Part 9 (1/2)
70: Percentage of visits to p.o.r.n Web sites made between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.
5.3 billion: Estimated number of dollars U.S. companies lost to recreational Web surfing during business hours in 2000 14 million: Number of p.o.r.n pages on the Web in 1998 260 million: Number of p.o.r.n pages on the Web in 2003 68 million: Daily number of p.o.r.nographic search engine requests on the Web 25: Percentage of total daily Web search engine requests that are related to p.o.r.n sites 12 billion: Number of dollars in revenues the U.S. p.o.r.n industry gathered in 2003 33: Percentage of visitors to adult Web sites who are women 253: Number of arrests for p.o.r.nography/ obscenity violations by the U.S. Postal Service in 2002 11: Average age at which men first see a copy of Playboy or Penthous magazine *
Harem Scarem:
5 Facts on Harems
You've heard about them. You've fantasized about them. You've dreamed about one day owning your own. But are you really mature enough to have your own harem yet? After all, who's going to cook for your harem? Who's going to feed 'em? And a harem doesn't just walk itself, you know. With great harems comes great responsibility. You might want to read the following five facts before you decide to invest in one.
_01:: The Primer: Just a Couple Harems to Know Under Islamic law, a man can have as many wives as he can support, with the traditional number topping out at around four. However, concubines are unlimited and many harems grew into the thousands. Following are some of history's largest recorded harems. At the top of the list is the 6th century BCE's King Tamba of Banaras, whose harem numbered some 16,000 women. Not to be outdone, the 15th-century Sultan Ghiyas-ud-Din Kilji's harem numbered 15,000 and required him to build a separate walled city to house them. Next, during the 1800s, King Mongkut of Siam housed his 9,000 women in a totally contained city with its own government, recreational facilities, and a theater. Kublai Khan, the Mongol leader in the 13th century, had four empresses and around 7,000 concubines. Every two years he would get rid of a couple hundred concubines and replace them with a fresh supply. Finally, Emperor Jahangir of India maintained a harem of over 6,300 women during the early years of the 17th century. However, Jahangir also kept close to a thousand young men-in-waiting for those times when his appet.i.te tended toward the other gender.
_02:: Getting Some Order in Your Harem Contrary to the Hollywood view of scantily dressed beautiful women lounging around pools waiting for their romantic interlude with the sultan, harems were actually very elaborate and complex communities with rigid administrative and disciplinary systems. A harem was under the leaders.h.i.+p of the Valide Sultan, or the sultan's mother. Directly responsible to the mother were the superintendent of the harem and a number of other female officials. Each of these officials had a number of younger harem members under them training for this and other future administrative a.s.signments. Next in the pecking order after the sultan's mother was the mother of the sultan's heir apparent. After this came the mothers of the sultan's other children, who were ranked by the favor they held with the sultan. These female relatives and other officials were responsible for recruiting new harem members and annually presenting them to the sultan, usually on the 15th day of Ramadan.
Touch of Evil Nizam Sir Osman Ali Khan Bahadur was perhaps the world's richest man in the early 20th century. He ruled Hyderabad both independently and as part of India, and his fat wallet helped him collect an enviable 42 concubines for his harem.
_03:: So You Want to Be a Eunuch?
Sounds like an exciting life being left to live among hundreds, if not thousands, of the most beautiful women in the empire. Let's look at some of the requirements. The first priority is castration. Most likely you'll want to have this procedure done during your childhood. Next, expect to be a part of a dowry offered by your master when his daughter is given in marriage. Okay, you've pa.s.sed the entrance exam, now expect to spend years working your way up the ranks of eunuchs. Finally, you gain favor with the sultan and he makes you the chief eunuch. Your sole reason for being is meeting your master's needs. You need to know the master's mood and select his appropriate bedmate for the evening. You must also instruct the young lady on the master's whims and fantasies and have the appropriate aphrodisiacs ready. As the chief black eunuch you have become the sultan's most trusted servant and the third highest ranking official in his empire. You can enter the harem apartments, command the imperial army, and meet with the sultan. If you are the chief white eunuch, you get to run the bureaucracy and control all pet.i.tions, messages, and state doc.u.ments sent to the sultan, but you cannot enter the harem. Why? Because unlike the black eunuch, who lost everything (anatomically), you still have bits and pieces left and pose a threat.
_04:: How to Furnish Your Harem The Arabic word harem means ”the place of the women.” The most important part of the harem was the zenana, or the inner sanctum where the sultan's fantasies were played out. The zenana was designed to replicate paradise. Each woman was given her own ornately decorated apartment with its own garden, waterfalls, and running streams. Because the ladies of the harem came from many different cultures, the apartments were furnished to make them feel comfortable and satisfied with their position in life. After all, one must be ready and willing for an unexpected visit from the master. Similarly, the attire was erotic and arousing. The goal was to remain naked while being dressed by wearing translucent muslin and silk garments. The material was so light that many outfits weighed about an ounce. In keeping with the opulence, the garments were adorned with diamonds, gold, rubies, and pearls. Shoes were also covered with precious stones. Finally, the outfit was topped off with an ostrich feather headdress with ruby-covered plumes. Many a sultan spent most of the empire's treasury keeping the ladies-in-waiting happy.
