The "myth" about black men having large penises, was it a Jewish creation or natural European fascination and observation? (1700's literature cited)

[Mogwarts_Dropout]

If you don't wanna read the whole thing go to the TLDR at the bottom for a quick summary





While Europeans had been in contact with (black) Africans for a long time, and had discussed for a while their physical appearance, character, and customs, the notion that black men had large penises only appeared, in writing at least, in the early 17th century.
One of the first mention of this can be found in the Description and Historical Account of the Gold Kingdom of Guinea (1602), by Dutch explorer and trader Pieter de Marees. In a chapter titled "About the physical proportions of the Men in this Country and to what they may be compared in quality", Marees describes the various groups of people he met and includes two remarks about the Guineans' penis size.

Generally they are well-endowed below the belt, surpassing our Dutch nation in this respect; and being fully conscious of this, they do not spare it, but make it work.

Meers later add that "they are blessed with a large male member" (een groote Mannelickheydt). The illustration that accompanies the text shows on the left a naked man whose back is turned from the reader, who is thus spared the view of an organ rivalling those of Dutchmen. The text lists some positive qualities of the Guineans (good workers, strong, tough, good eyesight, quick learners) but also negative ones: they're avaricious, drunkards, gluttonous, and sexually rapacious (Sutton, 2012):

They are Lecherous and very inclined to fornication, generally committing adultery with young girls, so that they are much subject to Pocks, the Clap, and so on.

This basically encapsulates a discourse on the "hypersexuality" of Africans that will be repeated ad nauseam for the centuries to come, the penis size being just one element of this discourse.
But what did science say? The Anatomy (1611) of Dutch physician Caspar Bartholin the Elder is a large, exhaustive, and influential medical treaty. It includes a chapter on the penis, with a discussion on its magnitudo:

The size, which consists in thickness and length, varies both in the species and in the individual. In particular, it is as large for man as is required for procreating a child: but in proportion it is shorter than in many brutes, because of the way congress happens in the human race, which does not happen like it does in brutes [remember that doggy fashion was a no-no]. There is great variation in individuals. For it is mostly greater 1. In small men. 2. In those who abstain from intercourse, if Galen is to be believed. 3. If the umbilical vessels are not closely tied to the umbilicus in infants. For others, because of the urachus, the bladder and the neighboring parts are drawn upward. In some nations the size of this member is more remarkable.

But what nations exactly? Caspar Bartholin doesn't say, but the century is still young.
Another notable text on the topic is The golden trade; or, A discovery of the river Gambra, and the golden trade of the Aethiopians, written by English explorer Richard Jobson and published in 1623. Here, Jobson repeats the "curse of Ham" trope popularized by other authors before him, notably the Italian scholar (and fraudster) Annius of Viterbo:

For undoubtedly these people originally sprung from the race of Canaan, the sonne of Ham, who discovered his father Noahs secrets, for which Noah awakeing cursed Canaan as our holy Scripture testifieth, the curse as by Scholemen hath been disputed, extended to his ensuing race, in laying hold upon the same place, where the originall cause began, whereof these people are witnesse, who are furnisht with such members as are after a sort burthensome unto them.

Is Jobson saying that the curse of black people is to have penises so large that they're "burdensome"? It's a little bit unclear. To his credit, Jobson refused to buy enslaved women, telling the slave merchant:

We were a people, who did not deale in any such commodities, neither did wee buy or sell one another, or any that had our owne shapes.

And now we can cite the Anthropometamorphosis (1650) of English physician John Bulwer. It's a popular medical book written in English, more accessible to lay readers than Bartholin's Anatomy. It also has a few lines on the penis and its magnitudo, which is basically a rewriting of Bartholin with some additional comments.

