Bedpost Venuses

Here we have three amusing pictures on the same theme; that of an enterprising lady using her bedpost as a convenient dildo.  This first one dates from 1785 and is an illustration by Borel, engraved by Elluin, for an edition of the French novel Thérèse Philosophe (1748), attributed to Jean-Baptiste de Boyer.  As is not uncommon in French erotica (see Emmanuelle) it mixes sexual content with philosophical proselytising.  In this case. the pernicious and hypocritical attitudes of the French church to sex. 

This next one picturee book was published in Germany, several of the plates illustrate men in British Army uniform, from the period of the Charge of the Light Brigade, so it is likely that the anonymous artist was British.  Here, for example, the lady has two military prints hanging on her wall illustrating a trooper of the household cavalry and a soldier from a highland regiment.

Finally, we finish with a photograph from approximately 1887, when striped stockings, such as this, were all the rage, of a lady patently going all the way on her bedpost.  Well done, madame!