Room 2D

By Richard Manton from Janus 64 No one doubts that character can be told by face and expression. A good many people believe personality can be deduced by close examination of the palm. A girl’s figure may not tell you all about her mind and morals but the way she moves her body seems to reveal something of them. In the most general way, perhaps there are also distinctive types of female legs, hips and bottoms, which correspond to particular types of girl. The idea has limits. A palmist might prefer girls bending with knickers round their knees to have their ‘fortunes’ told. But the palmist is unlikely to be that lucky. The rest of us can dream of female types, many of them popular in erotic fiction, with characteristic shapes and manners. What is the erotic significance of a young woman’s bottom? Is it just an alluring and seductive cheek-swell, inviting a caress or a tickle, a pat or a kiss? Is it something more? Does its gen...

A Chastising Service of the 1880s laid bare Historical recreation researched and written by  Richard Manton,  from Janus 38. On 26 July 1889, an advertisement appeared in the  Church Times . It was addressed to the parents of unruly daughters, to teachers of delinquent schoolgirls, to masters of female reformatories, and to those employers whose young women treated their superiors with insolence and contempt. BIRCH RODS. — These useful articles, for which there is an increasing demand, may be had from the depot. Of different sizes. — Mrs. CLAPP, St. John’s-road, Clifton. Mrs Clapp’s surname might have raised a smile, but it was as real as everything else about her. She ran a thriving business in the regency elegance of Bristol’s most prosperous suburb. Her advertisement might cause a flutter in the press of the 1980s but not a century ago when Victorian Values were firmly in the saddle. After all, if girls were to be birched, the birch-rods had to come from somewhere....