_05:: Keeping Your Harem Under Control During the late 1500s, Mehmed III ascended to the throne of the Ottoman Empire. His mother, Safiye, as the Valide Sultan or leader of the harem, became one of his most important advisers. While not allowed to be directly involved in state politics, Safiye was able to influence the sultan's decisions, sometimes openly and directly. On one occasion, Safiye sat behind a curtain as Mehmed held a heated discussion with a leading mufti (religious cleric) and openly defended her son. As Safiye's influence increased so did the ire it raised among the vizier, the mufti, the chief black eunuch, and the sultan's favorite wives and concubines, who saw Safiye's excessive influence as overstepping her role of Valide Sultan. Mehmed found himself having to restrain his mother and, on at least one occasion, had her removed to another palace. Safiye's excessive greed, coupled with the ever increasing costs of the harem under her control, helped to bring about riots in Istanbul in 1600 over the devaluation of the empire's currency.
4 Original Cities of Sin
(None of Which Had Elvis Impersonators)
Are you tired of Vegas and Havana? Is Bangkok just not providing the immoral rush you're looking for? Well, there's a quick fix for those of you with access to time machines. Just fasten up and warp your way back to some of these sin-sational locales. Judging by what we've heard (you knowwhat happened there but didn't stay there), it's a rollicking good time.
_01:: Sodom and Gomorrah Who wouldn't want to check out the original cities of sin, Sodom and Gomorrah? Located in the beautiful arid wasteland around the Dead Sea (today in central Israel), the twin cities were near valuable mineral deposits, probably the sources of the cities' renowned wealth. Somehow, though, these locales became a byword for sin and corruption, in spite of the fact that the crime that supposedly led to the cities' destruction may not have been h.o.m.os.e.xuality at all, as some have suggested, but inhospitalitythe worst of all sins in the ancient world. According to the Bible, G.o.d rained fire and brimstone on the region and destroyed the towns after promising Abraham that He would spare them if 10 righteous men could be found in their region. Apparently, only one could be found: Lot. Luckily for him, Lot offered hospitality to angelic visitors and was warned of the catastrophe. Oddly enough, the original sin cities sit on a seismically active gap between tectonic plates (where earthquakes and volcanic activity are possible), and the biblical account could be describing some sort of geological upheaval.
_02:: Pessinos If you're looking for a wild night filled with religious ecstasy, you might want to set your time machine for the cla.s.sical age, and check out Pessinos, in Asia Minor. As the center to a mother/G.o.ddess-oriented cult since the Stone Age, Pessinos was known for its wors.h.i.+p of Cybyle, an Anatolian G.o.ddess dedicated to fertility. So, just how fertile was Cybyle? Well, to give you an idea, her statues are pretty easy to recognize since they feature an inordinately large number of b.r.e.a.s.t.s. And while the rites practiced by Cybyle's wors.h.i.+pers are poorly doc.u.mented, the records tend to suggest that they included priests who castrated themselves while in a drug-induced trance, while presiding over midnight dances culminating in wild orgies.
Touch of Evil The 12,000 citizens of Monaco are denied the right to enter Monte Carlo's casino rooms; that privilege is only allowed to visitors. Of course, the income helps keep the locals free from paying taxes, so the trade-off isn't that bad.
_03:: Munster If you're looking for a polygamous good time, you might want to transport yourself back to 1530s Munster, a city in Westphalia, in what is today western Germany, which was a hotbed of Anabaptist agitation. A Christian sect that believed in rebaptizing people once they became adults (their theological descendents today include the Amish), the Anabaptists were persecuted mercilessly elsewhere in Europe both by Catholics and by more conservative Protestants. But in February 1534, the Anabaptists seized Munster in a relatively bloodless coup d'etat, and had their way with the city. One of the Anabaptist leaders, Johann Matthys, declared himself a prophet. Unfortunately, he seems to have believed in his own divinity: when the bishop of Munster arrived with an army, Matthys led 30 followers out to fight and, of course, was slaughtered with his men. Then his disciple, Jan Leiden, took over the town's defense, declared himself the Messiah, and introduced the townsfolk to polygamy (he took 16 wives). The party didn't last forever, thoughafter a solid 16 months of multiwife fun the city was taken by the bishop's army, which killed thousands, and tortured and executed the leaders of the revolt.
