FLASH FICTION FRIDAY

A 50 word story with 5 words from Thursday's The History of Sex: Part 10

There was nothing logical about her plot to ensnare the man she loved. It would take weeks, perhaps months of selling him chocolate dipped strawberries from her market stall, for him to notice her, but that was fine. She had time. After all, ‘Rome was not built in a day’. 

Join in on the fun. Send your 50 word Flash Fiction story based on Thursday's The History of Sex, to madlakepages@gmail.com. There are prizes to be won, and recognition to be had.

HISTORY OF SEX: Part 10

In my latest story, my character Rosetta comes from a long line of herbal healers/seductresses.  What foods could she have used to ensnare Henley?

The goddess Aphrodite came from the sea and so it seemed logical that seafood would get a person in the mood.  Mussels and oysters have long been considered aphrodisiacs and now we know that the chemical compound in them releases sex hormones.  If someone invites you for dinner and they're serving white wine and mussels, consider yourself warned.

Strawberries have been thought of as a natural aphrodisiac since Roman times.  The bright red hue, the heart shape, the lusciousness of the fruit have made it seem a bit sexy.  How many movies have had scenes with people sexily eating chocolate-dipped strawberries?  In France, some couples eat a cold strawberry soup to increase their libidos for their honeymoons but so far, science has not backed up this claim.

Artichokes are another one of nature's weapons against low sex drive.  Like with the strawberry, there has been no science to back this up but Catherine De Medici and Henry VIII of England were both big fans of the artichoke and those two have serious reputations.  It is thought that merely the act of eating an artichoke is sensuous enough to get a person going.

If your intended target fails to comply after oysters, strawberries, and artichokes there is still hope.  There is always the greatest aphrodisiac of all time: tequila.

HISTORY OF SEX: Part 9

Gillian Anderson just set the loins of a million geeks on fire after she told an interviewer that she has had sexual relationships with women in the past.  For ages, men have been titillated and turned-on by the idea of two femme women having a tussle in the hay (I doubt there are many who fantasize about Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein having a snog).  Bisexual women have been around forever but the first half of the 20th century saw some very famous women having open affairs and relationships.  Here are a few from that bygone era:

Colette was one of the most famous novelists of her time and was the first woman given a state funeral in France.  Not only was she divorced three times and had a torrid affair with one of her step-sons, she was also involved Josephine Baker and other women involved in the art scene in Paris.  She was completely open about her bisexuality and nearly caused a riot when she kissed one of her lovers on stage during a performance at the Moulin Rouge.

Marlene Dietrich married only once but she had quite a few lovers, both male and female.  Her rumored lovers include Tallulah Bankhead and Edith Piaf.  Dietrich was known for her androgynous beauty and was one of the first female celebrities to wear trousers in photo spreads.  She summed up her love life with this quote: "Sex is much better with a woman but then one can't live with a woman."

Greta Garbo ran in the same circles as Dietrich, in what was euphemistically called the "Sewing Circle." They allegedly even shared a lover, Cuban-Spanish writer Mercedes de Acosta.  Garbo never married and guarded her privacy voraciously but it has been speculated that she had at least three long-term relationships with women.

Of course, now it seems like very aspiring actress or pop star uses girl-on-girl action to appeal to male fans but these European ladies seem to subscribe to Dietrich's assertion that in Europe, gender doesn't matter...you sleep with the people you find attractive.

HISTORY OF SEX: Part 8

Each spring, cultures all over the world celebrate the renewed fertility of land with festivals, religious holidays (hello, Easter!), and feasts.  One that stands out in the crowd is the Kanamara Matsuri in Kawasaki.  During the first week of each April, phalluses of all sizes and made from all sorts of materials are paraded to a local Shinto shrine dedicated to the penis.

Legend has it that a local girl has a monster residing in her vagina (so annoying!) and it castrated two penises before a blacksmith made an iron phallus that broke the teeth off the monster.  Everyone lived happily ever after, except those two poor castrated men, and the iron phallus was enshrined.  The shrine was popular with prostitutes, who would pray to the phallus for good business and protection from syphilis.  

