Lolita

Lolita (pronounced loh-lee-tuh)

(1) A female given name, a form of Charlotte or Dolores.

(2) A 1955 novel by Vladimir Nabokov.

(3) Referencing the eponymous character in the novel, a nymphet (or a representation of one in pornography) or a sexually precocious young girl (usually critically).

Lolita is a female given name of Spanish origin. It is the diminutive form of Lola, a hypocorism of Dolores (Lolita thus a double diminutive) which, depending on the source translates in Spanish as "suffering" or “sorrows”, the latter tending to be preferred because of the link with Maria de los Dolores.  Without any etymological evidence, some other (presumably fanciful) suggestions of meaning have included "a princess who loves pastel colors", "flower of love", "vivacious and beautiful" & "with a man's spirit".

As a given name, Dolores originated from La Virgen María de los Dolore (Virgin Mary of the Sorrows (dolores translating in Spanish as sorrows), one of the many titles given to the Blessed Mother in Spanish Roman Catholic tradition.  In the context of the Roman Catholic Church, Mary’s sorrows refer to seven events which occurred during her lifetime: (1) The Circumcision of Jesus, (2) the Flight from Jerusalem when Mary and Joseph take the baby Jesus to Egypt to protect him from King Herod of Judea’s orders to kill him, (3) the Finding in the Temple when Mary and Joseph lose the child Jesus only to find him later dwelling in the Temple among the elders, (4) Mary’s meeting with Jesus on the way to Calvary, (5) Jesus’ death on the cross, (6) Mary receiving the body of Jesus in her arms after he is taken down from the cross and (7) the placing of Jesus in the tomb.  The most observant Catholics observe a daily ritual in which they recite Our Father and seven Hail Marys in homage to the seven sorrows.  In the Spanish tradition, there are several given names derived from the many epithets given to the Blessed Mother, other examples including Concepción (referring to Mary’s immaculate conception); Corazón (referring to Mary’s immaculate heart); Luz (Our Lady of the “Light”); Mercedes (Our Lady of “Mercy”); Milagros (Our Lady of “Miracles”); Pilar (Our Lady of the “Pillars”); Rosario (Our Lady of the “Rosary”); and Soledad (Our Lady of “Solitude”).  From the late nineteenth century Dolores became popular among American Catholics and Nabokov’s novel seems briefly to have induced a spike in popularity which the later film adaptation (which reached a wider popular audience) may have quelled.  In the US, popularity peaked in 1963 and it’s never really recovered from the prurient associations explored by Nabokov.  Despite the reservations of parents in the English-speaking world, Lolita the name remains popular among Spanish speakers and in Europe.  In Latvia, Lolita’s name day is 30 May.

Sue Lyon in “Lolita Glasses” in Lolita (1962).  The most emblematic of the type are the sunglasses with the heart-shaped lens but the label is applied to many thick-rimmed styles, especially those with the sleek, “cats eye” shape.

Lindsay Lohan in Lolita glasses.

The 1955 novel by Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) was controversial even before being published in French, English language houses, sensing trouble, having initially declined the manuscript and nor has there ever been any consensus about the literary merit.  Coincidently or not, there had been a Imperial-era German short-story about a girl called Lolita.  Published in 1916 by Heinz von Lichberg (the pen-name of Heinz von Eschwege (1890-1951)), it was not dissimilar in its themes and there are a number of reasons it may have been Nabokov was influenced although, given the structural differences, plagiarism is too strong a word.  Whatever the qualities of the text, it remains interesting as a canvas onto which can be mapped the changing attitudes to child abuse (and its artistic depiction).  Tellingly, when Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999) in 1962 adapted the novel for the screen, many aspects of the original were toned down and twelve-year old Lolita was re-imagined as fourteen, a change necessitated by the rules in some markets and it may have been hoped that if that was acceptable for Shakespeare’s Juliet, it was good enough for Kubrick’s Lolita.  Even as a morality tale, it was ambiguous; although the transgressive male protagonists all die in various unpleasant ways, so too do Lolita and her mother, the nominal female victims.

Sue Lyon, photographed by Bert Stern in 1960 for a pre-release publicity set.

What came to be called “Lolita glasses” (which are to this day marketed under that label) are the thick-rimmed items worn in the 1962 by Sue Lyon (1946-2019), aged between 14-15 at the time of filming.  The most famous of the glasses, with the heart-shaped lens, were chosen by photographer Bert Stern (1929-2013) who Kubrick in 1960 commissioned to produce some still images to be used in pre-release publicity.  Stern was already well known for his photographs of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and would later create a famous set of images of Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962), the style of which he controversially reprised in 2008 with Lindsay Lohan (b 1986) as the subject.

Popularity of the name Lolita in the US, 1900-2017.  Impressionistically, as might be expected, a film will influence popular culture more than literary fiction, regardless of content.

Satyriasis & Nymphomania

Satyriasis (pronounced sey-tuh-rahy-uh-sis or sat-uh-rahy-uh-sis)

(1) In psychology & psychiatry, a neurotic condition in men in which the symptoms are an excessive and unrestrainable venereal desire, manifesting as a compulsion to have sexual intercourse with as many women as possible.  In modern clinical use, it’s linked also to an inability to sustain lasting relationships.

(2) A disease involving swelling around the temples, causing the victim to resemble a satyr, based on the depiction in Hellenic art of satyriatic men as horned goats.

1650s: A creation of Medical Latin, from the Late Latin satyriasis, from the Ancient Greek στυρ́ησς (saturíēsis) (excessively great venereal desire in the male), from satyros, accusative plural of satyrus, from the Ancient Greek σάτυρος (sáturos) (satyr-like).  The construct was στράω (saturiáō) +‎ -σις (-sis).  The –sis suffix was from the Ancient Greek -σις (-sis) and was used to forms noun of action), often via Latin but increasingly also from French; it had exactly the same effect as the Latin –entia and the English -ing.  Historically, the use in terms borrowed from Ancient Greek was comparatively rare but there are many modern coinages based on Ancient Greek roots, reflecting to ongoing reverence for the ancient languages.  Satyriasis, satyriasist, satyromaniac, satyrization & satyr are nouns, satyriatic is an adjective; the common noun plural is satyriasist.

In Greek mythology, a satyr was a deity or demigod, male companion of Pan or Dionysus, represented as part man and part goat, and characterized by riotous merriment and lasciviousness, depicted sometimes with a perpetual erection.  Although that’s the same symptom as the condition of priapism (morbidly persistent erection of the penis), a sufferer is not of necessity also satyriatic.  The noun priapism was from the Late Latin priapismus, from the Greek priapismos (lewdness), from priapizein (to be lewd), from Priapos (the god of male reproductive power).  In Roman mythology satyr was a synonym of faun and, by extension, a lecherous man.  In modern casual use, it’s referred to also as Don Juanism, an allusion to the fictional fourteenth century Spanish nobleman Don Juan, whose sexual exploits became a thing of legend.  The term satyriasis (if not the condition) is largely archaic although still used in literature and by clinicians with a sense of history, the more popular form being satyromania, a coining in Modern Latin from 1759 which first appeared in dictionaries of English in 1889.

Don Juan (circa 1911), oil on canvas by Charles Ricketts (1866–1931).

