A little more champagne and we were talking about cock-sucking.
Yes. Yes, this is Unfogged material.
Wow. This gives new meaning to certain passages in the Travis McGee books.
I'm not clear from the article how we even know that the coded diary *is* a sex diary.
It's rather suprising how into the subject Zimroth is while being so ignorant of gay sex. (As one of the commenters points out, he seems not to know that men can give each other handjobs.)
he seems not to know that men can give each other handjobs
THAT'S NOT GAY! HONEST, IT ISN'T!!!
Fuck. I am currently in an obsession on Keynes and macro, probably unhealthy and deeply perverse, but it has nothing to do with sex.
DeLong deleted two of my comments today about Keynes. He can't handle the truth.
He can't handle the truth.
Bob, is a little originality too much to ask? How about "He serves the Dark Lord Clinton, who resides in a city of onyx at the heart of the world and commands centrist economists to hunt down the last few remaining Keynesians and put them to the sword"?
"His whirly-eyed lust will not save him. Only blood & tears."
8:Jeez flipper you never see irony in anything.
6:
I think you're better off with: "Sure it's gay, but I didn't know that when I did it."
8:The quoted words in 8 in no way express my feelings (I think DeLong a passionate Keynesian), are entertaining and funny and interesting, and leave little room for a serious interpretation.
Anyway, this thread is where y'all speculate on sexual acts signified by "W"
I like the speculation that the numbers appended at the end of each quarter were grades. I like it further if we think of it as grading himself for his own efforts the previous term.
Is there no consideration that he might have been using a rot-# system?!?
Cf. Lauren Bacall.
I'm grateful to anyone who gives me an occasion to remember her delivery of that line. Such a great bad movie. I love all the scenes with Bogie standing on a (concealed, natch) box.
Crabs, anal bleeding, warts. The numbers at the end are doctor bills.
If A is anus, then C might be crures. I seem to remember from somewhere (Montgomery Hyde?) that Wilde never had anal sex, but did have intercrural sex. I've seen it claimed that oral sex was unfashionable in the 18th and 19th centuries in England: the hero of My Secret Life only has it, heterosexually (minette), in France. So if W is (as is likely) mutual masturbation, all the usable bases are covered.
But this is more recent than that, jim.
(interesting, I'd never heard the word intercrural before)
re: quaint Britishisms.
Where I'm from 'W' could stand for 'winch' -- winching in teh olden dayes just meant something like 'going steady', but when I was a kid meant something like 'petting'/'necking'.
Also, A would most likely not be "anus". "arse" perhaps.
I've seen it claimed that oral sex was unfashionable in the 18th and 19th centuries in England
Doubtful among gay men at the beginning of the 20th. A couple of decades after the Keynes years in question, Auden was sucking working-class cock to beat the band.
(interesting, I'd never heard the word intercrural before)
How have you been notating it then, Ned?
Ned makes a good point in 16. Since this is a code, the letters aren't necessarily the initials of the words they represent.
Auden was sucking working-class cock to and beat off the band.
How have you been notating it then, Ned?
With a little sketch, obviously.
(interesting, I'd never heard the word intercrural before)
Aren't there some prudish classicists who insist that the Greeks only had intercrural sex with boys, and never sex per anum?
An old woman's log of her yearly Greek couplings: anus' per anum/per annum.
16: But in his earlier diaries, he referred to partners with their real initials. I don't think he was attempting defense in depth, just obscurity.
anus' per anum/per annum
"Per" makes the slash redundant, and since "anus" is 4th declension you can leave off the apostrophe and still have a possessive. So: anus per anum per annum.
13:W = Wanking is unlikely, I think, because IIRC "W" was by far the least commonly written symbol. An analysis by frequency, by someone with experience or knowledge of gay or closeted gay or bi sexual patterns might be most useful.
I also remarked last night that surely a date could be matched with some recorded event, that someone wrote in an autobiography, "Yes, and on that Whimsy Thursday, I met JM in Battersea where we did "X" 4 times"
How have you been notating it then, Ned?
I use an A, to indicate the two legs and the third, shorter leg between them.
