Forced Anal Exams

In the last five years, forced anal examinations on men and transgender women accused of consensual same-sex relations have been reported in Cameroon, Egypt, Kenya, Lebanon, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uganda, and Zambia. These examinations have the purported objective of finding ‘proof of homosexuality’.

Needless to say, this treatment is not only a cruel, inhuman, and degrading practice that may in some cases amount to torture, it also of no evidentiary value since these exams are rooted in discredited 19^th century theories that (male) homosexuals can be identified by the tone of the anal sphincter.

– Courtesy of hrw.org (Human Rights Watch)

“The only people who are obsessed with food are anorexics and the morbidly obese, and that in erotic terms is the Catholic Church in a nutshell.” – Stephen Fry

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Gagingwell is a hamlet in West Oxfordshire, England.

Until Abramic religions were introduced in Egyptian society, women had been independent, empowered and emancipated citizens.

Roman Emperor Vespasian introduced a tax on the sale of urine. Therefore, the phrase pecunia non olet, ‘money does not stink’, is ascribed to him.

Mutterkuchen, the German word for placenta literally means ‘mother cake’.

Stravinsky had an affair with Coco Chanel in the summer of 1920. He was revising the Rite of Spring at the time, and she was about to launch Chanel No.5.

See other: Quite Interesting Facts

Herodotus on Egyptian Women

‘The Egyptians appear to have reversed the ordinary practices of mankind. Women attend markets and are employed in trade, while men stay at home and do the weaving! Men in Egypt carry loads on their head, women on their shoulder. Women pass water standing up, men sitting down. To ease themselves, they go indoors, but eat outside on the streets, on the theory that what is unseemly, but necessary, should be done in private, and what is not unseemly should be done openly.’

– Herodotus II: 33-37

Was Alexander The Great Really That Great?

Alexander (356-323BC) was to become one the greatest soldier-generals the world had ever seen.

According to ancient sources, however, he was physically unprepossessing. Short and stocky, he was a hard drinker with a ruddy complexion, a rasping voice, and an impulsive temper which on one occasion led him to kill his companion Cleitus in a violent rage.

As his years progressed he became paranoid and megalomaniacal. However, in 10 short years from the age of 20 he forged a vast empire stretching from Egypt to India. Never defeated in battle, he made use of innovative siege engines every bit as as effective as the fabled Trojan Horse, and founded 20 cities that bore his name, including Alexandria in Egypt.

His military success was little short of miraculous, and in the eyes of an ancient world devoted to warfare and conquest it was only right to accord him the title of “Great”.

See other: Which Greek Legends Were Really True?

Harem (iv)

‘Capt. Burton, who travelled extensively in Mohammedan countries in the disguise of a native, and who in the character of a physician saw something of the interior of the harem, says that the oriental is “the only state of society in which jealousy and quarrels about the sex are the exception and not the rule of life.” […]

The two ladies of W. H. Seward’s party, in his tour around the world, in May, 1871, visited the harem in the palace of the khedive’s mother (the princess valideh) at Cairo. After traversing a succession of saloons superbly furnished with velvet carpets, lace and damask curtains, satin-covered sofas and divans, large French mirrors, and crystal chandeliers, they were presented to the princess, who was surrounded by the ladies of the harem and Circassian slave girls. The princess wife of the khedive wore a green silk dress with lace, hat, gloves, boots, and fan, all from London or Paris, and her light brown hair was dressed in the latest Parisian style.

The ladies of the harem, many of them displaying diamond solitaires of immense size, confessed their partiality for European modes, all of them had ordered outfits from London, with the request that they might be counterparts of the trousseau of the princess Louise. The princess mother said that “since the ladies the harem were allowed to see the European opera and ballet at the theatre in Alexandria, they have become quite disgusted with the native performances of their own country.” She explained the condition of the slave women; they were brought from their native land when quite young, were provided with husbands and dowries, and were “very lucky.”

