A French tale from 1615 contains a rare early modern mention of a married woman considering birth control. Her method: pressing a bead of perfume on “that artery that the vulgar calls the pulse” during intercourse. The procedure fails—not due to its own inadequacies, the reader is told, but because the woman, so taken by her activity, neglects to apply the perfume.

Scholars in the 1970s compiling the first comprehensive Sumerian dictionary struggled to interpret a phrase that translated into English as “He put a hot fish in her navel.”

A seventh-century Chinese treatise declares after “careful investigation” that “there are but thirty main positions for consummating the sexual union.” These include Bamboos Near the Altar, Reversed Flying Ducks, Phoenix Holding Its Chicken, Cat and Mouse in One Hole, and Donkeys in the Third Moon of Spring. “The understanding reader,” it concludes, will “probe their wonderful meaning to its very depth.”

Seneca the Younger tells of Hostius Quadra, who installed mirrors in his bedroom to reflect distorted images. “He relished the exaggerated endowment of his own organ as much as if it were real,” Seneca complained. Quadra confirmed: “If I could,” he said, “I’d have that size in the flesh; since I can’t, I’ll feast on the fantasy.”