Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Sex tips from 1894

Well I'm sure that post headline got your attention.
In celebration of the Frankfurt Book fair I've decided to post this little gem first published in 1894.
Funny.
Instruction and Advice For the Young Bride:
A treatise on the conduct and Procedure of the Intimate and Personal Relationships of the Marriage state for the greater spiritual sanctity of this blessed sacrament and the glory of God.
By Ruth Smythers, beloved wife of The Reverend LD Smythers, Pastor of the Arcadian Methodist Church of the Eastern Regional Conference, published in the year of our Lord 1894
Spiritual Guidance Press, New York.
To the sensitive young woman who has had the benefits of proper upbringing, the wedding day, is ironically, both the happiest and most terrifying day of her life.
  • On the positive side, there is the wedding itself, in which the bride is the central attraction in a beautiful and inspiring ceremony symbolising her triumph for securing a male to provide for all her needs for the rest of her life.
  • On the negative side, there is the wedding night, during which the bride must pay the piper, so to speak, by facing for the first time the terrible experience of sex.
  • At this point, dear reader, let me concede one shocking truth: Some young women actually anticipate the wedding night ordeal with curiosity and pleasure. Beware such an attitude!
  • A selfish and sensual husband can easily take advantage of such a bride. One cardinal rule of marriage should never be forgotten:

GIVE LITTLE, GIVE SELDOM AND ABOVE ALL,
GIVE GRUDGINGLY.

  • Otherwise what could have been a proper marriage could become an orgy of sexual lust. On the other hand, the bride's terror need not be extreme. While sex is at best revolting and at worst rather painful......it has to be endured, and has been by women since the beginning of time, and is compensated for by the monogamous home and by the children produced through it.
  • It is useless, in most cases for the bride to prevail upon the groom to fore go the sexual initiation. While the ideal husband would be one who would approach his bride only at her request and only for the purpose of begetting offspring, such nobility and unselfishness cannot be expected from the average man.
  • Most men, if not denied, would demand sex almost everyday. The wise bride will permit a maximum of two brief sexual experiences weekly during the first months of marriage.
  • As time goes by she should make every effort to reduce this frequency.
  • Feigned illness, sleepiness and headaches are among the wife's best friends in this matter.
  • Arguments, nagging, scolding and bickering also prove very effective if used in the late evening about an hour before the husband would normally commence his seduction.
  • Clever wives are ever on the alert for new and better methods of denying and discouraging the amorous overtures of the husband.
  • A good wife should expect to have reduced sexual contacts to once a week by the end of the first year of marriage and to once a month by the end of the fifth year of marriage.
  • By their tenth anniversary, many wives have managed to complete their child bearing and have achieved the ultimate goal of terminating all sexual contacts with the husband. By this time she can depend upon his love for the children and social pressures to hold the husband in the home.
  • Just as she should be ever alert to keep the quantity of sex as low as possible, the wise bride will pay equal attention to limiting the kind and degree of sexual contacts.
  • Most men are by nature rather perverted and if given half a chance, would engage in quite a variety of the most revolting practices. These practices include among others, performing the normal act in abnormal positions; mouthing the female body and offering their own vile bodies to be mouthed in turn.
  • Nudity, talking about sex, reading stories about sex, viewing photographs and drawings depicting or suggesting sex are the obnoxious habits the male is likely to acquire if permitted.
  • A wise bride will make it her goal never to allow her husband to see her unclothed body, and never allow him to display his unclothed body to her.
  • Sex when it cannot be prevented, should be practised only in total darkness.
  • Many women have found it useful to have thick cotton nightgowns for themselves and pajamas for their husbands. These should be donned in separate rooms. They need not be removed during the sex act. Thus a minimum of flesh is exposed.
  • Once the bride has donned her gown and turned off all lights, she should lie quietly upon the bed and await her groom. When he comes groping into the room she should make no sound to guide him in her direction lest he take this as a sign of encouragement. She should let him grope in the dark as there is always the hope that he will stumble and incur some slight injury which she can use as an excuse to deny him sexual access.
  • When he finds her, the wife should lie as still as possible. Bodily motion could be interpreted as sexual excitement by the optimistic husband.
  • If he attempts to kiss her on the lips she should turn her head slightly so that the kiss falls harmlessly on her cheek instead.
  • If he attempts to kiss her hand, she should make a fist.
  • If he lifts her gown and attempts to kiss her any place else she should quickly pull the gown back in place, spring from the bed and announce that nature calls her to the toilet. This will generally dampen his desire to kiss in the forbidden territory.
  • If the husband attempts to seduce her with lascivious talk, the wise wife will suddenly remember some trivial non sexual questions to ask him. Once he answers she should keep the conversation going , no matter how frivolous it may seem at the time.
  • Eventually the husband will learn that if he insists on having sexual contact, he must get on with it without amorous embellishment.
  • The wise wife will allow him to pull up the gown up no farther than the waist, and only permit him to open the front of his pajamas to thus make connection.
  • She will be absolutely silent or babble about her housework while he is huffing and puffing away. Above all, she will lie perfectly still and never under any circumstances grunt or groan while the act is in progress.
  • As soon as the husband has completed the act, the wise wife will start nagging him about various minor tasks she wishes him to perform on the morrow.
  • Many men obtain a major portion of their sexual satisfaction from the peaceful exhaustion immediately after the act is over. Thus the wife must insure that there is no peace in this period for him to enjoy. Otherwise he might be encouraged to soon try for more.
  • One heartening factor for which the wife can be grateful is the fact that the husband's home, school, church and social environment have been working together all through his life to instill in him a deep sense of guilt in regards to his sexual feelings so that he comes to the marriage couch apologetically and filled with shame, already half cowed and subdued.