And indeed the length and thickness thereof varies in respect of the particular creature, or individuum, because it is formed according to the proportion of the members, yet sometimes it is larger in a little man, because of the abundance of the proportion of fathers seed, of which it is framed, for the Seed falleth from every part of a mans body, and carrieth in it power of generating that part from whence it fell. But it may be these Guineans, tamper not with Nature, but have this prerogative from the subtle indulgency of their Midwives. For it is thought it will be longer, if the Navel-strings be not close knit by the Midwives when the Child is new-borne, and that because of a Ligament which commeth to the Navill from the bottome of the bladder, which they call Urachos; for, the straighter that is tyed to the Navell, the more the bladders and the parts adjoyning are drawn upward. Yet Spigelius saies, he cannot well conceive in his mind how this can be done. But for the matter of practice he reports, that upon this conceit Midwives leave a longer part of the Navell-string of a Male than they do of a female, because in Males they would have the Instrument of Generation long, that so they may not be cowards in the Schooles of Venus. Now if the supposition be true, we are all at the mercy of the Midwives for our sufficiencie. In which operation Authors make much adoe, and Midwives at present can scarce agree about the place.

So Bulwer credits the Guineans (from Marees?) for having long penises, but that's because their cunning midwives have designed a penis enlargement procedure that is performed at birth. Is African post-natal surgery the future for English penises (or Dutch ones if we believe Marees)? Not so fast!

This we may however affirme in the honour of Nature, that whatever augmentation in this or any other part is gained by Art, or besides the will and ordinary allowance of Nature, it is commonly attended with some inconvenience. And there are reasons for it; for the magnitude grossenesse, and foule, and immoderate longitude of the Organ of Generation is a twofold hinderance to fruitfulnesse.

Then follows a text in Latin explaining how large penises are dangerous for women and likely to wound the uterus, and to cause incontinence and "perpetual diarrhoea". Also, the painfulness of the act prevents the woman from orgasming, so that she cannot emit her own semen (then believed to be required for conception). So: no babies. No need to emulate the Guineans then.
Let's go back to travel books and their hypersexual, hyperendowed black men. Winthrop Jordan, in White over Black (1968), cites The Golden Coast: Or, A Description of Guinney. (1665), by an anonymous English writer:

[Black people are] very lustful and impudent, especially, when they come to hide their nakedness, (for a Negroes hiding his Members, their extraordinary greatness) is a token of their Lust, and therefore much troubled with the Pox.

Another popular book of the second half of the 17th century is the Description of Africa (1668) by Dutch physician and writer Olfert Dapper, a long and detailed work based on reports of jesuist priests and Dutch explorers. Describing Guinean natives:

Furthermore, they are small of belly, wide of feet, long of toes, and endowed, like all the blacks along the entire Guinean coast, with a large manhood, which they love very much.

The grote mannelijkheit strikes again and one wonders whether it was just borrowed from Pieter de Marees. The book was translated in several languages. The English version, published in 1670 by Scottish editor John Ogilby, translates "large manhood" into "large Propagators" and forgets the Guineans' pride. The French version of 1686, though published in Amsterdam and thus not subject to royal censorship, does not mention penis size at all. Instead, the corresponding text is replaced with one saying Guineans are "light for running": they're good sprinters, another stereotype in making.
In 1686 was published a posthumous edition of the Anatomy of Dutch physician Thomas Bartholin, son of Caspar the Elder and brother of Caspar the Young, who identified the glands that provide vaginal lubrication. This is basically a revision of their father's book of 1611 cited previously. There are now nice anatomical drawings of penises, and a couple of additions.

.4. Noses: for the penis is in great proportion to the nose, if we believe Physiognomy. 5. endowed with stupid and ass-like intelligence. In some nations the size of this member is more remarkable, such as the Ethiopians.

Science had spoken! One of the greatest anatomists of his time had established that 1) Big nose means big penis, 2) People with big penises are stupid and 3) That "Ethiopians" (from Jobson?) ie black people are the winners of the Penis Size World Cup.

Nonnullis nationibus magnitudo hujus membri est insignior, ut AEthiopibus.

