BLURRED LINES VOLUME 4: ALL I NEED IS LOVE (AND SEX). Forbidden Desires, Royal Kinks, and the Pornographic Past

Editor’s Note: From lipstick-stamped blowjobs to golden thrones of love and bee-powered vibrators, kink has haunted the corridors of power, history, and divinity. Forget what you learned in school—this is the off-off-syllabus of erotic history, where the royals are horny, the gods are jealous, and art never looked so indecent.

Erotica, lurking in the human psyche undergrounds, thrives on contradiction: Sinners and saints. Whores and madonnas. Masturbating monks. Lesbian nuns. Innocent youth with bare breasts. Paintings of orgies beside delicate studies of self-pleasure. From antique Japanese shunga to Weimar cabaret debauchery and bizarre filled modern and contemporary times, the history of erotica is a palimpsest of pleasure, fetish and power.

Fig.1  The Borghese Hermaphrodite, an ancient Roman copy, excavated c. 1608–1620, of a Hellenistic original, now in the Louvre, France

Fig.2  The Sin, ca.1880 by Heinrich Lossow

Fig.3.  The Sheik series, 1929, by the American pioneer of nude photography, Albert Arthur Allen

Fig.4  Young Nude Reclining by Jules Joseph Lefebvre. Late 19th century. Private Collection. Source Christie's

Lipstick, Lust, And Godly Blowjobs: Ancient Erotica 

Let’s start with a bang—literally. In ancient erotic iconography, few images are as bold and blasphemous as the Egyptian goddess Isis reviving Osiris by sucking life into his dismembered, missing penis. Legend has it she found every part of his body after he was murdered by Set—except the phallus. No problem. She crafted a new one from sacred clay and performed the world’s first blowjob miracle. And yes, it worked. Osiris was reborn, Isis got pregnant, and Egypt’s most divine sex act was immortalized in myth. Cleopatra—our perennial pornographic queen, reinventing herself as Isis—was equally revolutionary. Forget Hollywood’s sultry snake charmer. The real Cleo was a cosmopolitan powerhouse who spoke nine languages and allegedly pleasured herself with a hollowed-out gourd filled with buzzing bees. Ancient sex toy? Check. Sacred masturbation ritual? Possibly. Erotic sovereignty? Definitely.

Across the world, Hindu temples honored desire with no censorship in sight. The Kama Sutra wasn't just a manual for pleasure—it was a spiritual doctrine. Sculptures at Khajuraho and Konark show divine orgies, acrobatic threesomes, and gods with enviable stamina. Sex wasn’t taboo. It was a prayer. 

Fig.5  Satyr and nymph, attempted rape, Beauty of the Body exhibition, Archaeological Museum of Alicante

Fig.6  Francisco Masriera y Manovens, A Harem Beauty, 1899, Photo credit Christie's

Fig.7  Frans Floris (1520–1570), Allegory of the Faculties, late 16th Century, Antwerp Belgium

Fig.8  Alexandre Cabanel, Cléopatre essayant des poisons sur des condamnés à mort. Cleopatra Testing Poisons on Condemned Prisoners (1887) Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp

Fig.8a

Edward VII: The Crowned King of Carnal Furniture 

King Edward VII, affectionately known as “Dirty Bertie,” was the royal embodiment of gluttonous kink. An insatiable lover of food, drink, and Parisian brothels, he had a private suite at Le Chabanais, one of the most famous maisons closes in Europe. In the lavish love nest, he even replaced champagne flutes with a champagne-filled bathtub shaped like a swan. Dali bought the tub after the brothel closed—because of course he did.

Bertie had a custom-built sex chair - not your average royal armchair. It was a golden, twin-saddle contraption designed to accommodate his corpulent body and multiple lovers simultaneously. Think 19th-century threesome throne meets mechanical Kama Sutra. The chair still exists, a relic of regal hedonism—and proof that sometimes, the crown weighs less than the libido. The man made decadence an art form. Edward VII ruled the boudoir before he ever ruled Britain, earning a reputation not just for royal affairs but affairs, plural. If monarchy was divine right, Bertie believed in the right positions, too.

Fig.9  The £53,000 love chair fit for playboy prince Edward VI

Fig.10  The Scandalous Life of England's Ultimate 'Playboy Prince', Edward VII - The French press and their take on Britain’s King

Fig.11  Isabel II, Vignette of the satirical saga Los Borbones en Pelota, 1869 with the couple sitting in her armchair, with scepter, pimp and crown

In the extended Premium edition of the article, you can discover, among other things:

• Isabella II: The Spanish Nymphomaniac Queen
• Royal Hard-On: The Priapic Passion of Romania’s Playboy King
• The Surrealist Lolita Complex: Lost Paradise and Loss of Innocence
• Nymphettes and Lemon Incest: The Girl as Fetish
• Balthus & the Ambiguity of Innocence
• Visual Seduction: Kink Art Photographers Who Defined Erotic Aesthetics
• provocative photography by Nobuyoshi Araki, Irina Ionesco, Helmut Newton, and Ellen von Unwerth
• CLOSING THOUGHTS: HISTORY NEVER COMES CLEAN
• and 52 additional arousing images

Click HERE for the first part of the kinky "Blurred Lines" voyage

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