The Pearl, A Magazine of Facetiae and Voluptuous Reading foi um periódico pornográfico mensal, publicado em Londres, por William Lazenby, desde Julho de 1879 a Dezembro de 1880. Foram também publicados dois suplementos extra: Swivia: or the Briefless Barrister (1879) e Christmas Annual (1881).
Durante a sua existência, o periódico incluiu seis novelas serializadas: Sub-Umbra, Miss Coote's Confession, Lady Pokingham, La Rose D'Amour, My Grandmother's Tale e Flunkeyania, além de inúmeras paródias, anedotas e poesias obscenas.
Por detrás da fachada de respeitabilidade e repressão sexual, a sociedade vitoriana revelava-se na sua busca desenfreada do prazer e da experimentação sexual. The Pearl fornecia erotismo para todos os gostos.
Em nome da decência e da moral, as autoridades impuseram o fim da sua publicação.
O poema seguinte foi retirado do 1º número, Julho de 1879.
A PROLOGUE
Spoke by Miss Bella de Lancy, on her retiring from the stage to open
a Fashionable Bawdy House
(Written by S. Johnson, LL.D.)
When cunt first triumphed (as the learned suppose)
O'er failing pricks, Immortal Dildo rose,
From fucks unnumbered, still erect he drew,
Exhausted cunts, and then demanded new;
Dame Nature saw him spurn her bounded reign,
And panting pricks toiled after him in vain;
The laxest folds, the deepest depths he filled;
The juicest drained; the thoughest hymens drilled.
The fair lay gasping with distended limbs,
And unremitting cockstands stormed their quims.
Then Frigging came, instructed from the school,
And scornde the aid of India-rubber tool.
With restless finger, fired the dormant blood,
Till Clitoris rose, sly, peeping thro' her hood.
Gently was worked this titillating art,
It broke no hymen, and scarce stretched the part;
Yet lured its votaries to a sudden doom,
And stamped Consumption's flush on Beauty's bloom..
Sweet Gamahuche found softer ways to fame,
It asked not Dildo's art, nor Frigging's flame.
Tongue, not prick, now probes the central hole,
And mouth, not cunt, becomes prick's destined goal.
It always found a sympathetic friend;
And pleased limp pricks, and those who could not spend,
No tedious wait, for laboured stand, delays
The hot and pouting cunt, which tongue allays.
The taste was luscious, tho' the smell was strong;
The fuck was easy, and would last so long;
Til wearied tongues found gamahuching cloy,
And pricks, and cunts, grew callous to the joy.
Then dulled by frigging, by mock pricks enlarged,
Her noble duties Cunt but ill discharged.
Her nymphae drooped, her devil's bite grew weak,
And twice two pricks might flounder in her creek;
Till all the edge was taken off the bliss,
And Cunt's sole occupation was to piss.
Forced from her former joys, with scoft and brunt,
She saw great Arsehole lay the ghost Cunt
Exulting buggers hailed the joyful day,
And piles and homerrids confirmed his sway.
But who lust's future fancies can explore,
And mark the whimsies that remain in store?
Perhaps it shall be deemed a lover's treat,
To suck the flowering quims of mares in heat;
Perhaps, where beauty held unequalled sway,
A Cochin fowl shall rival Mabel Grey;
Nobles be rained by the Hyaena's smile,
And Seals get short engagements from th'Argyle.
Hard is her lot, that here by Fortune placed,
Must watch the wild vicissitudes of taste;
Catch every whim, learn every bawdy trick,
And chase the new born bubbles of the prick;
Ah, let not Censure term our fate, our choice,
The Bawd but echoes back the public voice;
The Brothers laws, the Brothel's patrons give,
And those that live to please, must please to live;
Then purge these growing follies from your hearts,
And turn to female arms, and female arts;
'Tis yours ths night, to bid the reign begin,
Of all the good old-fashioned ways to sin;
Clean, wholesome girls, with lip, tongue, cunt, and hand,
Shall raise, keep up, put in, take down a stand;
Your bottoms shall by lily hands be bled,
And birches blossom under every bed.