Talk:Pompoir

Hoax?

I doubt it. Several references turned up on Google Scholar and dozens on Google Books. Kenilworth Terrace (talk) 17:34, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

When my niece was about 8 she had an Asian friend at school in the UK. One day while playing the girl said "I have to go home now - it's time to do my exercises". My niece was surprised and asked "What exercise". Her friend said they were taught her by her mother, and were for when she got married. So it is definitely not a hoaxWolstan Dixie (talk) 16:25, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

I can't find any reliable sources

It is a millenary technique of the East. It originated in India and perfected in Thailand. The first exercises came with a transformation of the extensive preparatory tantric exercises for the Maithuna. This transformation was initially developed by the priestesses of the Great Mother temples to be used in fertility rituals. With time the technique expanded and became increasingly popular. Pompoir#History

I can't find any reliable sources talking about it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Digressivo (talk • contribs) 23:02, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Etymology

The article says

The term pompoir is the French transliteration of the Tamil city name "Pahmpur"

which is repeated on Wiktionary. This seems very tenuous, at least based on the cited source. The term seems confined almost exclusively to English sources, but there does happen to be a credible French attestation in the original translation of Nefzawi's Perfumed Garden, which you may consult on WikiSource. (For the note referring to "casse-noisettes", Delvau's Dictionnaire érotique moderne may be helpful.) That's the first place the word is used in the text, but the footnote calls back to an earlier comment where the same word was translated by "attraction". I don't read Arabic and haven't looked for an Arabic copy of the text, but the translator notes that the word being translated here as pompoir is derived from the root ج ذ ب, and strongly implies that pompoir is their own coinage based on pompe ("pump"), which is basically what you'd expect hearing the word and its meaning. I am pretty sure that's the origin, though I wasn't able to locate a secondary source that drew the same conclusion.

Since writing on the technique seems to mostly fall into an exoticizing Orientalist tradition, and many sources make rather breathless claims, it seems likely that the story of it being named after the city is just something someone made up at some point. If anyone ever decides to clean up the article, I'd recommend dropping the claim.

~2026-37463-36 (talk) 05:06, 30 June 2026 (UTC)