Loved this article about coffee in the 17th century being blamed for male impotence (but most likely because coffee houses were fronts for brothels)
The ‘Maiden’s Complaint’ claims the “Devil first invented this liquor, on purpose to plague our Sex”, while the Ale-Wives call coffee an “insipid, filthy, nauseous, rot gut liquor” that leaves men with neither “honey nor money”. The petitions are more than frothy spoofs mocking winkies on the blink. They are attempts to smear the revolutionary coffeehouse culture as effeminate and unmanly.