Books by Stephen Arnott

Everything you always wanted to know about the more curious aspects of sex but were afraid to ask: the history of sex; sex and religion; sex and the law; sexual customs around the world; the biology of sex; the physiology of sex, anatomical curiosities; Gay and lesbian sex; sex and the animal kingdom; the great sex manuals; sex in literature, film and art; sex aids and toys; aphrodisiacs; masturbation; pornography; famous sexual athletes (and famous flops); the language of sex; kinks and fetishes; perversions; urban myths, tales of outrageous behaviour and a catalogue of bizarre facts and figures. Did you know---One of the lesser-known fetishes is Axillism ? the erotic attraction of armpits.--In the Lebanon it is legal for a man to have sex with any female animal, but if he has sex with a male animal it is punishable by death.--Cleopatra is said to have owned one of the world's first vibrators. Cleopatra's toy didn't run on batteries, it was insect powered - a small, hollow implement full of buzzing bees.--Arab fishermen used to have sex with any 'dugong' (sea-cow) they accidentally drowned in their nets. This practice was meant to stop the dead animal's relatives seeking revenge and drowning the fisherman.

Crossing continents and centuries Stephen Arnott brings us invaluable information about all kinds of bizarre regional customs - from sexual practices to the received wisdom on cannibalism - that could save you from embarrassing local faux pas while travelling. Did you know that amongst the Tartars, relations of the bride and bridegroom would traditionally divide into two groups and fight each other until some had suffered bleeding wounds? It was thought that causing blood to flow in this way would ensure the couple had strong sons; or that in Hungary, a cure for infertility was to beat a barren woman with a stick? The stick having previously been used to separate mating dogs; or that amongst some Aboriginal tribes of New South Wales that men who had any contact with their mothers-in-law would suffer terrible hard luck? The threat was so great that married men even avoided looking in their mother-in-law's general direction.