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  • Article

Trading breastmilk with men

When Alev Scott advertised her milk for sale, she was inundated with messages from men keen to satisfy sexual fetishes. Here she finds out who they are, and why women sell to them.

  • Article

Nymphomania and hypersexuality in women and men

The history of nymphomania is closely bound with society's views on women and their sexuality.

  • Article

Father of the house

Stuart Evers thought he’d shaken off his family’s rigid definition of masculinity. But when he became a dad, those buried patriarchal ideas made an unexpected return.

  • Article

What our facial hair says about us

Five bearded and moustachioed men choose five hirsute archive images to help them reflect on the way facial hair is linked with personality and identity.

All stories (31)

Images

  • Are you the sensitive type? : Some people find strong condoms spoil their enjoyment of sex. Any thickness of condom can protect you and your partner from HIV ... / GMFA, London's Gay Men's HIV Prevention Partnership.
  • Indian clubs, and how to use them : a new and complete method for learning to wield light and heavy clubs graduated from the simplest to the most complicated exercises followed by an appendix on strength and strong men / by E. Ferdinand Lemaire.
  • Indian clubs, and how to use them : a new and complete method for learning to wield light and heavy clubs graduated from the simplest to the most complicated exercises followed by an appendix on strength and strong men / by E. Ferdinand Lemaire.
  • A young gay man with an earring smiles with two other men behind him with the message "Okay: I am gay" and "I am strong"; an advertisement by Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe e.V. Colour lithograph by Reinhard Lorenz, Claus-Wilhelm Klinker and Wolfgang Mudra.
  • Cynara cardunculus L. Asteraceae. Cardoon, Globe Artichoke, Artechokes, Scolymos cinara, Cynara, Cinara. Distribution: Southern Europe and North Africa. Lyte (1576) writes that Dodoens (1552) could find no medical use for them and Galen (c.200 AD) said they were indigestible unless cooked. However, he relates that other authors recommend that if the flower heads are soaked in strong wine, they 'provoke urine and stir up lust in the body.' More prosaically, the roots boiled in wine and drunk it cause the urine to be 'stinking' and so cures smelly armpits. He adds that it strengthens the stomach so causing women to conceive Male children. He goes on to say that the young shoots boiled in broth also stir up lust in men and women, and more besides. Lyte (1576) was translating, I think with elaborations, from the chapter on Scolymos cinara, Artichaut, in Dodoen's Croydeboeck (1552) as L'Ecluse's French translation, Dodoens Histoire des Plantes (1575) does not mention these latter uses, but Dodoen's own Latin translation, the Pemptades (1583), and Gerard's Herbal (1633) both do so. It is useful in understanding the history of these translations to realise that Gerard uses, almost verbatim, the translation of the 'smelly armpit' paragraph from Lyte. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Cynara cardunculus L. Asteraceae. Cardoon, Globe Artichoke, Artechokes, Scolymos cinara, Cynara, Cinara. Distribution: Southern Europe and North Africa. Lyte (1576) writes that Dodoens (1552) could find no medical use for them and Galen (c.200 AD) said they were indigestible unless cooked. However he relates that other authors recommend that if the flower heads are soaked in strong wine, they 'provoke urine and stir up lust in the body.' More prosaically, the roots boiled in wine and drunk it cause the urine to be 'stinking' and so cures smelly armpits. He adds that it strengthens the stomach so causing women to conceive Male children. He goes on to say that the young shoots boiled in broth also stir up lust in men and women, and more besides. Lyte (1576) was translating, I think with elaborations, from the chapter on Scolymos cinara, Artichaut, in Dodoen's Croydeboeck (1552) as L'Ecluse's French translation (1575) does not mention these latter uses, but Dodoen's own Latin translation, the Pemptades(1583), and Gerard's (1633) both do so. It is useful in understanding the history of these translations to realise that Gerard uses, almost verbatim, the translation of the 'smelly armpit' paragraph from Lyte. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • A strongman poses next to his weights surrounded by a crowd. Photograph, 19--.
  • A strongman (Emile de Suyck?) invites a woman to volunteer to help him in his final feat. Process print, 1906 (?).
  • A strongman (Emile de Suyck?) invites a woman to volunteer to help him in his final feat. Process print, 1906 (?).
  • A strongman poses next to his weights surrounded by a crowd. Photograph, 19--.
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