My cousin found these under some floorboards when renovating a new house. If anyone recognises them and would like them back, please drop me a DM.
If you’ve ever found such a stash hidden away, and I know a lot of you have because you message me about them, do feel free to share. X
OK! There have been some major developments in this story.
1. The photographs were inside an envelope that had been posted through the mail. The date is the 1960s (exact date to follow)
So what you’re looking at here is an actual, analogue dick-pick.
2. PLOT TWIST. The recipient of these images was *drumroll* a man. I won’t share names & addresses, but these images were sent between men & hidden below the floorboards for over 60 years. In the 60s, homosexuality was still criminalised & they could have been jailed
What makes this even more unique is my cousin lives in one of Britain’s island communities (not saying which), with a small population.
So this was likely a very secret relationship, hidden away until today. I hope both these men found a bit of happiness with each other.
How very fitting that these pictures literally came out today after being hidden away for over 60 years. I never thought a dick pick could be so emotional!
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This is Camille du Gast (1868-1942). She was a balloonist, parachutist, fencer, tobogganist, skier, horse trainer, concert pianist & singer. She was the second woman to compete in an international motor race & was embroiled in the scandal of La Femme au Masque.
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Camille was born in Paris in 1868 & from a young age was described as a “garçon manqué' (tomboy). She married wealthy businessman Jules Crespin in 1890. Crespin was the manager and majority shareholder of Dufayel, one of the largest department stores in France.
The couple has a daughter, but sadly Jules Crespin died young, leaving Camille heartbroken, but a very rich widow
Images from “Gonorrhea in the male - a practical guide to its treatment” by AL Wolbarst, (1911) showing treatment by injecting hot antiseptic into the urethra.
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(CW - graphic medical images)
“The most popular method of local treatment consists of irrigations with large quantities of hot antiseptic fluid. These irrigations maybe administered in three ways.”
“1) By hydrostatic pressure; (2) by the large syringe”
Agnes Blannbekin (1244-1315) was an Austrian nun & mystic who had erotic visions. In one, she felt the foreskin of Jesus in her mouth. “And behold, soon she felt with the greatest sweetness on her tongue a little piece of skin alike the skin in an egg, which she swallowed.”
Image by Milo Manara (b.1945)
Edit! Agnes was not a nun, she was a mystic & a ‘Beguine’ - a movement of lay women devoted to god, chastity, poverty & the ideals of the vita apostolica. The beguine were often conflated with nuns but never officially recognised as such.
This is 'Study of a Nude Black Man' (1838) by Théodore Chassériau (1819-1856). Chassériau was born in El Limón in the Dominican Republic. He was the son of Benoît Chassériau, a French diplomat & Maria Magdalena Couret de la Blagniére, a mixed race woman from Haiti.
From a young age, Chassériau excelled in art & was tutored by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. He made his name painting nudes and portraits. Chassériau travelled throughout Europe, but it was the people and culture of North Africa and the Middle East that really inspired him
Chassériau never married and died at the age of 37 in Paris on October 8, 1856 after contracting a serious illness. Today his work is recognized across the world.
This is a portrait of Wilhelmine, Countess of Lichtenau (1753-1820). She was s the official mistress of King Frederick William II of Prussia & was elevated by him into the ranks of the aristocracy.
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The portrait is full of highly sexually charged imagery. Apart from the nipples, kissing doves, the gushing water pipe, the splayed gun case, & the panting dog, all suggest naughtiness.
She was known as “Beautiful Wilhelmine" & was the subject & satire and faked memoirs. Including one that claimed all the rude bits have been omitted the language “was so gross and indelicate, that, out of respect to religion and morality, it was necessary to omit them.”
This is the erotic art of Michel Fingesten (1884–1943). Fingesten was born in Silesia and studied art in Vienna. He left Italy for America in 1900 where he made his living by drawing illustrations for newspapers.
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In 1907, he moved to Munich where he studied with Franz Stuck. He toured Asia and Europe before finally settling in Berlin. During this period he earned success and fame as a graphic art. He was particularly drawn to erotic subjects.
When the Nazis came to power, they declared his art as ‘degenerate’, and in 1933, Fingesten, who was of Jewish descent, moved to Milan.