Concerning the Use of Dildos in Venery
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[Thomas Nash. The Choice of Valentines; or, Nash his Dildo 1592/3] — Dildo, Nash his Dildo, Thomas Nash
I do not think that all of the foregoing definitions adequately capture the nature of a dildo, in the sense just given of correctly listing the conjunction of the essential properties of a dildo. More particularly, I claim that a dildo’s essential properties are teleo-functional; that is to say, a dildo is one of those objects which can be defined in terms of the purpose for which it is designed. Accordingly, I define a dildo thus:- — Teleo-functional
* Alternatively, we interpret RH as a crude paraphrase of SM below. However, intuitively a Rampant Rabbit is a dildo, despite bearing no very close resemblance to a penis except with regard to its primary functions, amongst which is penetration of bodily orifices in accordance with D. That is to say, being penile is not an essential property of a dildo, but RH would make it so. Call this the Rabbit Objection. — Rampant Rabbit
The earliest unambiguously dildological artefacts appear to be depictions on Greek vase art of the 1st millennium bc. Dildology rears its head at least twice more in certain lewd comedies of the ancient Greeks: in the Lysistrata of Aristophanes [411bc] and also in Herodas’s Mime vi [3rdc bc]. The latter offering relates the visit of the matron Metro to her friend Koritto, during which Metro attempts to wheedle out of her hostess the provenance of the latter’s new leather dildo, which turns out to have been made to order by one Kerdon, ostensibly a cobbler. An amusing feature of Herodas’s offering is the manner – albeit not particularly blithe – in which the protagonists share the dildo or ‘baubo’ [ibid.] around among each other. Indeed, Koritto complains that a third party Euboula, Bitta’s daughter, borrowed her dildo before she had a chance to use it herself. — Dildo
The earliest extended literary treatment in the English language of dildo-hood to come to my notice has been Thomas Nash’s [1592] Choise of Valentines, or the Merie Ballad of Nash his Dildo, a passage of which is quoted as the preface to the present chapter. The narrator, one Tomalin, seeks out his girlfriend Francis in her rural retreat, but alas! — Francis MacMahon, Tomalin, Thomas Nash, Francis (The Choise of Valentines)
An altogether less edifying contribution to dildology is the Signor Dildo of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. Thought to have been written in 1673, the Signor is posed as a satirical reaction to the proposed marriage of the then Duke of York – the future James ii (1685-88) – to Mary of Modena. It is to be conceded that the Signor is not lacking in a certain bawdy charm:- — John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester
The question which most preoccupied us at this time concerned the provenance of Herod’s own White Willy. Most of the company aboard Pex ‘n’ Quads had heard tell of this dildo. But the greybeards had, until its first appearance strapped to Herod’s groyne, averred that it was a mythical beast, a cobbling together of elements of the imaginaria of wretches and outcasts residing in Tophet and the Vale of Hinnom. However, some declared that an ὄλισβος answering to that name and description – a huge ghastly white opaque inscrutable monster – ploughed the vaginal trenches and sounded the rectal deeps in THE ARCANE PORMFIWM THAT EVERYBODY HAD HEARD OF BUT NOBODY HAD SEEN NOR EVEN KNEW THE NAME OF. And in truth, it seemed possible that Herod had by inducement acquired from some latterday Curll that very ὄλισβος from THE said ARCANE PORMFIWM. How much more likely, tho’, Curlicism being Curlicism, that Herod obtained his White Willy from a latterday Kerdon, who devised that fell instrument himself all the while Curllistically representing it as being of the provenance of THE ARCANE PORMFIWM? — White Willy, Herod