Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 by Havelock Ellis. - HTML preview

32. In the

eighteenth century, the _rin-no-tama_ was known in France, sometimes as

"pommes d'amour." Thus Bachaumont, in his Journal (under date July 31,

1773), refers to "a very extraordinary instrument of amorous mystery,"

brought by a traveler from India; he describes this

"boule erotique" as

the size of a pigeon's egg, covered with soft skin, and gilded. Cf. F.S.

Krauss, _Geschlechtsleben in Brauch und Sitte der Japaner_, Leipzig, 1907.

[190] It may be worth mentioning that the Salish Indians of British

Columbia have a myth of an old woman having intercourse with young women,

by means of a horn worn as a penis (_Journal of the Anthropological

Institute_, July-Dec., 1904, p. 342).

[191] In Burchard's Penitential (cap. 142-3), penalties are assigned to

the woman who makes a phallus for use on herself or other women.

(Wasserschleben, _Bussordnungen der abendländlichen Kirche_, p. 658.) The

_penis succedaneus_, the Latin _phallus_ or _fascinum_, is in France

called _godemiche_; in Italy, _passatempo_, and also _diletto_, whence

_dildo_, by which it is most commonly known in England.

For men, the

corresponding _cunnus succedaneus_ is, in England, called _merkin_, which

meant originally (as defined in old editions of Bailey's _Dictionary_)

"counterfeit hair for women's privy parts."

[192] Dühren, _Der Marquis de Sade und Seine Zeit_, 3d ed., pp. 130, 232;

id. _Geschlechtsleben in England_, Bd. II, pp. 284 et seq.

[193] Gamier, _Onanisme_, p. 378.

[194] _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1899, p. 669.

[195] The mythology of Hawaii, one may note, tells of goddesses who were

impregnated by bananas they had placed beneath their garments. B. Stern

mentions (_Medizin in der Türkei_, Bd. II, p. 24) that the women of Turkey

and Egypt use the banana, as well as the cucumber, etc., for masturbation.

In a poem in the _Arabian Nights_, also ("History of the Young Nour with

the Frank"), we read: "O bananas, of soft and smooth skins, which dilate

the eyes of young girls ... you, alone among fruits are endowed with a

pitying heart, O consolers of widows and divorced women." In France and

England they are not uncommonly used for the same purpose.

[196] See, e.g., Winckel, _Die Krankheiten der weiblichen Harnrohre und

Blase_, 1885, p. 211; and "Lehrbuch der Frauenkrankheiten," 1886, p. 210;

also, Hyrtl, _Handbuch du Topographischen Anatomie_, 7th ed., Bd. II, pp.

212-214. Grünfeld (_Wiener medizinische Blätter_, November 26, 1896),

collected 115 cases of foreign body in the bladder--68

in men, 47 in

women; but while those found in men were usually the result of a surgical

accident, those found in women were mostly introduced by the patients

themselves. The patient usually professes profound ignorance as to how the

object came there; or she explains that she accidentally sat down upon it,

or that she used it to produce freer urination. The earliest surgical case

of this kind I happen to have met with, was recorded by Plazzon, in Italy,

in 1621 (_De Partibus Generationi Inservientibus_, lib.

ii, Ch. XIII); it

was that of a certain honorable maiden with a large clitoris, who, seeking

to lull sexual excitement with the aid of a bone needle, inserted it in

the bladder, whence it was removed by Aquapendente.

[197] A. Poulet, _Traité des Corps étrangers en Chirurgie_, 1879. English

translation, 1881, vol. ii, pp. 209, 230. Rohleder (_Die Masturbation_,

1899, pp. 24-31) also gives examples of strange objects found in the

sexual organs.

[198] E.H. Smith, "Signs of Masturbation in the Female,"

_Pacific Medical

Journal_, February, 1903, quoted by R.W. Taylor, _Practical Treatise on

Sexual Disorders_, 3d ed., p. 418.

[199] L. Tait, _Diseases of Women_, 1889, vol. i, p.