sluttish” to describe a slovenly man
1396 John of Gaunt (1st Duke of Lancaster) marries his mistress, Katherine Swynford
1405 Konrad Kyeser von Eichstätt is credited with the first known description of a Chastity belt, in his book “Bellifortis”
1458 Papacy of Pope Pius II
1472 Richard III of England marries Anne Neville, younger daughter of the late Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick. He later produced a number of illegitimate children with Katherine Haute
1477 Archduke Maximillian of Austria presents the first diamond engagement ring to Mary of Burgundy
1477 The earliest known Valentine is sent
1484 Papacy of Pope Innocent VIII
1492 Papacy of Pope Alexander VI
1494 Christopher Columbus’s sailors return from Haiti with Syphilis (Treponema Pallidum)
1498 Lucrezia Borgia has an affair with Perotto, she later has another affair with poet Pietro Bembo
1501 Don Cesare Borgia gives “The Ballet of Chestnuts”
1503 Papacy of Pope Julius II
1533 The Buggery Act makes any non-procreative sexual activity a crime (including masturbation, anal and oral sex)
1533 Thomas Cranmer declares the marriage of Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon void, on the grounds of affinity
1534 Papacy of Pope Paul III (Cardinal Petticoat)
1534 Sir Francis Weston enjoys a secret affair with Margaret Shelton, the one-time mistress of Henry VIII
1542 Pope Paul III establishes the Universal Roman Inquisition (The Congregation of the Holy Office) to examine and condemn heretical or immoral works
1547 Henry VIII of England dies, leaving a number of illegitimate children
1557 Pope Paul IV sends a list of books that he has banned to the Inquisition
1559 Papacy of Pope Pius IV
1564 In “De Morbo Gallico” Gabriello Fallopio describes the linen sheath (condom) he claimed to have invented
1564 The Council of Trent of the Catholic Church issues the “Index librorum prohibitum” (Index of Prohibited Books)
1586 Ralph Fitch writes of the use of Ben-Wa balls, in the Shan States of Burma
1600s The modern penis ring and clitoral stimulator are invented (in China)
1605 Shakespeare writes that Alcohol “…provokes the desire but takes away the performance”
1610 Elizabeth Báthory (The Bloody Lady of Cachtice) is imprisoned in solitary confinement, after killing and torturing around 600 maidens and virgins
1615 First recorded story of Don Juan
1632 Birth of Antonin-Nompar de Caumont (Duc de Lauzun)
1634 The first recorded description of a Turkish Harem
1650 Marion Delorme dies in her salon, her lovers included Charles de St Evremond, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham & Cardinal Richelieu
1659 Parisian doctors consider Cocoa to be an aphrodisiac
1660 John Garfield is imprisoned for writing “The Wandering Whore”
1664 Samuel Pepys describes his servant girl as “an admirable slut” who “pleases us mightily”
1667 Anne “Ninon” de l’Enclos retires from her courtesan lifestyle. Her lovers included Gaspard de Coligny & François, duc de La Rochefoucauld
1668 Eleanor “Nell” Gwynne becomes Charles II of England’s mistress, her previous lovers included Charles Hart & Charles Sackville
1670 Lord Roos wins the first divorce on the grounds of adultery
1672 Spanish fly (Lytta Vesicatoria) is used as part of a love charm
1677 A student of Antonij van Leeuwenhoek discovers Human sperm in semen
1685 Charles II of England dies, acknowledging 14 illegitimate children by mistresses including Margaret de Carteret, Lucy Walter, Elizabeth Killigrew, Catherine Pegge, Barbara Palmer, Eleanor “Nell” Gwynne, Louise Renée de Penancoet de Kéroualle, Mary “Moll” Davis, etc.
1687 Giovanni Cosimo Bonomo observes Sarcoptes Scabiei, the agent of “Scabies”
1703 Nicholas Rowe creates “Lothario”, a character in his play “The Fair Penitent”, who seduces and betrays the female lead
1716 An anonymous pamphlet distributed in London warns that “masturbation causes Impotence, Gonorrhoea and Epilepsy”
1738 Birth of George III of England
1746 Sir Francis Dashwood establishes the “Hellfire club”
1748 “Thérèse Philosophe”, a novel about the initiation of a lustful young woman, becomes a bestseller
1748 John Cleland writes “Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure” (Fanny Hill)
1750 Mrs.Goadby introduces the famous “Seraglios”
1751 Public sex in a flat, Brothel, Massage parlour or for an Agency becomes illegal under the Disorderly Houses Act
1758 Linnaeus describes and names Pediculus Pubis (Pubic Lice)
1760 Samuel-Auguste Tissot writes that Semen is an “essential oil” that, when lost, causes “a perceptible reduction of strength, of memory and even of reason, blurred vision…”
1762 Voltaire’s poem “La Pucelle” (The Maid) sparks scandal, & the wrath of the King and the Pope
1763 The Marriage Act raises the minimum age for marriage from 12 to 16
1766 Voltaire writes “It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of Chastity”
1773 “The Covent Garden Magazine” becomes the first erotic periodical in the UK
1774 Catherine II of Russia begins an affair with Grigori Alexandrovich Potemkin, her other lovers included Prince Platon Alexandrovich Zubov (40 years her junior)
1779 John Graham invents The Celestial bed
1782 Pierre Choderlos de Laclos publishes “Les Liaisons dangereuses”
1785 Donatien Alphonse François (Marque de Sade) writes “120 Journées de Sodom”
1787 George III of England issues “A Proclamation for the Encouragement of Piety & Virtue, & for the Preventing & Punishing of Vice, Profaneness & Immorality”
1787 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart previews his opera “Don Giovanni”, in Prague
1789 Giacomo Casanova begins writing his memoirs “Histoire de ma vie” (Story of My Life)
1791 William IV of England begins an affair with the Irish actress Dorothea Bland (Dorothy Jordan) resulting in at least ten illegitimate children
1792 Mary Wollstonecraft publishes “A Vindication of the Rights of Women”, advocating the social & moral equality of the sexes
1794 In his book “The Golden Age”, Erasmus Darwin writes “plants now can convey more knowledge about human sexuality than women can”
1795 Donatien Alphonse François de Sade writes “120 Journées de Sodom”
1796 Jane Austen writes “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”
1798 Mary Wollstonecraft’s “The Wrongs of Women” is published, acknowledging the existence of women’s sexual desires