ABSTRACT
The equating of male power and authority with the active penis is a problem which does not go unnoticed in the genre of erotic poetry. Although William Wycherley's impotency poems were not well received during his lifetime, his works more generally act as an important link for the continuing usage of impotence as satiric trope for writers. This rivalry seems to form part of broader political and social struggles that threaten stability would seem to be shown by the Elizabethan response to texts that publicly voice rivalry, with the Bishop's Bonfire. Similarly, Fanny Hill's first sexual encounter is with just such an old fumbler, whose impotence is then used to throw into relief Fanny's own disappointed desires. Initially these returns to the idea posited by Latin elegists, from Catullus, regarding controlled discourse as indicative of 'manliness' and questions the implications therefore for the raging Juvenalian satirist. The speaker of The Fifteen Comforts of Cuckoldom observes the prevalence of promiscuous behaviours.
