The beginning Adam and Eve 1300bc Women were virtuous, free and strong, but gradually lost their influence over men 500bc Socrates on marriage:
‘By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you’ll become happy if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher’ 480-400вс The Greek words eros and agape — carnal and spiritual — were used to distinguish more than one type of love
400bc Hippocrates, the father of sexual medicine, said a woman’s
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orgasm stopped at the point sperm entered the womb and her partner’s pleasure ceased
320bc Theophrastus promoted satyrion, a plant he claimed, helped a man to perform 70 times over 48bc Cleopatra began her affair with Caesar
42bc Cleopatra seduced Mark Antony
ad68 In Rome, asses milk was believed to promote virility when rubbed on the genitals 300 The Kama Sutra was written by Vatsyayana
900 The tragic tale of love between Tristan and Isolde first appeared
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1057 Lady Godiva made her tax protest, riding naked through Coventry in England
1227 Ulrich von Lichtenstein travelled from Venice to Austria dressed as Venus
1228 Women were allowed to propose, first in Scotland, followed by Europe
1382 The word ‘sex’ was coined in a translation of the Latin Bible 1611 Mary Frith was the first woman arrested for dressing like a man
1613 Don Juan appeared in The Joker of Seville
1631 Eighth wonder of the world the Taj Mahal was built as a symbol of love by Emperor Shah Jahan on the death of his wife 1670 The London Dancing Club opened with rampant exhibitionist shows 1725 Giovanni Giacomo Casanova was born and later named 100 of his lovers in his memoirs 1745 Benjamin Franklin promoted the love of an older woman as she would be ‘grateful’
1750 Fanny Hill was published 1757 Covent Garden Ladies first published — a list of London prostitutes (see p.50)
1777 The Marquis de Sade was arrested for obscene sexual practices in Paris and imprisoned in the Chateau de Vincennes dungeon
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1792 Mary Wollstonecraft’s Rights of Women signified the birth of emancipation 1836 A Monk’s Awful Disclosures, a book about nuns and priests having sex by Maria Monk, sold more than 300,000 copies before the Civil War
1839 There were an estimated 933 brothels and 848 houses of ill repute in London 1857 The Obscene Publications Act in England
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1901 Publication of Sexual Inversion by Havelock Ellis 1905 Scientists Nettie Stevens and Edmund Wilson discovered the chromosome determining sex: XX female and XY male
1912 The cure for syphilis was discovered by German Dr Paul Ehrlich
1913 Oral sex was made illegal in the US. Ironically, the 69th piece of legislation was named Act 69 1916 Margaret Sanger opened family planning clinics
1918 Marie Stope’s Married Love was published 1923 Adultery could now be used as grounds for divorce in England
1936 The first successful amputated penis reconstruction 1944 Ernst Grafenburg first described the G-spot
1946 Pat Riley was the first woman in Australia to wear the bikini and was ordered by police to leave Bondi Beach, Sydney 1948 The Kinsey Report: Sexual Behavior in the Human Male
1952 First sex-change operation on US soldier George Jorgensen, who became Christine, performed by Dr Christian Hamburger in Copenhagen, Denmark
1953 Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Female published
1954 William Howell Masters and Virginia Eshelman Johnson began their partnership in sex research and therapy
1957 The London Rubber Company produced Durex, the first lubricated condom
1960 The FDA approved Enovid, the Pill, in the US
1961 The Pill was introduced to Britain as Conovid
1968 First interracial kiss on TV between Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura
1972 The Joy of Sex was published
1973 Johnny Crawford appeared as
the first male full-frontal nude in Playboy’s September issue 1975 First condom ad in the US with 30 seconds for Trojan. First same-sex marriage in Colorado, which found it had no law preventing the union
1978 Louise Brown was first test-tube baby born in Oldham General Hospital, England 1981 AIDS arrived and a new awareness began 1984 Miss Piggy married Kermit the Frog
1990 Norplant, birth control implants, arrived in the US 1998 FDA approved Viagra for sale
2003 Non-Procreative Sex Act in the US, June 25