Short of titillating conversation? Uncomfortable silences got you down? Amaze your friends, family and work colleagues, and be a winner at the next trivia night with Eros’ ongoing series of completely useless sexual trivia.

Forget American Pie… one of the oldest and most common ways to masturbate is with a banana. A woman can simply insert it to simulate a penis. But for a man you cut off one end of the banana and squeeze out the fruit. The shaft is then used like a vagina. There are dozen of websites out there devoted to the art of banana shagging… Google “banana+masturbation” and see what great tips pop up!!

Popular children’s toy, Barbie's looks were inspired by Bild Lilli, a 1950s comic strip prostitute created for German newspaper, Bild.

Until quite recently America boasted a Society for Indecency to Naked Animals. As Peter Fryer nicely observes it should have been "against" rather than "for" "but the founder was stricken in years when he drew up his will." What worried the Society was the sight of naked sex organs on animals. In consequence efforts were quickly made to design bikinis for stallions, petticoats for cows, knickers for bulldogs, and boxer shorts for small animals.

In more dissolute times the Roman Catholic confessional was used by randy priests as a means of recruiting likely women.

The testicles of the blue whale average 2.5 feet long (0.85m) and weigh about 110lbs. (50kg).

Kitty – one of the most successful 18th century prostitutes – moved in such wealthy circles that she could command the extraordinary sum of 100 guineas a night. The Duke of York, after spending a night with Kitty, gave her a mere fifty-pound note, since it was all he had with him. She promptly dismissed him and refused to receive him again. To further show her contempt, she sent the banknote to a pastry chef with instructions that it be baked into a tart and served up for breakfast.

The Bataks of Sumatra insert lumps of stone into wounds made in the penis. When the wounds heal, the penis is lumpy, thus supposedly giving more pleasure to the woman in coitus.

The fishermen of the East African coast from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean have regular coitus with the carcasses of the female dugong, an herbivorous aquatic mammal about eight feet in length. The vagina of the female is said to resemble anatomically that of a woman. Coitus with the carcass is thought to be necessary to "lay the ghost" of the creature: otherwise it might pursue the hunter. It was for this sort of reason that the ancient Egyptians and various other peoples committed sodomy on the bodies of fallen enemies.

The word ”Queer” used as “homosexual” was first employed in 1925 in the American theatrical periodical called Variety. Other words soon followed, e.g. "gay", "camp" (from the Italian campeggiare, meaning to stand out from a background), "minny", "fairy", "queen", "fag", etc.

In Chinese eighteenth and nineteenth century novels one often reads of a "romantic and comfortable chair". This device appears to have been much in use by outlaws and licentious landlords. The contraption was in the form of a collapsible chair, with automatic clasps fixed to its arms and legs. When a woman was put in the chair the clasps would spring to hold her arms and legs and then the chair would collapse to form a miniature bed. It appears that such chairs were much employed for raping purposes: the possession of them was made illegal under the Manchu rule.

In the Russia of Catherine the Great full-time feet ticklers were essential members of the court.

For centuries, an estimated 40 to 50 per cent of Chinese girls had their feet bound into the deformed "lotus foot" which was the most powerful erotic symbol of that culture until it was banned in the early 20th century. "Lotus societies" existed to teach men about the art of lotus lovemaking and view forms of lotus pornography.

The largest codpiece on display at the Tower of London allegedly belonged to Henry VIII.

Tao philosophy claims that there are specific reflexology points (meridians) on the penis that correspond to different organs of the body.  By massaging these specific points through masturbation, one can bring energy to these organs.

75% of all adult males sport erections that measure between 5 and 7 inches (12.5 – 17.5cm).

The ultimate ambition of female Cleaner fish, living on Indo-Pacific coral reefs is to become male. A male generally dominates a group of females. If however he abandons his harem the most dominant of the remaining females begin to change sex within a few hours.

A look at the notorious porno video done by John Wayne Bobbit shows that his penis is slightly below average in length – around 5”.

The first birth control clinic in the world was opened in Holland in 1882 under the auspices of the Nieuw Malthusiaanschen Bond (the Dutch Malthusian League). The League was founded in 1881 - and was immediately opposed by the medical profession! Two doctors, however, joined the organisation in the early days - Dr. de Rooy (1881) and Dr. Aletta Jacobs (1882), the first woman to become medically qualified in Holland.

How does man’s 6” (15cm) penis stand up to the other members of the animal kingdom?  The gorilla = 3” (8cm), the wild boar = 18” (45cm), the horse = 30” (75cm), the elephant = 80” (200cm), the blue whale = 96” (240cm).

The average male averages 4-5 nocturnal erections during sleep every night.  Each erection generally occurs about 90 minutes apart.

Insect and reptilian penises are often equipped with spines, corrugations, knobs, hooks, etc., to secure the female once insertion has taken place. If a copulating pair of insects or snakes are forcibly separated then either the male or the female may be irreparably damaged. The genital organs of the male may be torn off or the female may be terribly lacerated.

The oldest sex manuals in the world can be traced to China, more than two and a half thousand years before the birth of Christ.

