There is a strong probability that Abelard also used flagellation. For he declares, addressing Héloise:
Verbera quandoque dabat amor non furor, gratia non ira, quae omnium unguentorum suavitatem transcenderent. Again, he reminds her of his own lascivious and libidinous ways: With threats and scourges I often compelled thee who wast, by nature, a weaker vessel, to comply, notwithstanding thy unwillingness and remonstrances.
Tamerlane, the Asiatic master of the universe, the subject too of one of Christopher Marlowe’s tremendous dramas, was both a flagellant and a monorchis.
Finally, Jean Jacques Rousseau, in his Confessions, acknowledges his condition:
I had discovered in pain, even in shame, a mixture of sensuality that left me with a greater desire, rather than a fear, of experiencing it again.
Sexual license, although restrained among the Semites, among the Greeks and Romans under certain conditions, and among other ancient nations, often broke all bounds under particular circumstances, with resultant orgies involving almost incredible erotic experiences. The Biblical episode of the Golden Calf illustrates this situation, for it was an absorption of pagan eroticism and then of pagan idolatry.
The wife of the Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius, Faustina, became enamoured of a gladiator. The Emperor consulted the court magicians, who suggested, to diminish or eliminate her passion, that she be required to drink the gladiator’s blood. They promised that, as a consequence, Faustina would conceive a lasting hatred for her erstwhile lover. She drank the blood, and the magicians were justified in their prediction.