>CONTINUED

Continued

After that, mentioning the penis size of black people became a staple of travel, science, and popular literature.

Here's a few lines about the pros and cons of penis enlargement pills, from the best selling A General History of the Pyrates (1724) by "Captain Charles Johnson", the book that kickstarted the whole "Pirates of the Caribbean" mythology.

I was shewn the Bark of one (whose Name I do not know) gravely affirmed to have a peculiar Property of enlarging the Virile Member; I am not fond of such Conceits, nor believe it in the Power of any Vegetables, but must acknowledge, I have seen Sights of this kind among the Negroes very extraordinary ; yet, that there may be no Wishes among the Ladies for the Importation of this Bark, I must acquaint them, that they are found to grow less vigorous, as they encrease in Bulk.

Large-endowed black men and the women who covet them...

By the 18th century, the idea that black men and women were sexually aggressive and natural "fornicators", and that the men were endowed with large and powerful "propagators", was solidly entrenched in Western cultures, and not just in slaveowning circles. Winthrop Jordan cites German anthropologist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, who wrote in 1795:

It is generally said that the penis in the Negro is very large. And this assertion is so far borne out by the remarkable genitory apparatus of an Ethiopian which I have in my anatomical collection. Whether this prerogative be constant and peculiar to the nation I do not know. It is said that women when eager for venery prefer the embraces of Negroes to those of other men. On the other hand, that Ethiopian and Mulatto women are particularly sought out by Europeans. The cause of this preference may be various, but I do not know what it is.

Edward Long, a plantation owner in Jamaica could write in 1772 (cited by Whitford):

The lower class of women in England are remarkably fond of the blacks for reasons too brutal to mention; they would connect themselves to horses or asses if the laws permitted them. By these ladies they generally have a numerous brood. Thus, in the course of a few generations more English blood will become contaminated with this mixture.

So: the idea that African men are particularly well endowed was first created by European explorers visiting sub-saharan Africa in the late 16th-early 17th century, when the Atlantic slave trade was developing. These texts were not concerned by slavery itself (we even saw that Jobson was against slavery) but their increasingly racial considerations about the physical and moral aspects of Africans became part of the corpus of geographical and scientific knowledge that allowed the slave trade to develop. By presenting Africans as animalistic, notably from a sexual perspective, and ready to "conquer" white women willing to be conquered, these authors provided ammunition for the moral justification of slavery. Penis size was a minor point, but always a particularly graphic and popular one, which certainly explains its longevity to this day.



