ould
appear to have been by the advice of an Arabian physician that the Duchess
Leonora Gonzaga, of Mantua, was whipped by her mother to aid her in
responding more warmly to her husband's embraces and to conceive.

Whatever the precise origin of sexual flagellation in Europe, there can be
no doubt that it soon became extremely common, and so it remains at the
present day. Those who possess a special knowledge of such matters declare
that sexual flagellation is the most frequent of all sexual perversions
in England.[110] This belief is, I know, shared by many people both inside
and outside England. However this may be, the tendency is certainly
common. I doubt if it is any or at all less common in Germany, judging by
the large number of books on the subject of flagellation which have been
published in German. In a catalogue of "interesting books" on this and
allied subjects issued by a German publisher and bookseller, I find that,
of fifty-five volumes, as many as seventeen or eighteen, all in German,
deal solely with the question of flagellation, while many of the other
books appear to deal in part with the same subject.[111] It is, no doubt,
true that the large part which the rod has played in the past history of
our civilization justifies a considerable amount of scientific interest in
the subject of flagellation, but it is clear that the interest in these
books is by no means always scientific, but very frequently sexual.

It is remarkable that, while the sexual associations of whipping,
whether in slight or in marked degrees, are so frequent in modern
times, they appear to be by no means easy to trace in ancient
times. "Flagellation," I find it stated by a modern editor of the
_Priapeia_, "so extensively practised in England as a provocation
to venery, is almost entirely unnoticed by the Latin erotic
writers, although, in the _Satyricon_ of Petronius (ch.
cxxxviii), Encolpius, in describing the steps taken by OEnothea
to undo the temporary impotence to which he was subjected, says:
'Next she mixed nasturtium-juice with southern wood, and, having
bathed my foreparts, she took a bunch of green nettles, and
gently whipped my belly all over below the navel.'" It appears
also that many ancient courtesans dedicated to Venus as ex-votos
a whip, a bridle, or a spur as tokens of their skill in riding
their lovers. The whip was sometimes used in antiquity, but if it