An orgy, the dictionary tells us, is “a wild gathering, marked by promiscuous sexual activity, excessive drinking, etc.” Burgo Partridge tells us precisely what that has meant down through the ages. He begins with the Greeks, who celebrated sexuality at Dionysian festivals, and the Romans, who imported unwholesome brutalities into their orgiastic celebrations. We then learn of the penchant for group sex displayed by medieval popes, the junketings of Restoration England, the aristocratic hedonists of the Hellfire Club and Scotland’s notorious Wig Club, the orgiastic tastes of Casanova and the Marquis de Sade, right into the 20th century and the bizarre excesses of Aleister Crowley.

This volume collects the poetry and prose that served as the model and inspiration for so much of fin-de-siecle English and French writing, providing a vivid picture of sexual excess and debauchery in a cruel and violent society which has never ceased to fascinate the library and scholarly imagination of succeeding generations. The editor, novelist Geoffrey Farrington, provides a general introduction to the literary and political milieux of imperial Rome, and introductory notes to works by such authors as Ovid, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Juvenal. "...concentrates on the outrageous behaviour of the ruling class of the Roman Empire, as described in passages selected from the prose, poetry and history of the period. Their murder plots, sexual deviances, orgies, cruelty and incessant intrigue put our politicians and their peccadillos on a play school level." Time Out

"The native American Voltaire, the enemy of all puritans, the heretic in the Sunday school, the one-man demolition crew of the genteel tradition." —Alistair Cooke Fiercely intelligent, scathingly honest, and hysterically funny, H.L. Mencken’s coverage of the Scopes Monkey Trial so galvanized the nation that it eventually inspired a Broadway play and the classic Hollywood movie Inherit the Wind. Mencken’ s no-nonsense sensibility is still exciting: his perceptive rendering of the courtroom drama; his piercing portrayals of key figures Scopes, Clarence Darrow, and William Jennings Bryan; his ferocious take on the fundamentalist culture surrounding it all—including a raucous midnight trip into the woods to witness a secret “holy roller” service. Shockingly, these reports have never been gathered together into a book of their own—until now. A Religious Orgy In Tennessee includes all of Mencken’s reports for The Baltimore Sun, The Nation, and The American Mercury. It even includes his coverage of Bryan’s death just days after the trial—an obituary so withering Mencken was forced by his editors to rewrite it, angering him and leading him to rewrite it yet again in a third version even less forgiving than the first. All three versions are included, as is a complete transcript of the trial’s most legendary exchange: Darrow’s blistering cross-examination of Bryan. With the rise of “intelligent design,” H.L. Mencken’ s work has never seemed more unnervingly timely—or timeless.

From tribal religious rituals to the Playboy mansion, and from ancient Rome to Burning Man, Plays Well in Groups explores the phenomenon of group sex. Author Katherine Frank draws on surveys, ethnographic research, participant interviews, and more to provide explanations for both, participation in group sex and our complex reactions to it, from fascination to fear. This book looks at group sex across cultures—who has it, and why. Group sex is almost always taboo and often criminalized, and yet it persists across cultures throughout history. Plays Well in Groups looks at the symbolism of orgies, as well as contemporary manifestations of group sex in bathhouses and public sex venues, at BDSM and swinging parties, on Craigslist, and in political scandals, Tantra classes, reality television, and more. Frank explores the many reasons people participate in group sex, from arousal to spiritual transcendence, in this bold study of subversive sexuality.

Shark Sex, mutant cats, and strange sexually transmitted diseases. Over the past few decades, sexually transmitted diseases have evolved in unusual ways. Herpes, AIDS, Gonorrhea; these are all STDs of the past. These days, sexually transmitted diseases are more extreme and bizarre. Not exactly diseases anymore, they are more like sexually transmitted body modifications. There's an STD that changes your hair color, an STD that causes your toes to grow larger, one causes you to grow extra breasts on your body, another causes your skin to grow long metal spikes, and there's an especially annoying STD that causes you to ejaculate miniature eyeballs. Tonight is Share Your STD Night at the Demon Seed Swingers Club. Although most members of society fear the idea of contracting these diseases, there are some underground deviants who embrace them. They believe the diseases make them strange, unique, and beautiful. So they come together once a month to trade their wonderful STDs with each other in a surreal, fantastical orgy. However, tonight will not be like other nights. There's a new disease spreading through the sex club, a disease that causes people to become rabid bloodthirsty killing machines. As the infected rampage through the Demon Seed, the survivors realize there's only one thing they can do to survive the night: turn their grotesque STDs into deadly super weapons. Also featuring the short stories: "Candy-Coated" - A buff dude with a lollipop for a head has a hard time picking up the laydaaays due to all of the bearded truckers who keep trying to lick his head. "Ear Cat" - A Kitty of the Month Club selection gone horribly, horribly wrong. "City Hobgoblins" - A member of a punk rock band falls in love with a shark-like creature. (a prequel to the cult novel Satan Burger) "Porno in August" - A group of porn actors find themselves floating in the middle of the ocean, unable to remember who they are or why they are there. (Chosen for The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror)

Peter Cundill (1938-2011) was highly regarded as one of the greatest value investors of his time, but he was also a teacher and mentor who was generous with his knowledge and shared the wealth of his experience with many aspiring investors. He was taken with Aldous Huxley's words that the "rhythm of human life is routine punctuated by orgies," and spent his life shaking off the quotidian tasks that dulled thought and striving for the excitement of new experiences. Supported by four decades of Cundill's meticulously kept daily journals, which are intimate, frank, self-admonishing, and confessional, Routines and Orgies covers all aspects of what Cundill referred to as his "wonderful life" - commercial, artistic, romantic, and adventurous. As he would have wished, the exposure of his investment approach has been carefully continued in this biography by close friend and confidant Christopher Risso-Gill, who initially explored Cundill's professional life in There's Always Something to Do. Routines and Orgies acquaints the reader with a generous and complex man. Spanning over seventy years, and covering most corners of the globe, it is a tale of hard-won professional development and extraordinary challenges faced and survived. Although not meant to be an investment manual, those seeking perspective from an expert mind in finance will find a great deal in its pages.

This title contains Sargent's exquisite vision of a very British way of life and the surprisingly varied sexual beings that populate his imagination: randy schoolmasters and their impossibly cute sixth-formers; caddish seducers and innocent, yet nubile, virgins; voyeuristic butlers and their lusty, young, big-breasted, aristocratic mistresses, naughty, pert, housemaids and their rapacious, philandering masters. This is Sargent at his orgasmic best.