I'd never heard the word intercrural before
Heterosexual intercrural sex was a common method of birth control among young Zulus, back in the day. That is the only thing I remember from the only book I ever read on the Anglo-Zulu wars.
(Always wondered just how satisfying that could actually be, but somehow have never experimented -- too many other paths to satisfaction in the same anatomical neighborhood, I suppose.)
W = Wanking is unlikely, I think, because IIRC "W" was by far the least commonly written symbol. An analysis by frequency, by someone with experience or knowledge of gay or closeted gay or bi sexual patterns might be most useful.
see comment 20. W could easily mean wanking of one person by another. With solo wanking being too insignificant to note.
Oh, and "anus" is also Latin for "old woman," as in the notorious Schopenhauer epigram.
Also, sexual practices between men in the early 20th century are likely to be quite different from the post-Wolfenden practice that informs contemporary British sexual practice.
I was pretty struck reading a few academic papers on contemporary homosexual behaviour in India, for example, how much the contemporary Western model doesn't directly translate.
20, 36: Again to, would mutual masturbation be Keynes' least common activity? And 20 does appear to omit mention of oral sex. Did that never happen, or was it unnoteworthy?
Also, sexual practices between men in the early 20th century are likely to be quite different from the post-Wolfenden practice that informs contemporary British sexual practice.
Gay New York covers the right period, but surely New Yorkers were more sexxxtacular than stuffy old Brits with their theory of money and their Bretton Woods and their canings.
IIRC my Frank Harris or John Cleve or "French postcards", and if they could provide any useful evidence, oral sex was much less a preference in the 19th century.
surely New Yorkers were more sexxxtacular than stuffy old Brits
Hah hah.
Roger Casement kept journals of his own homosexual adventures around the same time which might be a good resource for determining likely practices and frequencies.
Don't Farber me. Cleve isl ate 18th century? De Sade IIRC my 120 Days & Justine shows little interest in oral sex.
We are not making progress here, folks. Are we even to a point of knowing whether Keynes during 1908-1915 was exclusively gay or not?
Has anyone suggested Anglican, Catholic and, uh, something clever for W that isn't Wiccan?
something clever for W that isn't Wiccan?
Wesleyan?
W is clearly short for Welsh. The reason the number was low -- there just aren't that many hot Welshmen.
50: Modesty forbids you from suggesting C is for Caledonian, I suppose.
re: 52
I don't think I've ever heard a Scot refer to it as Caledonia, so the connection genuinely hadn't occurred to me.
Ok, finally read the article, better than this thread. The self-grading of performance idea is really stupid, of course.
Uhh, dude, why would an early 20th smart gay want to keep a record of his sexual acts by type? STD's, anyone?
Because that would help him diagnose STDs?
I may have hijack this thread to a discussion of "animal spirits" after all. To please flipper, I would disguise my ideas about rational expectations in a pastiche of Beatrix Potter with lots of furry sex.
55:That was my idea. Some acts being more dangerous than others.
Lincoln was into intercrural. I think the book review I read that in called it femoral.
37: There he remained for the next twenty-seven years, living alone except for a succession of pet poodles named Atma and Butz.
De Sade IIRC my 120 Days & Justine shows little interest in oral sex.
There's plenty of oral sex in Sade, it's just crowded out by all the other stuff, to where it's a much lower % of sexual activity than I daresay it forms for most of us. At least, those of us who don't sodomize virgin nuns while being buggered by defrocked monks.
According to Wikipedia, intercrural sex is also referred to as "The Princeton First Year."
Maybe A is ass, C is cock (thus distinguishing between receiving and catching), and W is women? How 100% gay was Keynes?
Sure B, everything is about women.
Though it would explain why W is the lowest. I wonder if the journal with names names any women.
The Greeks supposedly practiced intercrural sex, because citizen males (or young males who would be citizens) weren't ever supposed to be penetrated. Bodily integrity, yo. There are lawsuits attempting to get people disenfranchised for it.
Uhh, dude, why would an early 20th smart gay want to keep a record of his sexual acts by type?