The longest title for a sex manual is one by Schurig: MULIEBRIA Historico-Medica, hoc est Partium Genitalium Muliebrium Consideratio Physico-Medico-Forensis, qua Pudendi Muliebris Partes tam externae, quam internae, scilicet Uterus cum Ipsi Annexis Ovariis et Tubis Fallopianis, nec non Varia de Clitoride et Tribadismo de Hymen et Nymphotomania seu Feminarum Circumsisione et Castratione selectis et curiosis observationibus traduntur. A. D. Martino Schurigio, Physico Dresdensi... MDCCXXIX.

The first time that a woman appeared on the stage completely nude was at the Folies-Bergere in 1912. She was only visible for a moment. It was feared that a scandal would follow but France survived, and after the war every Paris revue featured at least one naked woman.

The average woman requires about 8 minutes to achieve orgasm – but it should be emphasised that there is a remarkable individual variation, with some women requiring as little as 1 minute and others requiring as much as 30 minutes to reach orgasm.

The T'ang Dynasty Empress Wu Hu (683 – 705AD) evidently a keen feminist, designed a sexual custom aimed at elevating the female and humbling the male. Wu Hu insisted that all governmental officials and visiting dignitaries pay homage to her Imperial Highness by performing cunnilingus upon her. Thus old paintings depict the empress holding her robe open while a dignitary kneels before her to lick her genitals

First erotic periodical in U.K. emerged in 1773, under the title "The Covent Garden Magazine."

Upper class Egyptian women of the Twelfth Dynasty, about 1850 B.C., used crocodile dung as a pessary, irrigated the vagina with honey and natron (native sesquicarbonate of soda), and inserted a gum-like substance in the vagina as various forms of contraception. Though elephant's dung was later substituted for that of the crocodile, a similar prescription was used in various places for some three thousand years. It is likely that the contraceptive measures had some effect. Honey and gum would clog the motile sperm; and crocodile's dung, slightly alkaline, would not be much different from a spermicide carried in a sponge.

The average weight of an elephant’s testicle is 2kg.

One of the curious things about sexual behaviour is that it correlates - in frequency, variety, etc. - with social class. Kinsey found that masturbation was more common in educated classes than in those groups concerned with unskilled or manual labour. Of all classes the professional groups masturbate most.

The first sex institute was the Magnus Hirschfeld Institute fur Sexualwissenschaft, Berlin, and doomed only to survive a few years. The Nazis destroyed it in 1933.

Sacred temple prostitution existed throughout the bulk of the ancient world. It has been described for Egypt, Babylon, Greece, etc. and was generally seen as having deep religious significance. The first recorded instances of such types of prostitution are for the Mesopotamia of 2300 B.C. From this region it spread throughout the Near East.

In the British Army and Navy Estimates of 1870-1871, no less than $110,000 was set aside for 2700 registered prostitutes in eighteen naval and military stations.

An ancient cure for frigidity was to search out a particular species of red bat, which rested in pairs amid the red flowers of banana trees. The bats were dried, ground into powder, and hopefully spread on a woman externally to make her feel sexy.

Each year King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy would have the long nail of his big toe framed in gold and presented to his favourite mistress.

‘Dildo’ comes from the Italian word ‘diletto’, meaning ‘delight’…

Adult movie star, Candy Apples, set a new world record when she shagged an astonishing 742 men in one day! All in a day’s work…

Probably the most successful 19th century prostitute would have to be Laura Bell aka "The Queen of London Whoredom". When she visited the Opera in 1852 the whole house rose to watch her departure. In 1856 she married Captain Augustus Thistlethwaytes, a nephew of the then Bishop of Norwich. They lived for a time in Grosvenor Square in what may be considered a somewhat eccentric fashion. The Captain, for instance, summoned servants by firing a pistol through the bedroom ceiling. Laura had brought to the marriage a dowry of £250,000, earned from a Nepalese prince. Later she found religion and was, by all accounts, as successful a preacher as she had been a whore.

Ancient Indian drawings depict many variations of sexual positions that involving the toes.

The silliest method of contraception would have to be dreamt up by Soranus (A.D. 98-138), a Greek physician who studied in Alexandria and later practised in Rome under Hadrian. He suggested that a woman ought, in the moment during coitus when the man ejaculates his sperm, to hold her breath, draw her body back a little so that the semen cannot penetrate into the uteri, then immediately get up and sit down with bent knees, and in this position, provoke sneezes" (quoted by S. Green, "The Curious History".)

Over his lifetime, the average male will produce about 17 litres of semen.

The largest human clitoris measured was 12 inches long as mentioned by W. Francis Benedict in "The Sexual Anatomy of Women".

A great number of famous and talented men have had one sort of venereal illness or another. Here are one or two of them: Abraham, David and Job, Caesar, Herod Tiberius, Charlemagne, Charles V and VIII of France, John of Gaunt, Popes Alexander VI, Julius II and Leo X, Henry VIII, Erasmus, Albrecht Durer, Thomas Wolsey, Ivan the Terrible, Benvenuto Cellini, Richelieu John Aubrey, Casanova, Boswell, Goethe, Schopenhauer, Keats, Schubert, Nietzsche, Mussolini, Hitler, Gauguin, Strindberg, Oscar Wilde, etc., etc.