Sodomy with Women

In the sixth line of Epigram 2 (page 34) a pun seems to be intended on the word pocula, which is used in the double meaning of a drinking cup and the anus. Therefore, 'mingles luscious cups' also means allows sodomy to be committed upon him. Martial writes:

Dulcia Dardanio nondum miscente ministro
Pocula, Juno fuit pro Ganymede Jovi.

Before the Dardanian servitor mingled Jove's sweet cups,
Juno was to him as Ganymede (i.e. acted as his catamite).

Also in Ovid's Metamorphoses:

Nec mora: percusso mendacibus aere pennis
Abripit Iliaden qui nunc quoque pocula miscet,
Invitaque Jovi nectar, Junone ministrat.

And no delay is there. Striking the air with his fictitious wings, he carries off the youth of Ilium; who even now mingles his cups for him, and, much against the will of Juno, serves nectar to Jove.

Martial, on his wife's complaining of his intercourse with youths and reminding him that she too has a posterior, tells her that Juno had said the same thing to Jupiter, who nevertheless lay with Ganymede, and recommends her to think that she has merely two coyntes.[1] And on a

[1. Caught with my boys, at me my wife the froe
Scolds, and cries out she hath an arsehole too.
How oft hath Juno thus reprov'd loose Jove ?
Yet he with Ganymede doth act his love.
Hercules bent his boy, lay'd-by his bow,
Though Megara had haunches too we know.
Phoebus was tortured by the flying wench,
Yet the Oehalian Lad those flames did quench.
Though much denied Briseis from him lay
Achilles with Patroclus yet did play.
Give not male names then to such things as thine,
But think thou hast two twats, O wife of mine.
--Fletcher's Martial]

similar remonstrance and proffer from his wife, the poet describes the anus of a youth as a Chian fig, that of a woman as a marisca. The Isle of Chios was famous for the fine quality of its figs; the marisca was a large sized fig of inferior flavour. The Arabs use the word tín or real fig, for a woman's parts; and call the anus 'mulberry-fig'. In Mirabeau's Erôtika Bibliôn, the confidential valet-de-chambre of a great lord of modern times having suggested to his master to use women in the same manner as his Ganymedes, 'Women!' cried the master; 'eh! it is as if you were to serve me with a leg of mutton without the knuckle!' The knuckle being, of course, the virile appendages of the catamite.

Murrhedius Rhetor sheds light on a similar noted passage found in Seneca--

Novimus, istam maritorum abstentiam, qui etiamsi primam Virginibus timidis remisere noctem, vicinis tamen locis[1] ludunt.

We know that abstinence of husbands, who, although they allow the first night to pass without enjoying the timid virgins, yet sport in neighbouring places.

In other words, they use their brides as lads. Martial maintains:

[1. Lucretius often uses the word locus to designate a woman's pudendum. Also Cato, 'si ea lotio locas fovebit' (if she will foment her parts with wine); Cicero, 'cum in locis semen insederit' (when the semen has adhered in the sexual parts); Coel. Aur., 'indecenter ipsa in loca manus mittunt prurientibus verendis' (with itching members indecently place hands on the parts themselves); Tertullius, 'Foetus in locis matris tumultuatur' (The unborn child stirs in its mother's womb); Petronius, 'Quoniam, inquam, fidem scelere violasti, et communem amicitiam, res tuas ocius tolle, et alium locum, quem polluas, quaere' ('Villain,' said I, 'since you have broken the bonds of honour and our common friendship, pack up your things forthwith, and go seek some other part which you may defile.' Petronius here intends a play upon words. Encolpius had found the lad Giton, his favourite, in bed with his friend Ascyltos. Boiling over with wrath, he awakens them, and orders Ascyltos to depart, and 'find some other place to be the scene of your infamous misdeeds'; these words being intended to be construed both in their ordinary meaning, and with reference to the special application of the word locus to Giton's posteriors.)]

Paedicare semel cupido dabit illa marito,
Dum metuit teli vulnera prima novi.

At the same time that she fears the first wounds of a new weapon she will give her buttocks to her eager husband

and later he says to his wife,

Paedicare negas: dabat hoc Cornelia Graccho,
Julia Pompeio, Porcia, Brute, tibi.

You deny your buttocks; Cornelia gave this to Gracchus, Julia to Pompey, Portia, Brutus, to thee.[1]

Quintus Serenus too, 'obscoenos si pone locos nova vulnera carpen' (if they inflict new wounds behind the privy parts). And see Ausonius's epigram on Crispa. Martial also records the kindness of a damsel who, after practising with him a thousand postures of coition, not only granted him the 'posterior' favours, but went till further in her complaisance, and accommodated her two lovers at the same time--one in anus the other in coynte. Apuleius says, 'Whilst we chatted

[1. Sweet heart begone: Or use our ways with us,
I am no Curius, Numa, Tatius.
Nights spent in pleasant cups best please my sense,
Thou to drink water can'st rise and dispense.
Thou joy'st in darkness, I by light to sport,
Or else by day to loose my breeches for't.
Swathes or coats cover thee, or obscure sniff,
No wench to me can lie display'd enough.
Such kisses please like doves that are a billing,
Thou smackst me like Grandam so unwilling,
Nor towards the work dost voice or motion bring,
Nor band: But makest it as some offering.
The Phrygian boys in secret spent their seed
As oft as Hector's wife rid on his [her?] steed,
Whiles her sire [spouse?] slept, Penelope though chaste
Was wont to play her hand below her [his?] waist.
Thou'lt not be buggered: Although Gracchus' wife,
Pompey's and others did it without strife.
And when the boy not present was 'tis said
To fill wine: Juno was Jove's Ganymede
If gravity by day doth thee delight,
Lucretia be: I'll have thee Lais by night.
--Fletcher's Martial]

together a mutual desire excited at once our minds and members. Having thrown off every garment, we revelled, nude and without covering, in venery; and on my wearying, Fotis, of her own accord, proffered me the puerile corollary.' Athenaeus cites several instances of sodomy with women. Modem erotic literature generally is full of this subject, and there is no doubt but that the vice is far more extensively practised in England than is currently imagined. I may conclude this note with a reference to Martial's epigram on the tribade Philaenis whose clitoris was so 'pronounced' a feature that she played the man with it, and not only exhausted eleven girls in one day but actually sodomised young men. This same Philaenis, although despising irrumation as a vice fit only for men to practise, nevertheless did not disdain to apply her mouth to the privities of her own sex.