But the system as a domestic institution is summed up by Mr. Seward as follows: “The Mohammedan provision for woman is a prison in which her sufferings from jealousy are consoled by the indulgence of her vanity. She is allowed the society of her own sex with far less restraint than is ordinarily supposed, and she displays before her visiting friends with pride the wealth and ornaments which lighten her chains.” She goes abroad only in a carriage, and under strict surveillance; “she never reads, and, so far as possible, is required never to think.”’

– Ripley. G., Dana. C.A., Ed. (1879) The American Cyclopædia – A Popular Dictionary Of General Knowledge New York, United States: D. Appleton and Company (Entrance: “Harem” [between “Hare Lip” and “Harfleur”], written by Parke Godwin).

Harem (ii)

‘The Christian travellers most familiar with oriental life have passed very opposite judgements on the nature and effect of the harem system. Lady Mary Montagu, who visited the harems of the great officers of the Turkish empire, has left gorgeous pictures of what she saw. She describes the harems as glittering with splendor and inhabited by lovely girls magnificently attired, leading a gay and happy life.

Harriet Martineau, who visited some harems of the higher class in Cairo and Damascus in 1847, gives a very different picture. In a harem at Cairo she found 20 women, some slaves, nearly all young, some good-looking, but none handsome. Some were black, Nubians or Abyssinians, and the rest Circassians with very light complexions. She saw no trace of intellect in these women, except in a homely old one. Their ignorance she describes as fearful, and their grossness as revolting.

At Damascus she saw the seven wives of three men in one harem, with a crowd of attendants. Of the seven, two had been the wives of the head of the household, who was dead; three were the wives of his eldest son, aged 22; and the remaining two were the wives of his second son, aged 15. Of the five younger, three were sisters, children of different mothers in the same harem. They smoked, drank coffee and sherbet, sang to the accompaniment of a tambourine, danced in an indecent manner, and all the while romping, kissing, and screaming went on among old and young. She pronounces them the most studiously depressed and corrupted women she ever saw.’

– Ripley. G., Dana. C.A., Ed. (1879) The American Cyclopædia – A Popular Dictionary Of General Knowledge New York, United States: D. Appleton and Company (Entrance: “Harem” [between “Hare Lip” and “Harfleur”], written by Parke Godwin).

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Chrematophobia is the fear of money.

The Aztecs used to sacrifice butterflies to their god Quetzalcoatl.

The first clear real traces of fellatio are from ancient Egypt. Many of the more stellar examples are in the British Museum, where we find the famous myth of Osiris and Iris: Osiris was killed by his brother and cut into pieces. His sister Iris put the pieces together but, by chance, the penis was missing. An artificial penis was made out of clay, and Iris ‘blew’ life back into Osiris by sucking it. There are explicit images of this myth. As an aside, Egyptian women were particularly well known for their sexual prowess, and also purported to be the first women to use make-up.

Traditionally, the king of hearts is the only king without a moustache.

Up until about 47,000 years ago, modern humans and Neanderthals likely interbred. However, research suggests that these liaisons only occasionally resulted in offspring.

See other: Quite Interesting Facts

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About 7,000 litres of blood are pumped through the human heart each day.

A Spotted Hyena or Crocuta Crocuta

An average healthy human can urinate 1,4 litres a day. That amounts up to 511 litres a year. It would take over 13 years to urinate the same amount of fluid the human heart pumps in a day.

The ancient Egyptians trapped hyenas as pets and fattened them for the table. In the Ethiopian city of Harar, ‘hyena men’ still feed on wild hyenas at dusk.

In Japanese, two different sets of characters spell out the word danshoku meaning either warm colour, or male homosexual sex.

Assuming an average healthy man over 24 produces a tablespoonful of 15 millilitres of sperm by ejaculating two or three times a day, he will produce about 5.5 litres (5.475) of sperm a year. At this rate it would take an average 24-year old over 454,545 years to fill an Olympic swimming pool; it would take 166,666,666 men to fill it in a day – about all Indian men between the age of 24 and 27.

See other: Quite Interesting Facts