Nymphomania (pronounced nim-fuh-mey-nee-uh or nim-fuh-meyn-yuh)

In psychology & psychiatry, a neurotic condition in women in which the symptoms are an excessive and unrestrainable venereal desire, manifesting as a compulsion to have sexual intercourse with as many men as possible.  In modern clinical use, it’s linked also to an inability to sustain lasting relationships.

1775: From the New (Medical) Latin as nymphomania (morbid and uncontrollable sexual desire in women), from the Classical Latin nympha (labia minora), the construct thus nympho- +‎ -mania.  The first known instance of publication in English was in a translation of Nymphomania, or a Dissertation Concerning the Furor Uterinus (1771) by French physician Jean Baptiste Louis de Thesacq de Bienville (1726-1813) on the model of the Ancient Greek nymphē (bride, young wife, young lady) + -mania (madness) and may have been influenced by the earlier French nymphomanie (a frenzied state of (usually erotic) emotion, especially concerning something or someone unattainable).  The adjective nymphomaniac was used first in 1861 in the sense “characterized by or suffering from nymphomania”, the specific reference to “a woman who is afflicted with nymphomania” first noted in medical literature in 1867.  In pre-modern medicine, the synonyms were the now obsolete furor uterinus and œstromania which, curiously, is said still to be mentioned in some textbooks.

Nymph was from the Middle English nimphe, from the Old French nimphe, from the Latin nympha (nymph, bride), from the Ancient Greek νύμφη (númphē) (bride) and a doublet of nympha.  The alternative spelling nymphe is archaic except as a poetic device.  In Greek & Roman mythology, a nymph was any female nature spirit associated with waterways, forests, grottos, the breezes etc and is common use was applied to beautiful or graceful young girls (often as nymphet or nymphette) although the specialized use in entomology to refer to (1) the larva of certain insects and (2) any of various butterflies of the family Nymphalidae is analogous with the nymphs of antiquity only in relation to fragility and gracefulness rather than anything specifically female.  The modern equivalent (Lolita & lolita) is decidedly “of youthful femininity”).  The suffix –mania was from the Latin mania, from the Ancient Greek μανία (mania) (madness).  In modern use in psychiatry it is used to describe a state of abnormally elevated or irritable mood, arousal, and/or energy levels and as a suffix appended as required.  In general use, under the influence of the historic meaning (violent derangement of mind; madness; insanity), it’s applied to describe any “excessive or unreasonable desire; a passion or fanaticism” which can us used even of unthreatening behaviors such as “a mania for flower arranging, crochet etc”.  As a suffix, it’s often appended with the interfix -o- make pronunciation more natural.  Nymphomania is a noun, nymphomaniac is a noun & adjective and nymphomaniacal is an adjective; the usual noun plural is nymphomaniacs.

Fairly or not, Lindsay Lohan may in 2013 have cemented a reputation as a nymphomaniac when, in a Beverley Hills hotel room, she complied a list of three dozen "conquests" although it wasn't clear if the list was selective or exhaustive and it produced reactions among those mentioned ranging from "no comment" to a Clintonesque "I did not have sex with that woman".  In partially redacted form, the list was in 2014 published by In Touch magazine and points of interest included Ms Lohan's apparently intact short & long-term memory and her commendably neat handwriting.  She seems to favor the "first letter bigger" style in which the style is "all capitals" but the first letter (in each word in the case of proper nouns such as names) is larger.  In typography, the idea is derived from the "drop cap", a centuries-old tradition in publishing where the opening letter of a sentence is many times the size of the rest, the text wrapping around the big letter.  In many cases, a drop cap was an elaborate or stylized version of the letter.

Sex doesn't appear in the annals of psychiatry with quite the frequency suggested by the volume of material published for popular consumption but it's certainly a significant part of the development of the discipline and Sigmund Freud's (1856-1939) thoughts on sex are better known even than his dream analysis.  Few would doubt that sexual behaviours are integral to some psychiatric diseases and while women are thought not ordinarily prone to nymphomania, it has been treated as expression of delusional disorder (which some, controversially, call late-onset paranoia, a rare condition which may be under-diagnosed because research suggests sufferers seem to avoid treatment.  It's of particular interest because while women with delusional disorder appear often develop a powerful sexual fixation, men's fixations arise usually in the absence of anything which could be diagnosed as a delusional disorder.  Such caveats aside, the profession has always been interested in the phenomenon of persistent, socially deviant sexual behavior accompanied by an excessive sexual appetite that may be maladaptive for the individual and the terms “compulsive sexual behavior”, “sex addiction”, “Don Juanism”, “satyriasis” & “nymphomania” are all expressions of “hypersexuality”.  Despite the long and well-documented history, when the editorial committee of the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) met to discuss amendments and additions to the fifth edition (DSM-5, 2013), the members decided not to introduce hypersexual disorder as a distinct diagnostic category, apparently because of what was said to be a paucity of research on valid diagnostic criteria.

Nymphomaniacs, hysteria and steam-induced parosysm

The gender-neutral form of satyriasis and nymphomania is erotomania (abnormal exaltation of the sexual appetite which, perhaps surprisingly, predates the modern culture wars, noted in the medical literature since 1875.  The construct of erotomania was eroto- +‎ -mania, eroto from the Ancient Greek ἐρωτικός (erōtikós) (related to love), from ἔρως (érōs) (passionate or sexual love).  There were however in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, echoes of the culture wars because physicians were known to diagnose nymphomania in women they deemed “to enjoy sex too much”.  Some physicians however were sympathetic practical as well as sympathetic.  While they might diagnose women as “hysterical” (then an orthodox part of medicine without the exclusively “loaded” meaning of today, some were prepared to stimulate the vagina until "parosysm" (the then preferred terminology for orgasm) was achieved.   For the doctor however, it could be a tiring business, some taking longer to climax than others although (officially) the treatment was offered only to unmarried women, reducing the patient load, so there was that.

Dr Taylor’s steam-powered Manipulator. Still, hands and wrists must quickly have tired, thus the attraction of the vibrator, a device which pre-dates the use of electricity, crank-driven models (resembling a very specialised egg-beater) first produced in 1734 and the early, powered, vibrators of the nineteenth century were a deviation from the engineering practices of the day which were really a collection of techniques designed to optimize specific efficiencies.  By contrast, the early vibrators required inefficient motors.  While all motors have moving parts and will vibrate, engineers use precise tolerances to achieve balance, ensuring the vibrations are minimized because vibrations are just wasted energy.  However, by definition a vibrator needs to vibrate and at the time, the easy way to achieve this with an inefficient motor, thus the steam-powered Manipulator invented by US physician George Taylor (1821-1896) in 1869.  Steam-powered, it certainly vibrated as needed but was big and noisy, the steam engine installed in an room adjoining the surgery, the apparatus protruding through the wall.  However, as a proof-of-concept exercise it worked and Dr Taylor reported good results.   Since then the devices have evolved to be smaller, quieter and battery-powered and although electrical power has become ubiquitous, one innovation proved a cul-de-sac, the Electro-Spatteur (which augmented its vibrations with electric shocks) lacking sales appeal.  The un-powered devices however didn’t entirely disappear and early in the twentieth century, the Pulsocon was advertised in the Sears mail-order catalog (the amazon.com of the age) and as recent examinations (it’s not clear if the tests were practical) confirmed, it worked well as a vibrator, its promoters jailed in 1913 only because the other claims they were making for its efficacy (curing just about every ailment known) were variously unproven, unsustainable, unbelievable or simply lies.