The festival has evolved into a tourist attraction and one can see phallus made of fruits and vegetables, metal, wood, and rubber.  Every year, a group of transvestites carry a giant pink phallus to the shrine.  You can eat phallus-shaped pastries and enjoy penis-celebrating comics.  Rest assured, you'd be giggling over penis candy for a good cause: this is also a big fundraiser for H.I.V. research.

Flash Fiction Friday salutes Thursday’s HISTORY OF SEX

Five words taken from Thursday’s post to produce these 50 words of flash fiction, although this one is not fiction :-) 

revolutionary, began, modern, much, women

What began as a modern marketing idea, has developed into a revolutionary blog post created and developed by one of Madison Lake’s creative visionaries. This flash fiction piece goes out to my right and left hand women, who I depend on and appreciate very much. Thank you! ML

If you'd like to participate in Flash Fiction Friday, take 5 words from the previous Thursday post and create a 50 word piece of fiction. Send it to madlakepages@gmail.com. You never know what you might win.

FLASH FICTION FRIDAY

Five words chosen randomly from Thursday's post to create this 50 word story.

cheap, soldiers, popular, option, rubber

Nothing is cheap - popular, yes, a passing trend, perhaps. She closes the real estate guide, puts on her rubber boots and ventures out into the downpour. What ever happens, moving to Tanzania is not an option. The rain is getting to her, but she soldiers on.

You can play too. Just email your 50 word story from any Thursday post to 

madlakepages@gmail.com, and I'll use it for a FLASH FICTION FRIDAY. Who knows, you may receive one of many prizes kept in the Madison Lake cache. 

HISTORY OF SEX: Part 6

Children are wonderful, they pass on our legacies, and bring joy into our lives. That said, we don't always want to conceive every time (or even any time) we get busy.  That is where some great inventions come in...

The condom has been around since at least the 15th century, when they were made of linen soaked in chemicals and allowed to dry.  Ouch.  Condoms were the privilege of the upper classes, due to cost and education, and were first invented to protect from syphilis.  The Catholic Church first raged against them in 1605 when men began using them as contraception.  The United States and almost every European country was against condoms for two reasons: first, contraception was seen as an evil and second, venereal disease was seen as a just punishment for sexual transgressions.  

After rubber became a cheap option, condom use skyrocketed.  Even though the first rubber condoms were as thick as a bicycle tire (!), they were hugely popular, especially with soldiers.  Governments provided condoms for soldiers and saw STD rates plummet.  Condoms were being used by over half of sexually active men in America and were the most popular method until the Pill came along (and we'll learn more about THAT in a later post).  Still, condom sales increased steadily and new technology comes out every year...now there's the female condom, customized condoms, plastic condoms, pre-teen condoms, ribbed condoms...what could be next?  Condoms with laser light shows?

FRIDAY'S FLASH FICTION

Fifty words using five words from Thursday's The History of Sex: Part 5 

It wasn’t that being pleasured was her problem. She had long ago realized her libido was more than most people would have expected from someone so plain, but there were no borders when it came to sex. She would go down in history as a legend in her own right. 

Join in on the fun. Submit your 50 word flash fiction piece using 5 words from next Thursday's post. 

HISTORY OF SEX: Part 5

Hordes of young lovers.  Porcelain dildos.  Death by horse?

There are few female historical figures with as many sexual urban legends as Russia's Catherine the Great. One of the first was that she had her lover, Gregory Orlov, kill her husband, Peter III, after she staged a coup d'état.  Orlov apparently hoped that she would be so grateful that she would make him her co-ruler but alas, he was to be disappointed.

After a long term relationship with Gregory Potemkin, Catherine had a series of lovers who were usually 20 to 30 years younger than her.  Potemkin, possibly the best ex-boyfriend ever, would hand-pick young noblemen he thought would pique her interest.  When Catherine tired of a young lover, she would grant him a hefty pension and a nice chunk of land.

Legend has it that Catherine was so enamored of one lucky lover's penis, she had it cast in porcelain so that she could enjoy it any time she wanted.

The most prevalent urban legend about Catherine the Great is know by even the most history-illiterate fool...that she suffered either a heart attack or stroke whilst being pleasured by a horse.  There isn't enough room in this post to rant about the misogyny and ignorance that has perpetuated this myth but rest assured, historians are in agreement that this did NOT happen.

