stripping the gurus - Brahma Kumaris Info

310 STRIPPING THE GURUS
Tail, in Shakespearean slang, denotes the female
sexual organ just about as often as the male, so there
need be no doubt that Petruchio, in his crudely flirtatious
way, is trying to interest Katherina in the proposition
of cunnilingus (Colman, 1974)
• The “playhouse poultry” in Bartholomew Fair are prostitutes
• In Mercutio’s “Queen Mab” speech from Romeo and Juliet,
the name “Mab” itself was an insult, being synonymous
with “prostitute” in Shakespeare’s time
• Measure for Measure has a brothel run by a “Mistress Overdone,”
along with whores lazily whipping transvestite men.
Also, the pimp Pompey plays comically sadistic games with
his fellow prisoners. The lascivious Lucio in the same script
is finally punished by the restored Duke Vincentio by being
forced to marry a prostitute
• In Love’s Labour’s Lost, “Boyet’s line ‘An if my hand be out,
then belike your hand is in’ is accusing Maria of masturbation”
(Colman, 1974)
• In Henry IV, if “as seems probable, Falstaff’s ‘neither fish
nor flesh’ implies ‘neither male nor female,’ then the corollary
‘a man knows not where to have her’ becomes one of
Shakespeare’s very few references to anal intercourse” (Colman,
1974)
• When Juliet’s Nurse demands of Romeo, “Why should you
fall into so deep an O?” the letter O [cf. nothing/nought/
naught/naughty] probably “carries the bawdy implication of
vulva” (Colman, 1974)
• Likewise with Hamlet:
HAMLET: Do you think I meant country matters?
OPHELIA: I think nothing, my lord.
HAMLET: That’s a fair thought to lie between maids’
legs.
OPHELIA: What is, my lord?
HAMLET: Nothing.