The Pulsocon.

Tenebrous

Tenebrous (pronounced ten-uh-bruhs)

Dark; gloomy; obscure.

1375-1425: From the late Middle English tenebrose (full of darkness, gloomy), from the Anglo-Norman tenebrous (the earlier spelling was tenebrus), from the eleventh century Old French tenebros (dark, gloomy) (which endures in modern French as ténébreux), from the Latin tenebrōsus (dark), from tenebrae (darkness, shadows).  The Latin forms may have been dissimilated from the earlier temebrai, from the primitive Indo-European root temsro- (dark), an adjective from temos- (darkness).  The adjective tenebrous indicates a high degree of darkness but not an absolute absence of light, the comparative is thus more tenebrous and the superlative most tenebrous.  Tenebrous is now a literary word valued by poets because of the relative novelty of the rhyming and is used also figuratively (as early as the 1670s it was deployed to suggest someone was “morally or mentally dark”.  Tenebrous, tenebricose & tenebrific are adjectives, tenebrity, tenebrousness & tenebrosity are nouns and tenebrously is an adverb; the noun plural is tenebrosities.  The alternative spelling is tenebrious and except in literary use, the verb tenebrize is now obsolete.

Salomè con testa del Battista (Salome with the Head of John the Baptist, circa 1608), oil on canvas by Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio; 1571–1610), National Gallery, London.

Tenebrosity (darkness, gloom, obscurity) was from the early fifteenth century, tenebrious (pertaining to darkness, of a dark nature) dates from the 1590s, tenebrity (quality of being dark) was in use by at least 1792 while tenebrific (producing darkness), dating from the late 1760s, was implied in the earlier tenebrificating, recorded in 1743.  In 1818, it was reported in a London publication there was a theory darkness was not simply the absence of light, but that certain heavenly bodies (called Tenebrific Stars), emitted rays of positive darkness, which produced what commonly was called “night”.  This is how science evolves, theories existing to compete as explanations for this and that until disproved.  The early fifteenth century Tenebrer (bearer of darkness) was an epithet of Satan.  One variant which didn’t endure was recorded in the mid-seventeenth century was tenebrion (one that will not be seen by day, a lurker, a night-thief (also a “night-spirit” and “hobgoblin”)).  In Christianity, the Tenebrae is a religious service celebrated by the Western Church on the evening before or early morning of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, involving the gradual extinguishing of candles while a series of readings and psalms are chanted or recited.  In fine art, the related tenebrism describes a style of painting using very pronounced chiaroscuro, with darkness a dominating feature of the image and a tenebrist is an artist applying the method.  Works in the genre are said to be tenebristic and in the late nineteenth century those painting in this manner (described usually as “in the style of Caravaggio” were called the tenebrosi; by 1959 the preferred term among art historians was tenebrism.

Illustrating the adjectival: Lindsay Lohan tenebrous (left), more tenebrous (centre) and most tenebrous (right), from Pop Magazine photo-shoot, Fall/Winter 2007.

The MOGAI

MOGAI stands for “Marginalized Orientations, Gender Alignments and Intersex” and is something of an omnibus term, acting as an umbrella term for sexual orientations, gender identities and intersex traits not considered “mainstream” although the very notion of “mainstream” is now a morass of cross-cutting claims, some factions demanding inclusion, others insisting on their separateness.  Whatever has been the track of MOGAI since its emergence in 2015, the original intent seems to have been one of “inclusiveness” and in that sense it’s both a logical extension of the LGBTQ+ concept and a recognition that so many categories could be identified the “extended model” (ie LGBTQQIAAOP and such) was becoming unmanageable.  Even “LGBTQ+” was in a sense counter-productive because in relegating certain letters (and thereby individuals or groups) to the “+”, there was an act of marginalization which, in the modern construct could be deemed a microaggression.  What advocates emphasize is that MOGAI exists for marginalized identities and it’s also as a kind of clearing house for novel or less recognized gender labels.  

DSM-5-TR (Text revision (2022) of DSM-5 (2013)).

In the narrow technical sense, MOGAI is a classification system but its focus on non-binary and other gender identities that are not cisgender seems to have acted to encourage the growth in the creation of categories and while some have “filled a gap”, there’s also clearly been linguistic adventurism in the same way some have been beyond imaginative in the coining of long German compound nouns and others have describe phobia despite there being no evidence of the particular fear ever having been defined as a clinical condition or even reported, a phenomenon the marvellously comprehensive Phobiapedia cheerfully acknowledges.  Whereas the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) exists to codify mental health conditions including phobias, MOGAI is just one of many list of gender identities but one which commands interest simply on the basis of numbers: it has spawned literally hundreds of entries and while some are “variations on a theme”, the breadth is striking.

The DSM contains two obviously tenebricose conditions, Social Anxiety Disorder and Seasonal Affective Disorder (a mood disorder characterized by recurrent depressive episodes that occur at particular times of the year, usually in winter), tenebrous used of the former figuratively, of the latter literally.  In a decision which may have been an agenda item on one of the editorial committee's meeting, it was decided the acronym “SAD” would be applied to Seasonal Affective Disorder (presumably on the basis it described the sadness associated with dark, wintery conditions); Social Anxiety Disorder typically is abbreviated as SoAD and the differentiation makes sense because while sadness can be associated with SoAD, it's the prime dynamic of SAD.  Multiple uses of acronyms is of course common but within the one publication it could confuse for the editors made a wise choice.  First described in 1984, SAD was included in the revision to the third edition (DSM-III-R (1987)) as a “seasonal pattern”, a modifier applied to recurrent forms of mood disorders, rather than as an independent entity.  In the DSM-IV (1994), its status as a standalone condition was changed, no longer classified as a unique mood disorder but instead a specifier (called “with seasonal pattern”) for the “recurrent major depressive disorder that occurs at a specific time of the year and fully remits otherwise”.  In the DSM-5 (2013), although there were detail changes in terminology, the disorder was again identified as a type of depression (Major Depressive Disorder with Seasonal Pattern).  The symptoms of SAD often overlap with the behaviors & mood changes noted in clinical depression, the novelty being the condition manifesting usually during the fall (autumn) & winter when temperatures and lower and the hours of sunlight fewer, the symptoms tending to diminish with the onset of spring.

A gathering of high tech, robotic lawnmowers: Four Stihl iMows of the apocalypse.

Suggested collective nouns for lawnmowers have included “graze”, “scythe”, “lawn” & “swathe” but the most evocative was the (presumably Australian) “startyafuquer” (pronounced stahrt-yuh-fuhk-ah).  Most “high tech” lawnmowers are controlled using a cell phone app but some include the feature of a user being able to create their own voice-activation command set so “startyafuquer” could be recorded as the “start command”, the obvious companion phrase being “stopyafuquer”.

