"oral sex" among the Victorians + postil(l)ion

[neil]

on 1/11/06 3:10 AM, Laurence Horn at laurence.horn at YALE.EDU wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "oral sex" among the Victorians + postil(l)ion
>
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> At 7:32 PM +0000 1/4/06, neil wrote:
>>> In French, _postillonner_ (v.) and _postillonnage_ (n.) mean the
>>> involuntary action of projecting droplets of saliva while speaking. I
>>> can't find any erotic usage, though.
>>
>> So says Barrere's "Argot and Slang', Chiswick Press, 1887.
>>
>> However, Alfred Delvau's 'Dictionnaire Erotique Moderne', published under
>> the pseudonym of Louis  De Landes in 1861 has [excuse lack of accents]:
>>
>> POSTILLION (Faire). Introduire le doigt, ordinairement l'index, dans le
>> derriere d'une femme ou d'un homme, pendant l'acte veberien, pour doubler la
>> jouissance.
>>
>> One appreciates the precision of 'l'index' [in spite of legman's 'middle
>> finger -- see below] and the inclusiveness of 'ou d'un homme'.
>>
> "l'acte veberien"?  For Max Weber?  (Cf. Norman O. Brown on anality,
> capitalism, and the Protestant ethic.)  I was formerly unacquainted
> with that euphemism, if euphemism it be.
>
> And I also wonder how precisely the "pour doubler la jouissance" is
> computed...
>
> larry, just getting around to the e-mail piled up during the ADS/LSA

As soon as I posted, I realized I'd hit the 'b' instead of 'the 'n',
resulting in the acte veberien' instead of 'acte venerien'.

Didn't think it warranted another post to correct what I assumed would be
seen as an obvious typo!

--Neil