The wife should relentlessly pursue her goal first to limit, later to annihilate completely her husbands desire for sexual expression. I hope that gave you a laugh.

As I said I'm in Frankfurt and no doubt will survive the annual gathering of the great, good and clueless of the publishing world. The same question occurs to me every year I come here:

Why do publishing PR girls all wear pearls, Cartier watches, and have names like Pippa , Madison or Olivia? Its one of life's eternal mysteries.

Love to all

T

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wondered where I was going wrong: will implement 1894 guidelines with immediate effect.

And the PR gels? Maybe they're homogenous so as not to distract from what they're supposed to be promoting? Convergent evolution perhaps? Cloned, I think.

TR-HW

Anonymous said...

Loved it :) i am still smiling and the odd titter now ,i don't know who i felt the most sorry for ?? the bride or groom, :) my thoughts are what a lot of unhappy fustrated folk they must have been tight liped and tight bottom women and chumley warner men ?? penny xx

Anonymous said...

Hmm no signs of life, have you:
(a) lost blackberry,
(b) been kidnapped and held as a sex slave by publishing PRs (they may look innocent, pearls and all, but when they hunt in packs..),
(c) been kidnapped by the airline and held in the departure lounge (a.k.a. "delayed"),
(d) uber-dunkeled,
(e) just been busy, man,
(f) all of the above.

TR-HW

Anonymous said...

This is hysterical, especially the "get into bed and stay silent, hopefully he'll stumble in the dark and cause himself injury" bit.

Is it a snippet from a new book?

Terry said...

Its a pamphlet written for young brides in 1894. The pictures are from the web (google images)

Anonymous said...

Do you know where I can get the pamphlet in hard copy?

It is v. good your blog - though sometimes more doom and gloom than Robert Peston.

I love the "martha get a pic of that spire i'm going to macdonalds"

When are you off to HK?

Jess

Terry said...

I've seen copies at Books etc.
Its a little orange book and sits at the cash ...an impulse buy!
T

Anonymous said...

Where can I get: "Sex tips for 2008"?

LOL

TR-HW

Anonymous said...

And will an interactive 1-to-1 demonstration be available as an add-on?

giggle

take care