While notably less common, there are those who experience SAD during the summer and in either case it’s seen more frequently in women; SAD appears to be possible at any age but is most typically suffered in the age range 18-30.  In the US, the dynamic of the condition is illustrated by the diagnosis of SAD ranging from 1.4% of the population in sunny Florida to 9.9% in often gloomy Alaska and, after some initial scepticism, the condition was accepted as legitimate by most of the profession although there has been some contradictory research.  Although in a sense SAD has for centuries been documented in the works of poets and artists, it wasn’t until the mid-twentieth century that structured research began and it has been linked to a biochemical imbalance in the brain prompted by exposure to reduced hours of daylight and a reduction in sunlight.  It’s thought that as the seasons go by, some experience a shift in their internal “biological clock” (circadian rhythm) which induces the mechanism to become asynchronous with their daily schedule.  Predictably, SAD appears more prevalent among those living far from the equator where the conditions in winter are exaggerated.  Seemingly paradoxically, clinicians treating SAD do in some cases recommend “outdoor activities” on the basis (1) of “confronting the problem” as is sometimes done for fears (heights, spiders etc) and (2) its frequent effectiveness in countering depression.  One popular activity suggested is gardening and while many have reported it as therapeutic, those suffering from Sponeopapaaughprosebeeanthropopcacareophobia (the phobia describing the “fear of high tech lawn mowers”) would need to be cautious in their choice and handling of equipment.   

Gender lists are however not “peer reviewed” in the traditional sense (controversial as that model of academic publishing has become) so in a sense all the categorization systems are of equal validity with users free to determine which works best for them.  That’s democratic and how a classic marketplace of ideas operates but does mean it’s a field in which most are left to make of it what they will.  It would be interesting to compare a “comprehensive list” curated by academics in the now well-populated discipline of “gender studies” with the hundreds of entries which the MOGAI community hosts.  In the most recent edition of the DSM (DSM-5-TR, 2022), while there are five sub-types of specific phobias: (1) animals, (2) the natural environment, (3) blood, injections, medical procedures and such, (4) situational types (airplanes, elevators, enclosed spaces etc) and (5) other types, officially, terms like nomophobia, coulrophobia, globophobia, arachibutyrophobia etc) are no longer accepted clinical terms used in psychiatry and instances are grouped to be diagnosed as “Specific Phobia, other type”.  Remarkably, given the frequency of use of xxx-phobia in general use, only two explicitly are mentioned in the DSM and they are not unrelated: Agoraphobia (an extreme or irrational fear of entering open or crowded places or leaving one's home) and Social Anxiety Disorder (SoAD or Social anxiety).

The MOGAI community's lists of gender types are an invaluable resource but can be challenging for those suffering Albumistaphobia (the phobia describing the “fear of lists”).

Still, even if many of MOGAI’s entries might not survive an academic cull, there would be gender theorists or activists who might acknowledge the entire set because a syndrome need not be widespread to be defined as such: a single case can establish the diagnosis.  Word nerds too must have been impressed by the diversity and intricacy (if not always the grammar and spelling) because MOGAI definitions can also be mapped onto specific systems or sets of labels, such as the Celestial Gender System (based on celestial bodies) or the Restaurant System (based on restaurants and eateries).  What that has meant is that as well as serious contributions, the MOGAI community has seen the creation of new labels of dubious practical validity which, like some alleged phobias, clearly exist just because their creation was possible and fun.  Those schooled in labelling theory might also be interested because, once created and vested with the “validity” of appearing in a “gender list” on the internet, a label can gain some gravitational pull and convince readers they’ve just discovered their “true gender” identity or identities.  As patients can create the diagnosis, so the diagnosis can create the patient.

Xenogender

A xenogender identity is one in which a person's gender is connected to an aesthetic or sensory experience.  It is non-binary and applies concepts beyond traditional male, female or androgynous categories to describe a gender that cannot be contained by traditional human understandings of gender.  Xenogender claims to be all-encompassing and is this positioned as an umbrella term for identities related to abstract sources like animals, plants, concepts and imaginary or inanimate objects; the linkages need not in any way be literal or concrete and can be simply a device people use to best articulate how their gender “feels” (or “appears” for those who view themselves from beyond their own physical body) to them.  Some xenogenders are used by the neurodivergent community but the essence of xenogenderism is they cannot be exclusive and thus cannot be used in an exclusionary way.

Hallowgender

Hallowgender (or Halloweengender) is an aesthetigender in which one's gender is tied closely to “the silly part of Halloween and the Halloween aesthetic” (ie it focuses on the fun rather than the dark and scary).  The first known use of hallowgender was by Tumblr user asukazepplinsoryu in 2014.

Flags of the Hallowgender.

Left to right: (1) The original hallowgender flag, designed by an anonymous user; (2) the first alternate hallowgender flag designed by Tumblr user ask-pride-color-schemes; (3) the second alternate hallowgender flag designed by Tumblr user momma-mogai-sphinx, (4) the third alternate hallowgender flag designed by Tumblr user momma-mogai-sphinx and (5) the fourth alternate hallowgender flag designed by FANDOM user WriterThatArts.  In the ecosystem of gender-diversity, flags have become a thing; the gay liberation movement's Rainbow flags are the best-known but there are banners for many non-cisgender sub-sets and other divergencies including the still much-marginalized Objectum community.  

TFS: The Tenebrous Gender System

A fork of the MOGAI community, the TGS (Tenebrous Gender System) was said to have been created by Tumblr user Hallowgender who on 12 September 2020 published a codified version; under TGS, all sub-types are in some way and to some degree connected to “darkness and gloominess”.  All are related also to other things or concepts and that some of those might stand in stark contradiction to darkness and gloominess was noted without further comment.  In a sign of the times, TGS, with seven categories, is said to be “one of the smallest gender systems” and that reflects the recent proliferation from something which for millennia usually was represented as a binary.  Each TGS category has a flag:

Tenebrariarumian: A gender that is dark, enveloping, and colorful.  It is gloomy, calming and cold.  Exemplar: Billie Eilish (b 2001).

Tenebrasian: A gender that is dark, separating, and sullen.  It is gloomy, tumultuous and warm.  Exemplar: Lindsay Lohan (b 1986).

Tenebellariumian: A gender that is flamboyant, dark, cool, and wintry. It is gloomy, calming, and freezing as well but may tend also to fluidity and can be similar to Burlesgender.  Exemplar: Kim Kardashian (b 1980).

Tenebrationisian: A gender that is masculine, toasty, calming, and similar to the sea at night.  It is gloomy, calming, and connected to anchors, boats, and summer.  Exemplar: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC, b 1989).

Tenebricosumian: A gender that is cautious, wintry, dark and comforting.  It is small, fluid, and flux.  Exemplar: Bernie Sanders (b 1941).

Tenebricumian: A gender that is icy, soft, watery and comforting. It is large, fluid, and flux.  Exemplar: Sydney Sweeney (b 1997).

Tenebrosumian: A gender that is icy, soft, electric and powerful.  It is large, fluid and flux as well.  It can be connected to lights in a city at night, blankets and snowy afternoons.  Exemplar: Jessica Simpson (b 1980).

Aesthetigender

Aesthetigender was said to have been coined in 2014 by Tumblr user curiosityismysin and the original description read: “a gender experience that is derived from, or the embodiment of, an aesthetic”; from that came the mission creep which saw the term evolve from a “standalone gender” to being an entire sub-category of MOGAI genders to the point where it is one of the largest.  The nature of the beast is such that within the rubric of aesthetigender it’s an irrelevance to try to determine where one ends and another begins and the extent of proliferation anyway made overlap inevitable.  As might be imagined, a category in which the imperative is “a gender which in some ways relates to an aesthetic” is so broad that probably all MOGAI genders could be made to fit under the umbrella, including terms that aren't obviously “aesthetically linked” because just as “everything is text”, in a sense, “everything has an aesthetic”.  That has to be right because the root of aesthetigender ultimately can be traced back to a rejection of gender as a binary and the nonbinary activist movement really began as something aesthetic before a conceptual framework was built.  The MOGAI community now lists over 600 known aesthetigenders and while some (like many entries in the phobia lists) are variants, jocular coinings or exercises in novelty, such is the breadth, there must be something for just about everyone; some illustrative examples are:

Abandoe: a gender similar to that of an abandoned house; could be dead, genderless or of themes being empty and intimidating.

