ABSTRACT
In his matrimonial treatise of 1687, Tableau de l’amour, consideré dans l’estat du mariage [translated in 1703 as The Mysteries of Conjugal Love Revealed], French physician Nicolas Venette cautioned against certain sexual positions. According to him:
The genital parts of men are not contrived to caress standing; our health receiving great inconveniences in a posture so opposed to generation. … Nor is a sitting posture becoming an orderly love; it being difficult for the parts to join, and the seed to be received in order to form a child accomplished in all its parts. … Instead of getting children, a woman is rendered barren by this posture; what perchance is the product of such caresses is either small or imperfect. 1
