Porn a thing of our time? Forget it. It was lewdness in earlier times. A good example of this was published this week:the book Dirty songs from the 17th and 18th centuries. Nearly a hundred songs have been selected and provided with very interesting commentary on the sex life of our ancestors.
Of course there were no porn movies in the Golden Age and the internet didn't even exist yet. But sex was everywhere. In songs, theatre, books and paintings. It was all full of symbolism.
Birds, for example, referred to sex:the word bird meant, in plain terms, to fuck. Birds in cages, empty bird cages, birds hanging from a stick; They are synonymous with 'haven't had sex yet', 'had sex' and 'can't get it up'. Not surprisingly, there are also a thousand and one synonyms for the male and female genitals.
Bird
There was also plenty of birding in songs. While this may sound a bit flat to us, these songs were intended for all walks of life. The appearance of the songs differed, however. For the elite, there were expensive, luxurious performances, including images and notes for the melody. But Jan in the cap could also buy a sheet full of ambiguous songs or cheaply produced song books on the street for an apple and an egg.
Singing songs and making music were an important form of entertainment. City dwellers, peasants and country folk, and women probably as enthusiastically as men, sang the bawdy songs. During the day or in the evening, at parties, in the pub and among friends. But they were most popular among the young city dwellers. In the songs of the elite, horny farmers and peasant women often came along:the elite could laugh smugly at a group that they found themselves superior to.
Fantasy
The song lyrics don't beat around the bush. Women almost always feel like, although not always initially, and regularly take the initiative themselves. One time is not enough; the ladies want to be satisfied three times.
The authors of the songs are often anonymous and the person who put his name above them was male. It is therefore not entirely coincidental that the lyrics seem to originate from the male fantasy…
Women's emancipation is therefore not an issue here. It's not about free-spirited women from real life, who take the initiative for a solid game of sex (with an unknown passer-by…). It revolves around an exciting fantasy and often willing women appear in it.
Laugh, howl, roar
The lyrics are written according to a fixed cultural tradition and often contain the same elements. For example, the authors regularly cite metaphorical professions ("the bricklayer plugs the crack" / "the fisherman fishes in the pond"), they make fun of lovers who differ enormously in age and they let horny clerics fall for the basket. This last group of nuns and priests was still regularly accused of being unchaste in songs, even after the Reformation.
The songs give a nice insight into the sex life of hundreds of years ago. People remain people and voyeurism was a common fantasy in those days too. The peeping men sometimes saw surprising things for the current reader. For example, a peeping woman cleans her pubic hair of fleas and lice in full view.
Pubic hair is also a recurring element in dirty songs. The ladies were busy with this. Shave yes or no, have it curled or in pigtails… In the wig era, even the powder brush came into play and of course also in a suggestive sense.
No shame
The pastors didn't like all this filth and warned against God's wrath. They saw venereal diseases, including the often fatal syphilis, as punishment. But although moralistic and cautionary texts were also printed against perverse songs, especially in the late seventeenth century, they remained extremely popular. Sex was part of life and people were not ashamed of that.
So reader, don't be ashamed either. Enjoy reading the ambiguous lyrics in the book and admire the revealing prints. The book Dirty songs in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries gives a nice selection of a common cultural expression from the past, which unfortunately has become a bit of a mystery.