Catherine ruled over one of the largest empires in the world, abolished serfdom, expanded Russia's borders, and had a steady stream of pretty young things in the bedroom.  Not too shabby.

HISTORY OF SEX: Part 4

My latest story, A Cloud of Hawthorne, is a good, old fashioned steamy bodice-ripper and it made me think...how did lovers communicate in the age before telephones, emails, or texts?  How would a gentleman (or scoundrel) know when to make a move?  How did a lady know if the object of her desire fancied a roll in the hay?  Servants could be indiscrete, what was one to do?

There were two methods depicted in fiction, though it is not known if they were actually used in real life.  One was slipping a note to a lover in a bouquet of flowers.  It was common for women to carry bouquets at social events and it would be easy to hide a small note in there.  William Thackeray used this method in Vanity Fair when Becky Sharp and George Osbourne think about running away together.

The other fictional method was fan language.  Several books and stories have women communicating their desires via hand-held fans.  If a woman walked away with the fan in her right hand, covering her face, that meant the man should follow her.  If she fanned herself slowly, it meant she was married but if she fanned herself quickly, she was engaged.

One method of communication that has documented proof was flower arrangement.  Every flower had meaning and could be used to send messages.  The rose had a meaning for every flower, state of bloom, and quantity.  Yellow roses indicated infidelity on the part of the giver and a rosebud was a sign of love.

Sounds a lot more fun than sending an "I <3 U" text.

HISTORY OF SEX: Part 3

Well, well, well.  It turns out that personal massagers (let's use the most polite name) were not primarily created for a lady's pleasure.  Too many doctors were complaining about sore hands and wrists...let that sink in for a moment...

For a long time, doctors were using manual stimulation, or "pelvic massage," so women could have a "hysterical paroxysm," otherwise known as an orgasm.  This was the common treatment for female hysteria, especially in the Victorian era.  Doctors were finding this work to be too much, time and labor wise, and thus the personal massager came into being.

Vibrators were the fifth household appliance to be electrified and they were advertised in major catalogues and department stores until the 1920s, when it became difficult to obscure their actual purpose.  After the 1960s and the Sexual Revolution, vibrators made a huge comeback when Jon Tavel filed a patent for the "Cordless Electric Vibrator for Use on the Human Body."  I think there are quite a few of us who would like to thank him.

HISTORY OF SEX: Part 2

Josephine Baker was an internationally acclaimed performer known for her erotic dances and risque costumes.  She was a pioneer in the performing arts and was known as the Black Pearl and the Bronze Venus.

She was also a hero of the French Resistance during World War II.

When the war broke out, Baker was living in France with her French Jewish husband.  Thanks to her fame, she was able to tour around Europe and visit neutral countries with messages and refugees.  She smuggled messages written with invisible ink on her sheet music.  Baker also housed Belgian refugees in her home in the south of France.  When the need arose, she would organize concerts to provide a cover for Free French gatherings.

After the war, Charles de Gaulle awarded Baker with the Croix de Guerre.  Baker not only continued to perform but she also became a leader of the American Civil Rights movement, active in protests and campaigns until her death in 1975.

The banana skirt is pretty fantastic, too.

HISTORY OF SEX: Part 1

In Nepal’s Katmandu Valley, ancient celebrations of the erotic decorate most temples.  These aren’t demure carvings of Shiva and Parvati holding hands.  Instead, these temple carvings depict just about every position, in most orifices, and sometimes multiple partners. 

Why are these here?  Historians haven’t pinned down a reason but there are a few theories.  The most popular is that the population was getting low due to the influence of Buddhism, which encouraged abstinence.  The carvings were meant to be a sort of how-to guide for baby making.

What is certain is that ancient Hinduism was pro-sex.  It was not taboo and was revered as part of kama, one of the paths to escape reincarnation.  This was the path of a material life, the life of the majority of the population.  The most popular gods were known for the prowess in the bedroom and of course most famously is the Kama Sutra. 

Know of any saucy historical tidbits or heard a sexual myth you want to know more about?  Leave suggestions in the comments.

Photo used with permission from Brian McMorrow