Adorbian: a xenic alignment to cuteness or cute things.

Aesthetigxrl: a girl or woman who is also aesthetifluid.  Your aesthetigenders act as an overlay, affecting pronouns and desired presentation.  If the aesthetic is heavily aligned with a different gender, your gender might be obscured until the aestheticgender changes. Comes under the genderfluid umbrella. (Gxrl can be substituted with your main gender (bxy, boy, girl, xen, enby ect).

Ancientus: a gender that feels like it is becoming ancient and unused, regardless of whether it is or is not.

Animecoric: a gender related to animecore.

Antiancientius: a gender that feels like it is coming back from being ancient and unused to being new and used

Arcage: a gender that feels locked up in a coffin or mausoleum, it’s desolate and unused but can be revisited and used for a small amount of time.  It can also be related to coffins, cemeteries and Halloween.

Autumnusian: a slightly neutral gender related to autumn (fall), fallen leaves, oak trees, the smell of maples, rain, and/or the sun.

Bellusgender: a gender relating to anything beautiful to the user’s eye (can be flowers, pets etc).

Burlesgender: A gender that is ineffable, extremely hard to label, but is flamboyantly and fabulously androgynous.  It was first coined as Ziggystardustgender but changed due to this referencing a fictional character.

Camogender: a gender that’s hard to see on the outside, almost invisible, but very deep and full of meaning on the inside. Can be thick or thin but is always not what it appears to be.

Cosmiccoric: a gender that feels like you’re a cosmic entity, one with the universe, especially when meditating.

Crystalforestgender: a gender associated with both crystals and forests or that is easily described by both forests and crystals.

Demi-Smoke: a transcendental, spiritual gender roughly drifting to other genders that are unable to be foreseen or understood, shrouded in darkness within your inner visual.  Elevating through mystery and caused by a lack of inner interpretation and one’s dark emotional states.

Derkazgender: where you feel like parts of your gender are hidden or concealed in darkness.

Djender: a gender that is harsh and jagged.

Elegender: a gender up to interpretation by individuals, but in essence is an ethereal gender that is unable to be understood by either the individual or others; a gender that cannot be explained; a dainty, elegant, or delicate gender.

Estetikgender: when your gender is influenced by your current aesthetic.

Fatugender: a useless gender.

Fractigender: a gender identity characterized by different genders occurring with different intensities, and yet still connected (either through expression, interpretation, or being experienced simultaneously).  This identity is based on the Latin fractus (broken), perfect passive participle of frangō (break, fragment), the idea being a pattern that repeats on smaller and smaller scales, and different locations.

Genderabyssalis: a gender that is dark, deep, and abyssal.  It may be connected to darkness, dimness, and cold nights.  It can be masculine or neuter-aligned, but need not be.

Genderamburo: a gender that feels slightly scorched or burnt.

Genderardere: a gender that feels like it has been burnt/scorched, but still remains.

Genderatrum: a gender shrouded into darkness. It feels gloomy and unwelcoming, isolating itself from other genders.

Gendercalefecere: a gender that feels like it warms, and then quickly cools again.

Gendercimiterium: a gender related to graveyards.  It feels buried underneath other genders, and trapped forever more.

Genderclock: a xenogender related with time and clocks.

Gendergothica: a gender that feels Gothic or related to Gothic architecture or literature.

Gendermortes: A gender that fades into death.

Gendermortuss: A gender that feels dead or is barely clinging to life.

Gendernoir: A gender related to the noir aesthetic.

Genderplush: A gender related to teddy bears.

Gendertextus: a gender that is woven into other genders.

Icegender: A cold gender that's disconnected from emotion

Lolitagender: A gender related to Lolita fashion.

Magikavine: A gender related to the color purple, dark circus aesthetics, and magic.

Mermaidcoric: A gender related to mermaidcore.

Multioculaec: a gender related to having or wanting multiple eyes (Based off Wingphinaec).

Naufragiumgender: a gender simply abandoned.  It is similar to a shipwreck in that it just plainly disappears for a while, later to be rediscovered by advancing into the depths of gender.

Necrogender: a gender that used to exist but is now 'dead' or nonexistent.

Nightshadegender: when your gender feels ominous and dangerous if wrongly handled.

Noirgender: an aesthetic gender based on being goth.

Noxnidorian: A gender that’s related to the night and specifically the smell of the night.

Nymphetic: genders relating to the nymphet/doelette/coquette/faunlet aesthetic & fashion, without k!nk attatched

Ophthalmogender: a gender described by your own eye and its characteristics at some point.

Opscugender: a dark, murky gender, hard to describe or see.

Pastelgothcoric: a gender related to pastel gothcore, or just pastel goth in general!

Petrichic: a xenic-alignment with rain, storms, and water.

Pictogender: a gender that can only be described through imagery. A pictogender individual might only be able to describe their gender with icons, symbols, emojis, color gradients, or some other visual.

Pinkcoric: A gender related to pinkcore.

Punque: a gender characterized by the punk aesthetic, fashion, culture, music and attitude.  Can be used as a descriptor or as a noun.

Puppetic: A xenogender related to puppets/marionettes.

Sadcoric: A gender related to sadcore

Sapphiregender: A gender that is aesthetically related to sapphires, a gender that is feminine, non-binary, and vaguely fluid.

Savmysterius: a masculine xenogender that feels shrouded in fog and is hard to define. It’s slightly fluid, golden and ancient, and draws influence from many sources, including: crystals & forests, stars & death, old gods & demons, angels and the fae.

Sexygender: a gender that is very, very sexy

Shampooium: a dermagender that feels sudsy like shampoo, and makes other genders feel healthy as well.

Shipwreckian: a gender somehow connected to shipwrecks, the deep sea, shades of blue and warm ocean waters.

Sliwarmasix: a slightly warm gender, it hovers slightly above other genders and never flares up.

Somnigender: a gender identity related to, dependent upon, or inexorably connected to a feeling of sleepiness or tiredness. Alternately, it can refer to a gender that is difficult or impossible to perceive or identify due to feelings of sleepiness or tiredness.  Not a narcolepsy/insomnia-based neurogender, just general sleepiness.

Squishyic: a xenogender related to squishies.

Starboy: A gender related to boasting, cyberpunk, and crime.

Tenebric: a gender that feels cold and dark; it smells of moss and nature.

Traumacoric: A gender related to traumacore.

Urbisgender: a gender built like a city, composed of many, many parts that all function to help one another; full of many small parts and things to discover.

Vampcoric: a coric gender related to vampirecore.

Wanderlust Gender: a labyrinthine, eerie gender that’s impossible to navigate or map, but which causes no anxiety.  This gender is fun to explore even if it’s easy to get lost in.

