e are Greek epigrams in which women boast of their skill
in riding their lovers. It has sometimes been viewed with a
certain disfavor because it seems to confer a superiority on the
woman. "Cursed be he," according to a Mohammedan saying, "who
maketh woman heaven and man earth."

Of special interest is the wide prevalence of an attitude in
coitus recalling that which prevails among quadrupeds. The
frequency with which on the walls of Pompeii coitus is
represented with the woman bending forward and her partner
approaching her posteriorly has led to the belief that this
attitude was formerly very common in Southern Italy. However that
may be, it is certainly normal at the present day among various
more or less primitive peoples in whom the vulva is often placed
somewhat posteriorly. It is thus among the Soudanese, as also, in
an altogether different part of the world, among the Eskimo
Innuit and Koniags. The New Caledonians, according to Foley,
cohabit in the quadrupedal manner, and so also the Papuans of New
Guinea (Bongu), according to Vahness. The same custom is also
found in Australia, where, however other postures are also
adopted. In Europe the quadrupedal posture would seem to prevail
among some of the South Slavs, notably the Dalmatians. (The
different methods of coitus practiced by the South Slavs are
described in Kryptadia vol. vi, pp. 220, et seq.)

This method of coitus was recommended by Lucretius (lib. iv) and
also advised by Paulus AEginetus as favorable to conception. (The
opinions of various early physicians are quoted by Schurig,
_Spermatologia_, 1720, pp. 232, et seq.). It seems to be a
position that is not infrequently agreeable to women, a fact
which may be brought into connection with the remarks of Adler
already quoted (p. 131) concerning the comparative lack of
adjustment of the feminine organs to the obverse position. It is
noteworthy that in the days of witchcraft hysterical women
constantly believed that they had had intercourse with the Devil
in this manner. This circumstance, indeed, probably aided in the
very marked disfavor in which coitus _a posteriori_ fell after
the decay of classic influences. The mediaeval physicians
described it as _mos diabolicus_ and mistakenly supposed that it
produced abortion (Hyrtl, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 87). The