13 ms·

"Sexual abstinence brought in the familiar zoo of weird behaviors, ranging from coitus interruptus to having sex with animals." Umm... abstinence causes people

"Sexual abstinence brought in the familiar zoo of weird behaviors, ranging from coitus interruptus to having sex with animals." Umm... abstinence causes people to have sex with animals? Count me as more than a little skeptical. This essay is a "just so" story, full of completely unsubstantiated assertions.

novok 6y ago
Back in the 19th century there was no birth control, and women were in a constant cycle of pregnancy and breastfeeding once married until they became infertile, also puberty started significantly later. To have a society of single family children, they had to figure out how to stop having children, which was figuring out how to have way less sex and thus a bunch of sexually frustrated people.
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  all those people without hands, but plenty of animals, had to let it out somewhere I guess.
  - selestify 6y ago
    Right, since we all have hands, that's why there's no market for fleshlights.
    - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
      I don't think we can make a direct connection between bestiality and the lack of access to sex with members of the opposite sex, as it seems more likely that would lead to increase in masturbation. That said it is true there is a market for fleshlights despite people having hands, but I don't think we can say that the market existing proves the bestiality conjecture. I think to argue the bestiality conjecture you need to directly argue the lack of access to human sexual contact increases bestiality not imply it. I'm not saying it isn't so. Just that one can't blithely claim because A then C. on edit: should also note that the sex toys market is maybe primarily based on the marketing that these are better than masturbation. A very easy line can be drawn from people masturbating to buying sex toys based on a lot of marketing for them. But - I am unfamiliar with a material available at the time advocating use of farm animals as better than masturbation. Actually I think Pantagruel and Gargantua probably had some lines about it, but then it had lines about everything. on second edit: Gargantua and Pantagruel, preoccupied.
- emptysongglass 6y ago
  I wonder how much more prevalent anal sex was as a method of birth control then.
- bobcostas55 6y ago
  >Back in the 19th century there was no birth control, and women were in a constant cycle of pregnancy and breastfeeding This is really not the case, in the western world fertility dropped steadily through the 19th century. People had some control over the reproductive process even without the pill/latex condoms. By the year 1900, TFR was already under 3 in France.
- einpoklum 6y ago
  You mean, no chemical birth control. Different cultures employed various mechanisms of birth control - some of which the article describes. Japan during much of the Tokugawa period (after 1700) is an example of that kind of self-stabilizing population. They used: * Abortion * On-birth infanticide (don't be quick to judge) * Delayed marriage (which also means more years of celibacy before marriage I guess?) https://international.uiowa.edu/sites/international.uiowa.edu/files/file_uploads/japan_in_tokugawa_period_and_modernity.pdf https://international.uiowa.edu/sites/international.uiowa.ed... and AFAICT this was not government-enforced or even strongly-government-encouraged.
  - whythre 6y ago
    > On-birth infanticide (don't be quick to judge) Why the hell not? That’s not a particularly enlightened solution.
    - einpoklum 6y ago
      It's complicated. Two points: * If you keep your baby, you are nearly-guaranteeing hunger of your family or your village in 10 years or so. And people in your community would hold a grudge against you and your child for it, from day one. * The cultural norm regarding when life is sacred was different. Many people in the US believe in-womb abortion is not particularly enlightened either.
periheli0n 6y ago
As far as I understand it’s a summary of an interview conducted and previously published in Slovak. I found it a quite plausible account of what was going on in poor, rural parts of Europe emerging from under hundreds of years of changing feudal governments at a time when the large empires broke down.
ben_w 6y ago
I’d have to agree with you on this. Apart from anything else, that goes back to at least biblical times (otherwise why would there be a rule about it in the Bible?) I suspect that, given the author is talking about overcrowding and lack of privacy, they had enough people living under one roof for at least one of them to just… prefer that. (e.g. p=0.02, 50 people, or whatever).
woofie11 6y ago
> This essay is a "just so" story, full of completely unsubstantiated assertions. As a foreigner from a smaller nation, my experience is that the way to have "substantiated" assertions about your history is to have British or French scientists misunderstand it and write a paper in the Royal Society Journal or some similar nonsense. The way to have "unsubstantiated" assertions is to ask grandma, who was there. I'm more concerned about the source (the Internet), but if this were in a local paper, I'd trust assertions like the ones here much more than imperial scientists.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
MatthiasWandel 6y ago
I can totally believe it. I have a webpage about a “wasp sucking machine”. I was amazed at how many google hits that got for “sucking machine”, back when you could see the queries. Top country for those searches was Saudi Arabia.
hellbannedguy 6y ago
"Umm... abstinence causes people to have sex with animals?" I will always remember a slightly tipsy conversation I had with a farmer in the back of a liquor store I worked in the 90's. I thought I heard it all until that day.
- FooBarBizBazz 6y ago
  Knew a soldier who'd deployed to Iraq. Had stories about the things seen on patrol through night vision goggles.
  - MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
    I don't care if they're fake, I still think it's rude to leave me hanging here.
    - FooBarBizBazz 6y ago
      The night-vision story involved a donkey. Supposedly chickens were popular too. Guess they do lay eggs of a significant diameter. Also had other stories that were less lascivious. Some were about what families resort to in a society without mental health care. Relatives chained in the courtyard raving.
ZeroGravitas 6y ago
I was more confused by abstinence leading to coitus interruptus, which seems logically incoherent. It sounds like they were still having sex, just not having enough babies to replace themselves, which could have been dealt with on its own in a very dry demographic way. Bringing abortion, beastiality and sexual abstinence into it seems to muddy the waters for no clear benefit to the point that they were trying to make, which I think is, that if you have less than replacement rate babies, then your population will fall. But maybe that seemed a little too tautological without the extra details to distract the reader. Also, the writers own story seems to suggest that these people (e.g. his great-grandmother) did have descendents (e.g. the author) it's just that they moved to the city, which I think was a big trend everywhere.