Windowgender: a gender feeling like the space between the glass and the screen of the window thus either a free-flowing gender or for those who feel their genders are transparent!

Wingphinaec: a gender related to wings or having wings!

Witchcoric: a xenogender related to witchcore.

Xenoirgender: A gender based in emo, scene and other offshoots of goth.

Zombiecoric: a masculine, feminine or neutral gender based around zombiecore; feels decayed & dark, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Pussy

Pussy (pronounced poos-ee or puhs-ee)

(1) In informal use, a cat, especially a kitten (also as puss & pussy-cat).

(2) In colloquial use (now rare), an affectionate term for a woman or girl, seen as having characteristics associated with kittens such as sweetness or playfulness.

(3) Anything soft and furry; a bloom form; a furry catkin, especially that of the pussy willow

(4) An alternative name for the tipcat (rare).

(5) In slang, a disparaging and offensive term referring to a timid, passive person (applied almost exclusively to men).

(6) In vulgar slang, the vulva (used as an alternative to the many other slang terms which includes beaver, box, cunt, muff, snatch, twat poontang, coochie, punani, quim & slit); considered by some to be the least offensive and probably the one most used by women.

(7) In vulgar slang, sexual intercourse with a woman

(8) In vulgar slang of male homosexuals, the anus of a man who is the passive participant in gay sex (ie “the bottom” as used by “the top”).

(9) In slang, a disparaging and offensive term for women collectively, a form of reductionism which treats women as sex objects.

(10) In medical use (pronounced puhs-ee), something puss-like or something from which puss emerges; containing or resembling pus.

(11) As pussy bow (or lavallière, pussycat bow or pussy-bow) a style of neckwear worn with women's blouses and bodices. A bow, tied (usually loosely) at the neck, the name is though derrived from the bows owners sometimes attach to their domestic felines (pussy cats).

1580s: The construct was puss +‎ -y (the diminutive suffix).  It may be from the Dutch poesje, a diminutive of poes (cat; vulva), akin to the Low German pūse (vulva) and the Old English pusa (bag).  Puss was probably from the Middle Low German pūs or pūskatte or the Dutch poes (puss, cat (slang for vulva)), ultimately from a common Germanic word for cat, perhaps ultimately imitative of a sound made to get its attention and therefore similar in origin to the Arabic بسة (bissa).  Some sources declare puss in the sense of "cat" dates from the 1520s but this is merely the earliest known documented source and use probably long predates this instance.  The same or similar sound is a conventional name for a cat in Germanic languages and as far off as Afghanistan; it is the root of the principal word for "cat" in the Rumanian (pisica) and secondary words in the Lithuanian (puž (word used for calling a cat)), the Low German (puus) and the Irish puisin (a kitten).  It was akin to the West Frisian poes, Low the German Puus & Puuskatte, the Danish pus, the dialectal Swedish kattepus & katte-pus and the Norwegian pus.  The form is known in several European, North African and West Asian languages and may be compared with the Romanian pisică and Sardinian pisittu; there is also a Celtic thread, the Irish pus (mouth, lip), from the Middle Irish bus.  The noun plural was pussies.

The French village Pussy sits on the eastern slope of Mont Bellachat above the left bank of the Isère, 5½ miles (9 km) north-west of Moûtiers; it is part of commune of La Léchère in the Savoie département of France.  The name is from Pussius, the owner of the region during the Roman occupation of Gaul.

Pussy was first used as a term of endearment for a girl or woman in the 1580s and (by extension), was soon used disparagingly of effeminate men and) and applied childishly to anything soft and furry.  The use to refer to domestic cats & kittens was exclusive by the 1690s but as early as 1715 it was applied also to rabbits.  The use as slang for "female pudenda" is documented from 1879, but most etymologists don’t doubt it had long been in oral use; perhaps from the Old Norse puss (pocket, pouch) (related to the Low German puse (vulva)) or else a re-purposing of the cat word pussy on the notion of "soft, warm, furry thing.  In this it may be compared with the French le chat, which also has a double meaning, feline and genital.  The earlier uses in English are difficult to distinguish from pussy, “pussie” noted in 1583 being applied affectionately to women.  Pussy-whipped in the sense of "hen-pecked" seems to date from 1956, a gentler form perhaps than the fifteenth century Middle English cunt-beaten (an impotent man).  Despite the feeling among many that the history in vulgar slang is long, etymologists note the rarity (sometimes absence) of pussy in its ribald sense from early dictionaries of slang and the vernacular before the late nineteenth century and the frequent use as a term of endearment in mainstream literature.

Lindsay Lohan in a Michael Kors (b 1959) pussy bow, polka-dot silk blouse with Valentino sneakers, about to enjoy a frozen hot chocolate, Serendipity 3 restaurant, New York, January 2019.

The pleonastic noun pussy-cat (also pussycat) which describes a domestic cat or kitten dates from 1773 and came soon to be applied to people although there appears to be no written record prior to 1859.  By the early twentieth century it came to be applied to smoothly running engines, the idea being they “purred like a pussycat”.  The noun pussy-willow was by 1835 a popular name of a type of common American shrub or small tree, so-called for the small and very silky catkins produced in early spring; in the 1850s the tree was also referred to as a pussy-cat but use soon faded.  To “play pussy” was World War II Royal Air Force (RAF) slang for "take advantage of cloud cover, jumping from cloud to cloud to shadow a potential victim or avoid recognition."  The medical use, the other (disgusting) adjectival forms of which are pussier & pussiest, dates from circa 1890 although in this sense Middle English had the mid-fifteenth century pushi, a variant of the Latin pus (definite singular pussen or pusset) which in pathology describes the yellowish fluid associated with infected tissue.

Kate Moss in pussy bow blouse on video link.

As a set-piece event, about the only thing which could have added to the spectacle of the Depp v Heard (John C Depp II v Amber Laura Heard (CL–2019–2911)) suit & counter-suit defamation trial in Fairfax County, Virginia, might have been Ms Heard (b 1986) afforcing her legal team with Rudy Giuliani (b 1944).  Whatever difficulties Mr Giuliani has had with judges, he was good with juries and may have been better at persuading the tribunal assembled in Virginia to ignore the many irrelevant revelations which so tantalized those running commentaries on social media.  As it was, there was something in the trial for just about everyone and one thing claimed by some to have exerted a subliminal influence on judge and jury was what model Kate Moss (b 1974 and appearing as a character witness for Mr Depp (b 1963) which whom she’d enjoyed a predictably well-publicized relationship during the 1990s) wore for her brief testimony.  That she appeared at all was because Ms Heard made the mistake of mentioning her name during testimony, thereby permitting Mr Depp's counsel to call her as a witness.  Looking stunning as expected, her appearance was quickly deconstructed and pronounced as crafted to convey “authority and authenticity”, the key points being (1) a simple hair-style, (2) an “authoritative jacket”, (3) “natural make-up” and (4) a blouse with a pussy bow “casually tied” to avoid the appearance of a contrived “court appearance look”.  In other words, she’d been styled to look like a witness appearing in court, not an actor playing a witness appearing in court.  Her three minutes on the stand via a video link should not, according to some lawyers, have been treated by the jury as substantive but what attracted most comment was her choice of a white, spotted pussy bow blouse, a feature described in one gushing critique as “…subtly subversive” with an origin as a kind of feminist battledress for those beginning the march through the institutions of male space; a challenge to the “traditional dress codes”.

