In today’s segment on blogging about Victorian News, it is Victorian Era Dug Play (or well, I’m stretching that era up a little until like the 1920, but don’t tell my Mistress).

Anyway, since for the two weeks that being detoxed of today’s current affairs and news and instead am forced to read things of over a 100-years ago instead – today it was the adverts for various pills that caught my eye. I mean that various drugs where legal back then is not news to anyone of course, see Fraud’s writings on cocaine for example, but well let’s have some fun with it anyway.

I first stumbled upon the Gin Pill and then a page later a very inconspicuous advert of Dr. Martel’s Female Pil’s (supposedly already 18 years the standard pill – but for what, no one knows). After that I figured I would search a bit more targeted and came across Cocaine in Dental Surgery which also briefly described the usefulness of cocaine for getting rid of undesirable alcohol habits.

While I didn’t manage to find anything actually tying kink in with all the popular, and legal, drugs of the time, I think it would be fair to say they must have had some fun with that no? (or maybe that’s just my fantasies getting the better of me) There was a, not very well watched but recent, YouTube video on “How Drugs Helped Victorian Sex Workers Endure the Work”, but that’s not quite the same. Another video by the same channel on “The Drugs That Made Refined Victorian Women Scandalous” might be more in the right direction, but as both videos have “Boring History for Sleep” in their thumbnail and are around 2,5 hours long – I haven’t tried them so unable to give a good review.

Virginia Berridge’s article in the Medical Journal (1988, 32: 51-64) about The Origins of the English Drug “Scene” 1890 – 1930 comes kind of close by detailing the literary subculture (and later including theater people, army officers, aristocrats, and artists) where substance usage and fascinations around the occult are brought into connection. Anyway, worth a read and found with a quick internet search but I’m afraid to turn it into drug play in the kink meaning of that, you still need to use your imagination.

Also, be sure to read: Intoxication & Drug play