Sources

• Bartholin, Casparus senior. Anatomicae institutiones corporis humani utriusque sexus (etc.). Berhtoldus Raab, 1611. https://books.google.fr/books?id=PnpVAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA135.
• Bartholin, Thomas. Thomae Bartholini Anatome ex omnium veterum recentiorumque observationibus inprimis institutionibus b.m. parentis Caspari Bartholini. apud Jacobum Hackium, 1686. https://books.google.fr/books?id=bMJkAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA235.
• Bulwer, John. A View of the People of the Whole World: Or, a Short Survey of Their Policies, Dispositions, Naturall Deportments, Complexions, Ancient and Moderne Customes, Etc. London: William Hunt, 1654. https://books.google.fr/books?id=35ZmAAAAcAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&pg=PA400#v=onepage&f=false.
• Dapper, Olfert. Naukeurige beschrijvinge der Afrikaensche gewesten van Egypten, Barbaryen, Libyen, Biledulgerid, Negroslant, Guinea, Ethiopiën, Abyssinie. t’Amsterdam : By Jacob van Meurs, 1668. http://archive.org/details/gri_33125009359999.
• Dapper, Olfert. Description de l’Afrique : contenant les noms, la situation et les confins de toutes ses parties. Amsterdam: Wolfgang, Waesberge, Boom & van Someren, 1686. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k104385v.
• Jobson, Richard. The Golden Trade; or, A Discovery of the River Gambra, and the Golden Trade of the Aethiopians. London, Penguin Press, 1968 (1623). http://archive.org/details/goldentradeordis0000jobs.
• Johnson, Charles. A General History of the Pyrates. Printed for, and sold by T. Woodward, 1726. https://books.google.fr/books?id=oipEAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA200.
• Jordan, Winthrop D. White Over Black: American Attitudes toward the Negro, 1550-1812. UNC Press Books, 2013 (1968). https://books.google.fr/books?id=fi7qCQAAQBAJ.
• Marees, Pieter de. Beschryvinghe ende historische verhael, vant gout koninckrijck van Gunea, anders de Gout-custe de Mina genaemt, liggende in het deel van Africa. by Cornelis Claesz, vvoonende opt Water int Schrijfboeck, 1602. https://books.google.fr/books?id=nS5lAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA14#v=onepage&q&f=false.
• Ogilby, John. Africa: Being Accurate Description of the Regions of Aegypt, Barbary, Lybia, and Billendulgerid, the Land of Negroes, Guinee, AEthiopia, and the Abyssines; with All the Adjacent Island. T. Johnson, 1670. https://books.google.fr/books?id=P_3qs0yW6CQC&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&pg=PA451#v=onepage&f=false.
• Sutton, Elizabeth A. Early Modern Dutch Prints of Africa. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2012. https://books.google.fr/books/about/Early_Modern_Dutch_Prints_of_Africa.html?id=TflJSaElxdkC.
• The Golden Coast: Or, A Description of Guinney. S. Speed, 1665.
• Whitford, David Mark. The Curse of Ham in the Early Modern Era: The Bible and the Justifications for Slavery. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2009. https://books.google.fr/books/about/The_Curse_of_Ham_in_the_Early_Modern_Era.html?id=hMb7_SL-OJYC.

*TLDR: Yes. It's true, it wasn't the Jews, it was European whites that first found BBC fascinating and YES it is real according to all European literature and eye witness accounts form as far back as European physical descriptions of blacks go.*

The highest consumers of BBC porn is white men. This is a fact. BBC fascination and obsession with black male bodies has been rooted in white anglo Saxon Germanic culture for as long as they've known about blacks.

*Fun fact*: When whites used to lynch blacks, they would always cut off their penis because they were so enamored with it (fact)

In short? Das right whyt boi.

 

[kemicle]

Nigger

Dnrd even a quark

 

[ascensionisgold]

If you don't wanna read the whole thing go to the TLDR at the bottom for a quick summary





While Europeans had been in contact with (black) Africans for a long time, and had discussed for a while their physical appearance, character, and customs, the notion that black men had large penises only appeared, in writing at least, in the early 17th century.
One of the first mention of this can be found in the Description and Historical Account of the Gold Kingdom of Guinea (1602), by Dutch explorer and trader Pieter de Marees. In a chapter titled "About the physical proportions of the Men in this Country and to what they may be compared in quality", Marees describes the various groups of people he met and includes two remarks about the Guineans' penis size.

Meers later add that "they are blessed with a large male member" (een groote Mannelickheydt). The illustration that accompanies the text shows on the left a naked man whose back is turned from the reader, who is thus spared the view of an organ rivalling those of Dutchmen. The text lists some positive qualities of the Guineans (good workers, strong, tough, good eyesight, quick learners) but also negative ones: they're avaricious, drunkards, gluttonous, and sexually rapacious (Sutton, 2012):

This basically encapsulates a discourse on the "hypersexuality" of Africans that will be repeated ad nauseam for the centuries to come, the penis size being just one element of this discourse.
But what did science say? The Anatomy (1611) of Dutch physician Caspar Bartholin the Elder is a large, exhaustive, and influential medical treaty. It includes a chapter on the penis, with a discussion on its magnitudo:

But what nations exactly? Caspar Bartholin doesn't say, but the century is still young.
Another notable text on the topic is The golden trade; or, A discovery of the river Gambra, and the golden trade of the Aethiopians, written by English explorer Richard Jobson and published in 1623. Here, Jobson repeats the "curse of Ham" trope popularized by other authors before him, notably the Italian scholar (and fraudster) Annius of Viterbo:

Is Jobson saying that the curse of black people is to have penises so large that they're "burdensome"? It's a little bit unclear. To his credit, Jobson refused to buy enslaved women, telling the slave merchant:

And now we can cite the Anthropometamorphosis (1650) of English physician John Bulwer. It's a popular medical book written in English, more accessible to lay readers than Bartholin's Anatomy. It also has a few lines on the penis and its magnitudo, which is basically a rewriting of Bartholin with some additional comments.

So Bulwer credits the Guineans (from Marees?) for having long penises, but that's because their cunning midwives have designed a penis enlargement procedure that is performed at birth. Is African post-natal surgery the future for English penises (or Dutch ones if we believe Marees)? Not so fast!

Then follows a text in Latin explaining how large penises are dangerous for women and likely to wound the uterus, and to cause incontinence and "perpetual diarrhoea". Also, the painfulness of the act prevents the woman from orgasming, so that she cannot emit her own semen (then believed to be required for conception). So: no babies. No need to emulate the Guineans then.
Let's go back to travel books and their hypersexual, hyperendowed black men. Winthrop Jordan, in White over Black (1968), cites The Golden Coast: Or, A Description of Guinney. (1665), by an anonymous English writer:

Another popular book of the second half of the 17th century is the Description of Africa (1668) by Dutch physician and writer Olfert Dapper, a long and detailed work based on reports of jesuist priests and Dutch explorers. Describing Guinean natives:

The grote mannelijkheit strikes again and one wonders whether it was just borrowed from Pieter de Marees. The book was translated in several languages. The English version, published in 1670 by Scottish editor John Ogilby, translates "large manhood" into "large Propagators" and forgets the Guineans' pride. The French version of 1686, though published in Amsterdam and thus not subject to royal censorship, does not mention penis size at all. Instead, the corresponding text is replaced with one saying Guineans are "light for running": they're good sprinters, another stereotype in making.
In 1686 was published a posthumous edition of the Anatomy of Dutch physician Thomas Bartholin, son of Caspar the Elder and brother of Caspar the Young, who identified the glands that provide vaginal lubrication. This is basically a revision of their father's book of 1611 cited previously. There are now nice anatomical drawings of penises, and a couple of additions.

Science had spoken! One of the greatest anatomists of his time had established that 1) Big nose means big penis, 2) People with big penises are stupid and 3) That "Ethiopians" (from Jobson?) ie black people are the winners of the Penis Size World Cup.


>CONTINUED

Continued

After that, mentioning the penis size of black people became a staple of travel, science, and popular literature.

Here's a few lines about the pros and cons of penis enlargement pills, from the best selling A General History of the Pyrates (1724) by "Captain Charles Johnson", the book that kickstarted the whole "Pirates of the Caribbean" mythology.


Large-endowed black men and the women who covet them...

By the 18th century, the idea that black men and women were sexually aggressive and natural "fornicators", and that the men were endowed with large and powerful "propagators", was solidly entrenched in Western cultures, and not just in slaveowning circles. Winthrop Jordan cites German anthropologist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, who wrote in 1795:


Edward Long, a plantation owner in Jamaica could write in 1772 (cited by Whitford):


So: the idea that African men are particularly well endowed was first created by European explorers visiting sub-saharan Africa in the late 16th-early 17th century, when the Atlantic slave trade was developing. These texts were not concerned by slavery itself (we even saw that Jobson was against slavery) but their increasingly racial considerations about the physical and moral aspects of Africans became part of the corpus of geographical and scientific knowledge that allowed the slave trade to develop. By presenting Africans as animalistic, notably from a sexual perspective, and ready to "conquer" white women willing to be conquered, these authors provided ammunition for the moral justification of slavery. Penis size was a minor point, but always a particularly graphic and popular one, which certainly explains its longevity to this day.