Lindsay Lohan in black, semi-sheer pussy bow blouse, Saint Laurent fashion show, Paris Fashion Week, February 2019.  Clearly, Ms Lohan likes polka-dots.

Items recognizably pussybowish had been worn for centuries but the re-purposing to an alleged political statement is traced to the early 1960s when Coco Chanel (1883-1971) added more voluminous bows to silk blouses, the bulk and projection of the fabric off-setting the more severe linens and tweeds with which they were paired.  From there, the pussy bow as feminist statement is held to have become overt in 1966 with the debut of Yves Saint Laurent's (1936-2008) Le Smoking design which legitimized the presence of the pantsuit in catalogues and, increasingly, on the catwalk.  The 1966 piece was a revived tuxedo, tailored to the female form, in velvet or wool and notable for being softened with a silk pussy bow blouse which was interesting in that had it been combined with the traditional tie worn by men (which wouldn’t then have been anything novel), it would probably have been condemned, not as subversive but as a cliché.  As it was, the pussy bow lent sufficient femininity to the redefined pantsuit for it to be just radical enough to be a feminist fashion statement yet not be seen as too threatening.  Despite the claims of some, it wasn’t the first time the pussy bow had been paired with trousers but it was certainly the first appearance at a mainstream European show and it proved influential although YSL, so pleased with his models, perhaps didn’t envisage the look on latter-day adopters like crooked Hillary Clinton.

Whether the judge or jury in Virginia were pussy bow-whipped into finding substantially for Mr Depp isn’t known but it was certainly interesting Ms Heard lost in the US but won in the UK in 2020 despite both trials being essentially about the same thing: Did Mr Depp subject Ms Heard to violence and other forms of abuse?  Technically, there were differences, Mr Depp in the UK suing not his ex-wife but The Sun, a tabloid newspaper which had published a piece with a headline describing Mr Depp as a "wife beater".  By contrast, the US case revolved around an article in The Washington Post written by Ms Heard, the critical passages being three instances where she alleged she had been a victim of domestic abuse.  Mr Depp sued not the newspaper but Ms Heard, claiming her assertions were untrue and (although he wasn’t explicitly named as the perpetrator), that he’d thus been defamed.  The jury agreed Ms Heard (1) had indeed implied she was the victim of Mr Depp’s violence, (2) that her claims were untrue, (3) that purposefully she was being untruthful and (4) that her conduct satisfied the legal standard of “actual malice”, a critical threshold test in US law (dating from a ruling by the US Supreme Court in 1964 in New York Times v Sullivan) which imposes on public figures the need to prove statements (even if anyway technically defamatory) were made with the knowledge they were false or with reckless disregard of whether they were false or not, before damages may be recovered.

Melania Trump (b 1970, US First Lady 2017-2021 and since 2025) in pussy bow blouse, Federal Partners in Bullying Prevention (anti-cyber-bullying) summit at the Health Resources and Service Administration, Rockville, Maryland, 20 August 2018.

More significant still was probably that in London, the trial took place before a high court judge who ruled on both matters of law and fact.  By contrast, in the Fairfax County Courthouse, the judge ruled on matters of law but it was the jury which alone weighed the evidence presented and determined matter of fact.  Thus in London one legally trained judge assessed the evidence which hung on the issue of whether Mr Depp subjected Ms Heard to violent abuse during their brief and clearly turbulent union.  The judge found he had whereas seven lay-people, sitting as a jury concluded he had not.  The two processes are difficult to compare because judges provide written judgments (comprising the ratio decidendi (the reasons for the finding) and sometimes some obiter dictum (other matters of interest not actually critical in reaching the decision)) whereas juries operate in secret and what was discussed in the three days they took to deliberate isn’t known although there are hints in the list of questions they presented to the judge before delivering the verdict.  Those hints however hardly compare with Mr Justice Nichol’s (b 1951) ruling of some 67,000 words.

Sue Lyon (1946-2019) in pussy bow blouse in the film Lolita (1962) (left) and with pussy (right) in an image from a pre-release publicity set for the film, shot in 1960 by Bert Stern (1929-2013).

What happened in the two trials was not exactly comparable.  In the US, much was made of several statements earlier made by Ms Heard which, although not directly concerned with the matters being litigated, once proved untrue, were used by Mr Depp’s legal team to undermine Ms Heard’s credibility.  The matter of the US$7 million divorce settlement was for example mentioned by Mr Justice Nichol as an example of Ms Heard’s credibility because she didn't profit from divorcing Mr Depp, citing her announcement that she would donate the settlement to charity.  That she failed to do and perhaps remarkably, it wasn’t something at the time challenged by Mr Depp’s lawyers so the judge accepted it as fact.  Whether, had the judge known the truth, his findings would have be different will never be known.  Of interest too is that as a matter of law, Ms Heard's lawyers were not allowed to tell the jury the result of the UK trial and that in London Mr Depp's lawyers had made it clear they felt it unfair they were compelled to sue the newspaper and not Ms Heard.  In Virginia, as a defendant, Ms Heard became the focus and it did seem much of what was presented to the jury discussed her credibility, not of necessity relating to the substantive matters of the case but also of previous statements and conduct.  When the judgment in London was appealed, that was rejected by two judges of the Court of Appeal which may encourage Ms Heard.  Proceeding with an appeal in the US is a high-risk business and there are financial impediments even to lodging the papers but it is something which will not involve a jury, decided instead on points of law and procedure by judges less likely than jury members to be influenced by films they’ve seen, pussy bows or other extraneous material.

Tiresomely difficult though some find the process (made more difficult by manufacturers using different conventions to express sizing), an expert will always find a bra with a perfect fit.

A pussy bow is thought either a fashion accessory or accoutrement depending on the way one thinks about things but however classified, the things intrinsically are ornamental.  However, because of their placement, if made with a sufficient volume of material, they can also be a modesty device on the model of the fig leaves hurriedly adapted by Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden after committing mankind’s first sin, the tale recounted in the Old Testament’s Book of Genesis:

Genesis 3:1-24 (King James Version of the Bible (KJV, 1611))

(1) Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

(2) And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

(3) But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

(4) And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

(5) For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

(6) And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

(7) And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

(8) And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.

(9) And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

(10) And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.

(11) And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?

(12) And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

(13) And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

(14) And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:

(15) And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

(16) Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

(17) And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

(18) Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

(19) In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

(20) And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.

(21) Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them.

(22) And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

(23) Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

(24) So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

There is much in Genesis including (3:7) the fig leaf inspiring the aprons Freemasons wear to hide their shame, (3:13) women are to blame for everything (a notion which has underpinned much of Christian theology for over 2,000 years) and (3:16) a woman is but a man’s chattel.

Brooks Nader in pussy bow and other items, Paris, July, 2025.

Sports Illustrated model Brooks Nader (b 1996) was in July 2025 photographed leaving Paris’s Laperouse restaurant is a sheer back top, what lay beneath not so much (partially) obscured by an over-sized pussy bow as accentuated.  Some thought obviously went into the ensemble because the pussy bow was neither small enough to be superfluous nor sufficiently bulky to be fig-leafesque.  So, in failing in both roles it succeeded as a piece of click-bait which was of course the design brief.  Interestingly, the pussy bow wasn’t the only (nominal) modesty piece worn by Ms Nader, a pair of “nude” silicone nipple pasties also discretely visible with the pussy bow working as a kind of focus-point for the assembled paparazzi.  Other than that, she was close to unadorned and that was a good decision because she looked so good accessories would have been a needless distraction.