novok 6y ago

Back in the 19th century there was no birth control, and women were in a constant cycle of pregnancy and breastfeeding once married until they became infertile, also puberty started significantly later. To have a society of single family children, they had to figure out how to stop having children, which was figuring out how to have way less sex and thus a bunch of sexually frustrated people.

bryanrasmussen 6y ago
all those people without hands, but plenty of animals, had to let it out somewhere I guess.
- selestify 6y ago
  Right, since we all have hands, that's why there's no market for fleshlights.
  - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
    I don't think we can make a direct connection between bestiality and the lack of access to sex with members of the opposite sex, as it seems more likely that would lead to increase in masturbation. That said it is true there is a market for fleshlights despite people having hands, but I don't think we can say that the market existing proves the bestiality conjecture. I think to argue the bestiality conjecture you need to directly argue the lack of access to human sexual contact increases bestiality not imply it. I'm not saying it isn't so. Just that one can't blithely claim because A then C. on edit: should also note that the sex toys market is maybe primarily based on the marketing that these are better than masturbation. A very easy line can be drawn from people masturbating to buying sex toys based on a lot of marketing for them. But - I am unfamiliar with a material available at the time advocating use of farm animals as better than masturbation. Actually I think Pantagruel and Gargantua probably had some lines about it, but then it had lines about everything. on second edit: Gargantua and Pantagruel, preoccupied.
emptysongglass 6y ago
I wonder how much more prevalent anal sex was as a method of birth control then.
bobcostas55 6y ago
>Back in the 19th century there was no birth control, and women were in a constant cycle of pregnancy and breastfeeding This is really not the case, in the western world fertility dropped steadily through the 19th century. People had some control over the reproductive process even without the pill/latex condoms. By the year 1900, TFR was already under 3 in France.
einpoklum 6y ago
You mean, no chemical birth control. Different cultures employed various mechanisms of birth control - some of which the article describes. Japan during much of the Tokugawa period (after 1700) is an example of that kind of self-stabilizing population. They used: * Abortion * On-birth infanticide (don't be quick to judge) * Delayed marriage (which also means more years of celibacy before marriage I guess?) https://international.uiowa.edu/sites/international.uiowa.edu/files/file_uploads/japan_in_tokugawa_period_and_modernity.pdf https://international.uiowa.edu/sites/international.uiowa.ed... and AFAICT this was not government-enforced or even strongly-government-encouraged.
- whythre 6y ago
  > On-birth infanticide (don't be quick to judge) Why the hell not? That’s not a particularly enlightened solution.
  - einpoklum 6y ago
    It's complicated. Two points: * If you keep your baby, you are nearly-guaranteeing hunger of your family or your village in 10 years or so. And people in your community would hold a grudge against you and your child for it, from day one. * The cultural norm regarding when life is sacred was different. Many people in the US believe in-womb abortion is not particularly enlightened either.

periheli0n 6y ago

As far as I understand it’s a summary of an interview conducted and previously published in Slovak. I found it a quite plausible account of what was going on in poor, rural parts of Europe emerging from under hundreds of years of changing feudal governments at a time when the large empires broke down.

ben_w 6y ago

I’d have to agree with you on this. Apart from anything else, that goes back to at least biblical times (otherwise why would there be a rule about it in the Bible?) I suspect that, given the author is talking about overcrowding and lack of privacy, they had enough people living under one roof for at least one of them to just… prefer that. (e.g. p=0.02, 50 people, or whatever).

woofie11 6y ago

> This essay is a "just so" story, full of completely unsubstantiated assertions. As a foreigner from a smaller nation, my experience is that the way to have "substantiated" assertions about your history is to have British or French scientists misunderstand it and write a paper in the Royal Society Journal or some similar nonsense. The way to have "unsubstantiated" assertions is to ask grandma, who was there. I'm more concerned about the source (the Internet), but if this were in a local paper, I'd trust assertions like the ones here much more than imperial scientists.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

MatthiasWandel 6y ago

I can totally believe it. I have a webpage about a “wasp sucking machine”. I was amazed at how many google hits that got for “sucking machine”, back when you could see the queries. Top country for those searches was Saudi Arabia.

hellbannedguy 6y ago

"Umm... abstinence causes people to have sex with animals?" I will always remember a slightly tipsy conversation I had with a farmer in the back of a liquor store I worked in the 90's. I thought I heard it all until that day.

FooBarBizBazz 6y ago
Knew a soldier who'd deployed to Iraq. Had stories about the things seen on patrol through night vision goggles.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
  I don't care if they're fake, I still think it's rude to leave me hanging here.
  - FooBarBizBazz 6y ago
    The night-vision story involved a donkey. Supposedly chickens were popular too. Guess they do lay eggs of a significant diameter. Also had other stories that were less lascivious. Some were about what families resort to in a society without mental health care. Relatives chained in the courtyard raving.

ZeroGravitas 6y ago

I was more confused by abstinence leading to coitus interruptus, which seems logically incoherent. It sounds like they were still having sex, just not having enough babies to replace themselves, which could have been dealt with on its own in a very dry demographic way. Bringing abortion, beastiality and sexual abstinence into it seems to muddy the waters for no clear benefit to the point that they were trying to make, which I think is, that if you have less than replacement rate babies, then your population will fall. But maybe that seemed a little too tautological without the extra details to distract the reader. Also, the writers own story seems to suggest that these people (e.g. his great-grandmother) did have descendents (e.g. the author) it's just that they moved to the city, which I think was a big trend everywhere.