Sources

• Bartholin, Casparus senior. Anatomicae institutiones corporis humani utriusque sexus (etc.). Berhtoldus Raab, 1611. https://books.google.fr/books?id=PnpVAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA135.
• Bartholin, Thomas. Thomae Bartholini Anatome ex omnium veterum recentiorumque observationibus inprimis institutionibus b.m. parentis Caspari Bartholini. apud Jacobum Hackium, 1686. https://books.google.fr/books?id=bMJkAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA235.
• Bulwer, John. A View of the People of the Whole World: Or, a Short Survey of Their Policies, Dispositions, Naturall Deportments, Complexions, Ancient and Moderne Customes, Etc. London: William Hunt, 1654. https://books.google.fr/books?id=35ZmAAAAcAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&pg=PA400#v=onepage&f=false.
• Dapper, Olfert. Naukeurige beschrijvinge der Afrikaensche gewesten van Egypten, Barbaryen, Libyen, Biledulgerid, Negroslant, Guinea, Ethiopiën, Abyssinie. t’Amsterdam : By Jacob van Meurs, 1668. http://archive.org/details/gri_33125009359999.
• Dapper, Olfert. Description de l’Afrique : contenant les noms, la situation et les confins de toutes ses parties. Amsterdam: Wolfgang, Waesberge, Boom & van Someren, 1686. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k104385v.
• Jobson, Richard. The Golden Trade; or, A Discovery of the River Gambra, and the Golden Trade of the Aethiopians. London, Penguin Press, 1968 (1623). http://archive.org/details/goldentradeordis0000jobs.
• Johnson, Charles. A General History of the Pyrates. Printed for, and sold by T. Woodward, 1726. https://books.google.fr/books?id=oipEAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA200.
• Jordan, Winthrop D. White Over Black: American Attitudes toward the Negro, 1550-1812. UNC Press Books, 2013 (1968). https://books.google.fr/books?id=fi7qCQAAQBAJ.
• Marees, Pieter de. Beschryvinghe ende historische verhael, vant gout koninckrijck van Gunea, anders de Gout-custe de Mina genaemt, liggende in het deel van Africa. by Cornelis Claesz, vvoonende opt Water int Schrijfboeck, 1602. https://books.google.fr/books?id=nS5lAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA14#v=onepage&q&f=false.
• Ogilby, John. Africa: Being Accurate Description of the Regions of Aegypt, Barbary, Lybia, and Billendulgerid, the Land of Negroes, Guinee, AEthiopia, and the Abyssines; with All the Adjacent Island. T. Johnson, 1670. https://books.google.fr/books?id=P_3qs0yW6CQC&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&pg=PA451#v=onepage&f=false.
• Sutton, Elizabeth A. Early Modern Dutch Prints of Africa. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2012. https://books.google.fr/books/about/Early_Modern_Dutch_Prints_of_Africa.html?id=TflJSaElxdkC.
• The Golden Coast: Or, A Description of Guinney. S. Speed, 1665.
• Whitford, David Mark. The Curse of Ham in the Early Modern Era: The Bible and the Justifications for Slavery. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2009. https://books.google.fr/books/about/The_Curse_of_Ham_in_the_Early_Modern_Era.html?id=hMb7_SL-OJYC.

*TLDR: Yes. It's true, it wasn't the Jews, it was European whites that first found BBC fascinating and YES it is real according to all European literature and eye witness accounts form as far back as European physical descriptions of blacks go.*

The highest consumers of BBC porn is white men. This is a fact. BBC fascination and obsession with black male bodies has been rooted in white anglo Saxon Germanic culture for as long as they've known about blacks.

*Fun fact*: When whites used to lynch blacks, they would always cut off their penis because they were so enamored with it (fact)

In short? Das right whyt boi.

 

[kemicle]

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