_04:: Port Royal The original capital of British Jamaica, Port Royal, is certainly one town that's located on the wrong side of the tracks. The area was a hotbed for rascals, including plenty of pirates, and Limey officials who were happy to look the other way...for a piece of the action, of course. In fact, when pirate crews rolled in to town they could enjoy a wide array of vice to whittle down their profit margins, including prost.i.tutes, gambling, liquor, and drugs smuggled from the Orient and the Middle East. If that doesn't sound like enough fun for you, the streets literally echoed with the sounds of sin: from raucous brawls to the incessant nursery rhyme ”Sing a Song of Sixpence” (actually a recruiting jingle for the pirate Blackbeard). And just to prove how corrupt it was, Henry Morgan, an infamous pirate admiral, was actually made lieutenant governor of Jamaica in 1674. Of course, such dens of sin can't last forever, and Port Royal was destroyed in 1692 by an earthquake that dropped three-quarters of it into the sea. An initial attempt at rebuilding burned to the ground in 1704, hurricanes stopped several attempts at rebuilding in the early 1700s, and finally a 1907 earthquake caused the remaining parts of the city to sink. It seems someone upstairs had a grudge against this humble burg.
4 Self-proclaimed Casanovas ”How do I love thee?” Well, these guys were big fans of publicly counting the ways...just loud enough that everyone could hear it.
_01:: Clark ”the Shark” Gable (19011960) Despite sporting a pair of ears that were potential obstacles in revolving doors, silver screen legend Clark Gable was the leading male s.e.x symbol of his generation. Known as ”the King of Hollywood,” Clark the Shark bragged that he had made love to women in a fire escape, a duck blind, a canoe, and a telephone booth. Apparently his choice of locations also said a lot about his technique. ”G.o.d knows I love Clark,” Gable's wife, Carole Lombard, once said, ”but he's the worst lay in town. If he had one inch less, he'd be the Queen of Hollywood.” As if Lombard's press release wasn't bad enough for his rep, Gable's Gone With the Wind costar, Vivian Leigh, complained that the ”King of Hollywood's” breath had been atrocious on set. From his dentures, no less!
_02:: Frasier the Sensuous Lion (19511972) This guy didn't actually do much bragging about his amorous exploits, but then again, he didn't have tohis proof was walking all around him! Frasier was about 20 years old, ancient for a lion, when he came to a wild animal park in southern California. The Mexican circus refugee was so doddering he could hardly walk, and his keepers figured his demise would occur any day. But that didn't stop the old lion from tomcatting about. Frasier hung on for 18 months and sired a stunning 35 cubs in his spare time. Amazingly, the press about the fertile feline was so widespread that Frasier fan clubs started sprouting up across the country. Wives even began writing in to find out what park rangers were feeding the beast. In fact, the lion's fame grew so much that a popular song was written about him, and a film was made. When the old cat's time finally came, it's said, Frasier the Sensuous Lion went with a smile on his face.
_03:: Good Wilt's Hunting (19361999) When it came to basketball, very few people could take it to the hoop any better than Wilt the Stilt. But it's a wonder he had the stamina. In his 1991 autobiography, Chamberlain claimed to have slept with about 20,000 women over a 38-year period. Of course, Chamberlain was roundly criticized for everything from propagating s.e.xual stereotypes about African American men to having s.e.x with women outside his race to just plain flaunting his conquests. But the lifelong bachelor said that, whatever else he might be doing, he wasn't bragging. ”If you look at it,” he said in a 1997 interview, ”you can say that I had so many women because I was such a bad lover, they never came back a second time.”
Lies Your Mother
Told You
ALL AUTHORS ARE CADS.
No matter what your momma (or your swooning lit teacher) told you, not all authors suffer from odd fetishes or omnivorous appet.i.tes. D. H. Lawrence, whose Lady Chatterly's Lover was so scandalous that it was banned in Britain until 1960, was happily and faithfully married (although his wife was, briefly, a bigamist, having failed to divorce her first husband before eloping with Lawrence). And some noted authors barely had s.e.x at all. Most notable among them was the playwright George Bernard Shaw. Shaw didn't lose his virginity until his 29th birthday ( July 26, 1885), when he slept with a 44-year-old widow. It may have been the only s.e.xual encounter of his life. He married Charlotte Townshend in 1898, not because he loved her but because Shaw thought he was dying and wanted to offer his friend Charlotte the social and financial benefits of widowhood. As it turns out, the two were marriedhappily, but most likely celibatelyfor 45 years.
_04:: Hugh Hefner: Playboy Original (1926) When Hugh Hefner was 75 years old, a reporter asked about his recent love life, and Hef replied it was ”a natural oneexcept it involved five people.” The founder of Playboy magazine and patriarch of the s.e.xual Revolution, Hefner virtually lives in his pajamas, and even a stroke in 1985 didn't slow him down. In 2001, Hefner told Vanity Fair magazine that thanks to v.i.a.g.r.a, which came on the market two months after his second divorce, he was sleeping with seven women between the ages of 18 and 28, usually simultaneously. ”And here's the surprise bit,” Hefner said. ”It's what they want.” Hefner's mom lived to be 101, and he says his goal is to stay frisky at least that long.