Chinese lovers – in pre-Mao days – were said to be fond of fowl. Mantegazza has remarked that “The Chinese are famous for their love affairs with geese …” This would be remarkable enough: the actual way the Orientals used such a creature for sexual purposes is even more extraordinary. At the moment of ejaculation the man would pull the head off the live animal to get “the pleasurable benefit of the anal sphincter’s last spasms in the victim.” De Sade has commented that a turkey was used in the same way in Parisian brothels, where the act was termed avisodomy. As well as causing desirable anal spasms in the poor bird, its body temperature was thought to rise as a consequence of losing a head, thus giving further titillation. Of a number of famous practitioners of this form of bestiality, one was Tipoo Sahib, the Sultan and “Tiger” of Mysore, the scourge of the British.