Perhaps curiously, despite the early appearance of the motif, in the art of Christendom, for centuries the fig leaf wasn’t “obligatory” although they appear often enough that at times they must have been at least “desirable” and in other periods and places clearly “essential”.  Once case of practical criticism was the edict by Pius IX (1792–1878; pope 1846-1878) that extant male genitalia on some of the classical statues adorning the Vatican should be “modified” and that involved stonemasons, sculptors and other artisans receiving commissions to “modify or cover” as required, some fig leaves at the time added.  However, the late nineteenth century revisionism was restrained compared with earlier artistic pogroms, the most infamous the “Fig Leaf Campaign”, a crusade against nudity in art (especially male genitalia) initiated by Pope Paul IV (1476–1559; pope 1555-1559) and continued by his successors although it was most associated with the ruling against “lasciviousness” in religious art made in 1563 by the Council of Trent (1545-1563).  It was something very much in the spirit of the Counter-Reformation and it was Pius IV who commissioned artist Daniele da Volterra (circa 1509–1566) to paint over the genitalia Michelangelo (Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni; 1475–1564) had depicted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, appending draperies or loincloths; to his dying day Romans nicknamed Volterra “Il Braghettone” (The Breeches Maker).  As late as the nineteenth century Greco-Roman statues from antiquity were still having their genitals covered with fig leaves (sometimes detachable, a trick the British Museum later adopted to protect Victoria’s (1819–1901; Queen of the UK 1837-1901) delicate sensibilities during her infrequent visits).  However, it’s a persistent myth popes sometimes would be seen atop a ladder, chisel in hand, hammering away for not only did they hire contractors to do the dirty work, what was done was almost always concealment rather than vandalism.  What was consistent however was that popes seen very much to have been penis-focused; despite in stone, marble and on canvas there being many bare breasts in the Vatican’s corridors and museums, there’s no record of pontiffs ever ordering them covered with pussy bows.

Pussy Riot band members Yekaterina Samutsevich (b 1982, left), Maria Alyokhina (b 1988, centre) and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (b 1989, right) in glass-walled dock during a court hearing, Moscow, Friday 17 August, 2012.  Mr Putin (Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; b 1952; president or prime minister of Russia since 1999) is not a fan.

My darling Pussy: The letters of Lloyd George and Frances Stevenson, 1913-1941, (1975), edited by the English historian Alan John Percivale (A.J.P.) Taylor (1906–1990).

Even though it was well into the twenty-first century and the nation had long since succumbed to decadence, Boris Johnson (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022) still raided a few eyebrows when he and his girlfriend moved into No 10 Downing Street, the Tory Party’s few remaining blue stockings outraged because not only were they the first couple to take up official residence there without benefit of marriage but he was at the time still married to his second wife and the mother of four of his children.  History however recalls things had been more debauched, David Lloyd George (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1922) sharing the house during his premiership with not only his wife bit also his mistress, Frances Stevenson (1888–1972), the former usually ensconced upstairs in the prime-ministerial bed while her husband enjoyed his younger companion’s affections a few floors down.

The very modern-sounding arrangement was made possible by Ms Stevenson having been appointed by Lloyd-George as his secretary while he was chancellor of the exchequer, a job offer which was conditional upon her accepting concubinage as part of the job description and it’s never been doubted Lloyd-George was an earlier adopter of KPIs (key performance indicators).  The press were aware of the situation but things were done differently then and not a word of the unusual domestic setup appeared in the papers and surprisingly, even foreign journalists turned a blind eye when Lloyd George attended the Paris Peace Conference (1919) in the company of Ms Stevenson and though the rumor mill among the diplomats would have worked as efficiently then as now, the fiction she was “just his secretary” publicly was maintained by all.  In the lovers’ private conversations, she was his “Pussy” and he her “Tom Cat”, the feline theme taken up in his son’s 1960s biography when he noted of his father: “…with an attractive woman, he was as much to be trusted as a Bengal tiger with a gazelle.”  In 1975, Weidenfeld and Nicolson published My darling Pussy: The letters of Lloyd George and Frances Stevenson, 1913-1941, edited by A.J.P. Taylor.

Ffion Hague, Baroness Hague of Richmond, DBE.

Flawed like us all, Lloyd George was one of the great characters of twentieth century politics and one of the more noted political machinators, his life continuing to attract historians.  In writing The Pain and the Privilege: The Women in Lloyd George's Life (2008) Ffion Hague (b 1968 and the wife of William Hague (b 1961; leader of the British Conservative Party 1997-2001)) was, as a Welsh nationalist, perhaps biased and in much the same way A.J.P. Taylor’s hero-worship of Lord Beaverbrook (Maxwell Aitken, 1879-1964) made his 1972 biography of the press lord so vivid, Lady Hague’s views are not so much between the lines as the lines themselves but this is not a criticism of what is a most readable text.  Whether or not Lady Hague was a feminist was something some once felt compelled to debate although there is little to suggest she much dwelt on the matter but in declining to censure Lloyd George for his exploitive sexual relationships with women, she doubtlessly disappointed some of the sisterhood.  Her take on his many conquests was that things were really symbiotic; the women involved being well-informed individuals who knew what they were doing and ultimately gained from the relationships, brief though often they proved.  Her book was certainly a change from the tradition of treating Lloyd George’s proclivities as cynically and shamelessly transactional but, of course, as has long been known, there may also have been something of the physiologically deterministic in it.  When Albert James (A.J.) Sylvester (1889–1989; principal private secretary (PPS) to Lloyd George, 1923-1945) in 1947 published The Real Lloyd George, drawn from his diaries, the entry which drew most comment an admiring comment about the Welsh Wizard’s penis: “…the biggest I have ever seen.”  Disappointing some, Mr Sylvester didn't burden his readers with the details or extent of the observational history which made his comparison possible but it's presumed he was on some basis an empiricist.

Horizontal integration: CHAZZ Pussy Chips.

Formed in 2018, CHAZZ Chips is a Lithuanian company with origins in the Trakai district.  The operation describes itself as a “crazy young team” which was inspired to enter the potato chip (crisps in some places) business because of “totally boring and unhealthy snack shelves!”, thus the goal to “bring a variety of bold flavours and offer a healthier alternative to snacks.”  Using potatoes, beetroot & carrots grown on Lithuanian farms, the range of flavours is wide including some the company describes as being “things that most people probably wouldn't even dare to think about!”  That approach (“different, bold, inventive, proactive”) yielded the “first and only Putė and Pimpalo flavored chips in the world” but CHAZZ became most famous for their skandalingi-produktai (scandalous products) such as the (1) the Virginity Set (including the flavors Pussy & Dick), (2) the Naughty Valentine Set, a gift box which included the Virginity range as well as ChoClits and Sparkling Willies and (3 & 4) a brace of Libido Booster chips, the two recipes advertised as “for him” and “for her” which seems anachronistic given both could be gifts for him or her depending on their proclivities and some might enjoy both, even simultaneously.  There is much science to the development of taste and smell in the food business but CHAZZ unfortunately don’t document the processes involved in creating (and presumably taste-testing) the Pussy and Dick flavours.