Naughty BitsTony Perrottet shares highlights and takes questions about his tour of Europe's sexual history.

(Continued from page 1)

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Tony Perrottet: True, upper crust travelers tended to avoid Australia on leisure tours—it was more the lower class convicts who had unplanned, seven year holidays! Of course, they had plenty to keep them occupied—"Rum, sodomy and the lash" on the convict transports over there, and as soon as they arrived, a drunken orgy broke out on Sydney Cove when the female convicts were landed and tots of rum passed out. The marines and officers apparently joined in, and the debauch only ended when a huge thunderstorm broke...

As for today, a modern pervert should be pretty happy in Sydney—it's quite a liberated place, I think most tastes can be satisfied in Kings Cross...

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Cornwall: In a few passages you mention images of copulating and I wonder if there were any new positions you discovered and have added to your own rotation, as it were?

Tony Perrottet: Gee, what can I say...? The ancient Greek position known as "the lion and the cheese grater" should be tried by everyone once...

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Tony Perrottet: Actually, just as a footnote to the question on Paris—I just learned that page five of the story has gone live, on Casanova's prison cell in Venice. For most of history, Venice had a cult status as the sex capital of Europe—Amsterdam was a real late-comer (Venice dominated from around 800-1800 AD). Even in the 1920s, DH Lawrence talks about British women flocking there for favors from the burly gondolas... and of course the nuns were famous during the Renaissance...

Something happened in the mid-20th century, and these days Italians regard Venice as one of their most conservative cities...

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Reston, Va: Was the Marquis de Sade influenced by any particular philosopher?

Tony Perrottet: That's a good question—he was quite an intellectual, and read very widely amongst the new works of the day (the villagers regarded him as a quiet, bookish fellow—at least initially!) He was a committed atheist, which did not endear him to many at the time... and he refused to hang out with fellow nobles, or grovel to the king, which really didn't help his cause. He had an extreme libertine philosophy, he should be allowed to do anything...!

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Tony Perrottet: PS—I forgot to add—someone asked whether I may be related to one of the Marquis' illegitimate offspring. For whatever reason, he kept his hands off the villagers in Lacoste, and got his prostitutes/staff/victims from faraway places like Lyon and Marseilles—it was very wise, kept him on-side with the local families! I think my ancestors would have been involved in supplying him with local produce and helping with the renovations of the chateau (he had some 50 laborers going for years...) When I go back, I can apparently find more details in the archives in Avignon...

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de Sade and Rousseau: De Sade took Rousseau's ideas and carried them to conclusion. You could count Michel Foucault as a follower.

Tony Perrottet: Yes, Sade was big with the surrealists in the 20s...

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Alexandria, Va.: What happened to Venice is that all the young people fled. Only the aged live there now.

Tony Perrottet: True, it's an odd place now... although still pretty amazing to wander around... it gets a bit livelier around the Biennal and film festival I believe... although hardly like the old days!

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New York NY: What are you working on right now, anything really disgraceful?

Tony Perrottet: Actually, I'm finishing off a very sober piece for Smithsonian about my recent visit to Monument Valley in Utah/Arizona—camping with Navajo guides etc on the buttes. I've been out West for them every summer for the last six years or so...

I might write something about the Hellfire Club, however, which thrived in Britain in the 1700s... rumors of satanic orgies inolving top govt officials and the like...!

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Naples?: I'm just now stumbling across your chat—did you have a chance to visit the "Secret Cabinet" in the Naples Archaeological Museum? I suspect that's where most of the British Museum's tidbits ended up.

Tony Perrottet: I certainly did visit the Naples Secret Cabinet—the prototype! It's an amazing place, reopened in 2000 (they didn't allow women in until then!) I used it as a sort of model for my opus Napoleon's Privates—there used to be all sorts of off-limits places in the museums across Europe.

I fear the British held on to whatever they got, in that great 19th century tradition—but the Bourbons had plenty of Roman erotica being found in Pompeii—so shocking that the king had it locked up in 1816 (instantly making it a top destination for a certain type of traveler...!)

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Tony Perrottet: Thanks for the questions—got to get out into the seasonal NY blizzard! Cheers, Tony

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