Horse-riding was integrally linked with notions of nobility, and this story was also a perfect subversion of Catherine’s noted equestrian skills. (In reality she died from a stroke.) The use of horse-riding as a sexual metaphor had a long history in libelous attacks on courtly women. About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators. These depictions included the most notorious myth of all: it was claimed that, during an orgy of bestiality, Catherine died when the harness that was suspending a stallion above her broke, causing her to be crushed by the horse. The men, Terry Wallace, 41, Matthew Brubaker, 31, and Marc Measnikoff, 34, all lived on the same farm on Mouse Lane and face an astounding 1,460 counts of sexual intercourse with animals as well as counts of animal cruelty. Read more: How Marie Antoinette's Legacy Was Sullied by Vicious Songs About Her Death were arrested for allegedly performing lewd sex acts on a number of farm animals. British presses did the same with obscene political cartoons. Revolutionary presses happily poured out the same kind of polemical prose that depicted Catherine as prey to her voracious sexual appetite. In France, where Catherine’s lack of support for the recent Revolution meant that she had become a vilified representative of the ancien régime, the same kind of pornographic libels that had been used against Marie Antoinette were ready to be deployed against her. So what does loving animals mean In this book the renowned historian Joanna Bourke explores the modern history of sex between humans and animals.
Accounts of Cleopatra’s life, for example, all originate from Romans, who were eager to glorify the Roman Empire and its founder Octavius Augustus, who had been Cleopatra’s rival. These women, who did not conform to the reductive vision of second-class submissive wife to a more powerful man, suffered repeated slander always based in invented accusations of sexual insatiability.Īt each point, these stories originate in the minds of their greatest enemies. 6 Scandals That Rocked the Winter Olympics