Historical story

For the sake of science, he paid hundreds of women to watch Poles have sex. This doctor was seen in Krakow over 100 years ago [18+]

Stanisław Kurkiewicz wanted to know everything. Get to know female "dreams and sag dreams" and male "sexual sins, their frequency and persistence in committing them." He even asked patients if they were "soaking in witnesses" for erotic fun.

Stanisław Kurkiewicz, active in Krakow from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, considered himself the most distinguished among all experts in the young field of research on sexual life. Not only in Poland, but also in the world!

He fought like a lion to be recognized as the discoverer of sexology. He made theses as bold as risky. He has spoken on everything from masturbation to homosexuality and infant molestation to problems with premature ejaculation and the topic of multiple orgasms in women. In his clinic at 20 Batory Street, he treated impotence and coldness, gave premarital counseling and sex education lessons.

Illustration from the magazine "Free thought, free jokes". 1930

In the "historical curiosities" I have already written about his guide to female masturbation about his views on female pedophilia and about the peculiar dictionary of Dr. Kurkiewicz, containing, inter alia, 32 different terms for orgasm .

Illustration from the magazine "Cupid", 1924.

He could not be denied his enormous knowledge. For a long time, however, the methods of the Krakow doctor's work remained a mystery.

Admiring the gifts of beauty

In the pages of a short brochure (or rather a proclamation) entitled Let's admire the gifts of beauty! he spoke very casually about them. As if in cipher:

Women of all status, age and level of intelligence, who love the science of sex life or scientific sexual education (...) and want to take an active part in collecting works in the field of gender knowledge - I distribute threads (topics) for classes, which classes will be remunerated according to the contract. I only provide explanations orally to applicants. .

For any doubts, the word "orally" is in bold. The print was prepared in 1915. Kurkiewicz was much more effusive in his next text. Maybe he took courage. Or maybe he assumed that the work under the baroque, confusing title would be read only by their own people. After all, it was a text: Human sex life as a branch of medical knowledge or general knowledge, as a branch of medical practice, - and as a social movement:educational, preventive, etc. . It wouldn't be more hermetic.

"Help us, my fellow countrymen!" Asked the doctor solemnly (as he called himself) the sex worker. And from the appeals, he immediately moved to… complaints. First, on their patients. "In our research, we come across stubborn dumb words or liars," he emphasized regretfully.

He pointed to masturbators who come to him but refuse to reveal any details. Say "where, when, with whom" they masturbated. Disclose your ways, thoughts, past experiences with women. Pour out your soul. He denounced the masturbators who sent out letters of questions instead of coming and revealing every detail. But he also complained about his colleagues. People who were satisfied with half-words and twisted relationships. He himself had much greater ambitions. He wanted to know absolutely everything.

"Daily records of active sex life"

"Human scientific curiosity must be satisfied!" - he emphasized seriously and even desperately. How many diseases could he personally heal, how many problems he could remedy, if only patients provided him with "various kinds of testimonies and reports". If women would write down detailed "daily, accurate and comprehensive (...) records of their active sex life" and bring them to his clinic. Finally, if they "confessed in such notes of their innermost preferences." And if they were ready to go smoothly from describing themselves to following… everyone around.

"At the doctor's". Illustration from the "Stork" magazine from 1924.

Kurkiewicz lamented that, unlike laymen, ie "people who do not belong to the building of the building of general medical knowledge", he does not have access to many facts. People stubbornly and maliciously hide the truth from him. The doctor is a bit like a policeman after all. Man runs away from him "with everything." But out of an ordinary passerby, neighbor or family member, "no one is doing anything to himself." The sex doctor needed to have his eyes and ears in the streets, courtyards and in the bedrooms of Krakow. Preferably on every street, at every gate and under every bed. He turned directly to women for help:

Please, ladies from me, this printed invitation:to investigators of sex life. Invitation to collect events (...) seen or heard. (…)

For games and activities, for walks, gatherings, etc., collect whatever you can. And then do not forget about the poor sex-worker, collecting for such important and salutary purposes as getting to know (...) the sexual soul in a man, and even more in a woman, getting to know human sexual sins of various kinds, their frequency, persistence in committing them, cunning and deceitfulness in committing (...) sexual ways ...

Pontoon. Illustration from magazine Free Thought, Free Jokes. 1932

Poland's first voyeur

The doctor encouraged teenage girls to cooperate as professional voyeurs. He assured them that he would approach them "gently" and act in such a way that they would not be embarrassed about it. He guaranteed that if any investigator became over-excited in the course of her work, he would soothe her nerves. In a word:he was ready to say and do anything to get the desired data.

For those willing, he has prepared a whole list of expectations. Ladies were supposed to peek at him and describe:

Male and female self-abuse; sexual exposure in men (male exhibitionism); female exposure; soaking in front of witnesses; feminine tastes modest and insidious; female curiosity about the view, appearance and anatomy of the male gender; men who are bathing or showering; sex in boys and boys; a pleasure in playing with the male sex or boyish (merdanka); dreams and dreams of a sag; fun and activities with boys and boys; likes to masturbate others, of the same or opposite sex; activities and fun of women with dogs ...

One of the tenement houses at Batory in Krakow. It was on this street that doctor Kurkiewicz received.

The list went on, and in the end even Kurkiewicz was forced to admit that he was unable to write down all his needs and that he certainly omitted matters that had not occurred to him. However, he made a reservation that he expected detailed and meticulous reports.

It was necessary to state:"Time (date), time (day, night, morning, noon, evening), place and place, position, dignity, location, age, status (single, married, widow)." Plus, of course, write down any intimate details.

The physician-sex worker needed all of this, of course, for the sake of science and (as he has repeatedly emphasized) for the glory of God. But I guess also a bit because he simply had something of a voyeur about him. And he had the nerve or courage to turn Krakow into his private, voyeuristic Eldorado.