The article explains that he was a compulsive counter. He counted all the steps in his neighborhood. I think the motivation was upstream of the use-value.
it would explain why W is the lowest
That's why I thought of it, since the article said he was married. Or maybe it *is* wank, and it's not self-administered wanking; it's other-administered wanking. As opposed to something a little more involved.
I think the author of the article is a little too quick to conclude that the two journals are unrelated, especially since the one with names appears to include some anonymous encounters. I'm sure someone has thought to compare the same time periods in both, but it would still be interesting to see how they line up.
There are two journals. Cross referencing would seem like it would yield information. And as his partners are identified in the other it seems unlikely that ACW would be used to further identify them.
The intercrural fibers (intercolumnar fibers) are a series of curved tendinous fibers, which arch across the lower part of the aponeurosis of the Obliquus externus, describing curves with the convexities downward. They have received their name from stretching across between the two crura of the subcutaneous inguinal ring, and they are much thicker and stronger at the inferior crus, where they are connected to the inguinal ligament, than superiorly, where they are inserted into the linea alba.
Doesn't sound sexy at all. Also, the Wiki on intercrural sex looks a bit creative to me.
The Wiki does seem a lil' sloppy, but the Princeton First-Year is cited in the OED. Any Princetonian confirmations/confessions?
Did Kenneth Dover live for nothing?
This gives new meaning to certain passages in the Travis McGee books.
"My hairy friend Meyer" indeed.
72: Some friends of mine in college had a Greek suitemate who was notably homophobic. One of the friends used the Greek guy's student ID to check the Kennth Dover volume out of the library, then hid it. This predictably led to an escalating series of altercations between the Greek roomate and the library desk over whether he was sitting on an overdue copy of Greek Homosexuality.
Some gay men these days prefer intracrural sex, so one of them has assured me.
I used to sell books to Kenneth Dover. A very flamboyant gentleman.
74 is wonderful. The sort of thing that makes me happy to be alive.
75: Notorious ladies' man! As David Halperin notes in a later book (One Hundred Years of Homosexuality, I think), it took someone with rock-solid hetero credentials to write that book in the 70s. Also KD is a gent and I adore him.
I once told the intercrural story (in re Greek citizens) at a dinner filled with artists. A year later, a fellow whom I did not recognize came up to me at a party, punched me in the arm, and yelled, "I tried that intercrural thing! It didn't work!" We're very good friends now.
73: At last, somebody gets it. Thank you, Populuxe.
the Princeton First-Year is cited in the OED
I've heard it called the Princeton Rub. "Princeton First-Year" is more evocative.
KD was always a very civil customer, which is more than can be said for several household names. Does he still favour the powder blue suits and grey trilbies?
I haven't clapped eyes on him in years, but he would frequently referee articles for a journal I worked at and was always pleasant and hilarious. Have you seen his autobiography?
No, I'll look for it. Called?
Marginal Comment. It caused a bit of stir when it was released for a story about masturbating to a sunrise and a sort of blunt admission that he would have liked to have killed a fellow professor (Trevor Aston) if he could have gotten away with it. (If memory serves, rather more than an admission, more like the elaboration of a partially conceived plot.)
Thanks. I vaguely remember the Trevor Aston row now you mention it. The startling part must be the admission, not the urge, which I devoutly believe is how most of us get through the day, in respect of our colleagues.
Trevor Aston was just killed in Iraq. Google don't lie.
Then he must have reincarnated after he died (of natural causes AFAIK) in 1985. I notice Dover didn't contribute to his festschrift. I wonder if he was invited to.
He was about 8 years old in 1985. Google don't lie.
87: Yeah, now the story is coming back to me a bit more. I think that KD says that he never had to put his plan into action because Aston died. Or maybe he killed himself? And Dover knew that he might, but didn't exactly sound the alarm? I could Google this, I suppose, but where's the fun. I think Aston was showing up drunk at High Table. Heaven forfend.
I posted this in the wrong thread before, but:
Behind those ivy walls, etc. etc. Topkapi Palace etc.
How many deans would like to have that management tool? All of them, I'd guess.
(I also posted this on the wrong thread!)
I sometimes think that death from mental illness, via suicide, can be seen as a merciful release from deteriorating quality of life in the same way that death from physical illness can be. It still sucks, of course.