HISTSEX 19-30 Nov 2003
© Lesley Hall and list contributors
From: Wrdynes@aol.com
Sent: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 16:17:48 EST
To: histsex@topica.com
Subject: Re: [histsex] Greek pederasty as form of gay marriage
I believe that there is a brief passage in Hans Licht's book regarding the
custom of making a contract for a specified period covering the sexual services
of a boy.
Best, Wayne R. Dynes
From: Lesley Hall <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>
Sent: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 16:03:54 GMT
To: histsex@topica.com
Subject: FWD: RVW: Sarti. _Europe at Home: Family and Material Culture, 1500-1800
H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-Women@h-net.msu.edu (November 2003)
Raffaella Sarti. _Europe at Home: Family and Material
Culture, 1500-1800_.
Translated by Allan Cameron. New Haven and London:
Yale University Press,
2002. xi + 324 pp. Illustrations, notes,
bibliography, index. $29.95
(cloth), ISBN 0-300-08542-7.
Reviewed for H-Women by Carole Collier Frick
<cfrick@siue.edu>, Department
of Historical Studies, Southern Illinois University
Edwardsville
Food, Clothing and Shelter: The Domestic Realities of
Early Modern Europe
Although influenced by Braudel's "l'histoire
universale" approach, author
and historian Raffaella Sarti, in her book _Europe at
Home_, does not
present a distant historical perspective devoid of
humanity, as some
sweeping historical studies such as hers tend to do.
She does have a
broad jetliner perspective of family and material
culture over time and
space (Europe over a three hundred year period), but
one that touches down
continually to the most intimately specific of
perspectives. Sarti has
artfully brought together the Annales's poles of
quantitative data and
personal mentalité, beginning her narrative with the
moving story of
homeless people, to clearly distinguish between the
situations of not
having a house or habitation, and not having a
family. They were not the
same. Often, in this tumultuous early modern period,
entire family groups
were forced by poverty to beg and roam as a
dispossessed and miserable
unit; truly "les miserables."
Originally published in Italian in 1999 as _Vita di
casa. Abitare,
mangiare, vestire nell'Europa moderna_, this English
translation has been
rendered by Allan Cameron. In addition to the seven
chapters here, this
edition also includes an updated bibliography, an
expanded final chapter,
and some clarifications on various topics as diverse
as clothing,
economics, and the Jews of Europe. The author also
provides a helpful
summary of conclusions at the end of each chapter. An
interesting and
engaging center folio includes some eighty-six
illustrations (engravings,
paintings, drawings, photos of objects and interiors),
twelve of which are
in color. Subjects range from depictions of servant
and master
interaction and birth scenes, to kitchens, bedrooms,
floor plans, and
women delousing themselves in the privacy of their
rooms. A lengthy
bibliography on studies of the family, dowry,
household and material
culture in Italian, French, and English sources should
prove useful to
anyone interested in this area of inquiry.
As Sarti's thesis is to understand the material life
of the past by
looking at objects, practice, and beliefs, her
perspective is necessarily
based on the familial group. She is concerned with
the subtle and
interwoven processes of production, reproduction, and
consumption, and
begins in her first chapter by attempting to "gather
the threads" of
various definitions and traditions involving the
private realm across
time, geography and class, even before she is ready
to "open the front
door of the house" to investigate its material
reality. This is an
interesting (but somewhat exhausting) process of
looking at different
types of houses, families, and religious traditions
that made up the
domestic realities of Europe in the early modern
period. Her background
discussion continues through chapter two with a brief
overview of the
multiform marriage practices, including marital
assigns, that brought men
and women to cohabitation in the first place. Here,
we encounter for the
first time what will become the conclusion of the book
as a whole. Sarti,
beginning the investigation of marriage, states "there
were considerable
differences from one area to another and from one
period to another," and
a few sentences later writes, "apparently uniform
areas were teeming with
a thousand differences" (p. 43). Chapter 3 concludes
this prefatory
excursus as a short, nine-page essay on various
configurations of houses
and families over time, from Italy to Norway. While
furnishing myriad
details of social and cultural practices, there is no
overarching paradigm
which can be drawn.
By the time the author gets us in the "front door" of
the early modern
European house (in chapter 4), the reader is more than
ready to be
confronted with some comfort food, like a
satisfying "thick description"
of the specifics of what exactly a European "home" was
like between 1500
and 1800. But here again, even though the author
seems to hit her stride
in tackling the material culture of the domestic realm
head on, we quickly
learn that there is no one model of "home." In fact,
the differences of
domestic reality are so various and wide-ranging,
depending upon whether a
family group was rich or poor, urban or rural,
Catholic or Jewish, in
Hungary or the Netherlands, that while fascinating in
their details, any
larger meaning is difficult to digest, much less
assess. For example, she
tells us that nineteenth-century Polish peasant houses
had a scant two
rooms: a "white" room for sleeping where there was no
stove and therefore
no soot, and a "black" room for cooking and everything
else, where the
smoke from the fire could not escape (p. 91).
Interesting. From
information on the first use of window glass and the
symbolic value of
fire, to the increasing desire for privacy within the
home evidenced by
the introduction of corridors, Sarti's seemingly
inexhaustible catalog of
specifics is prodigious. However, this reader found
it a Benjaminian file
of Brobdingnagian proportions. I was reminded of
Henri Berr's early
twentieth-century comment on a collection of
seashells. They might be
delightful and fully remarkable to look at, but what
do they mean?
Chapter 5, entitled "food," continues her
investigation into the realities
of everyday life in Europe in this period. Here, she
covers topics from
"civilized" to "uncivilized" eating practices, the
cutlery and table
linens used in various homes (including the Italian
invention of the
fork), food preparation, class differences, and even
the ins and outs of
breastfeeding. All the above make for interesting
reading, but again, to
what end? An antiquarian collecting notices of long-
forgotten details and
customs from the past would be riveted, but how does a
historian make
sense of it all? This is the question that not only
overrides a primal
interest in the human domestic realities here laid
bare, but also
struggles with what to do with this information.
Chapter 6 on clothing tackles the third part of the
basic domestic mantra
of "food, clothing, and shelter," and again, casts its
nets widely. So
widely, in fact, that the material presented, while
interesting, only
piques the historian's desire to know more in depth
about one area, one
time period, one set of practices. There is no
general statement that can
be made over three centuries, dozens of cultures,
classes, ethnic and
religious groups. Local practice in material culture
is bound to remain
local, based as it is on local parameters of climate,
availability of
materials, agricultural practices, religious
traditions, and the like. In
the case of clothing, any attempt to make a definitive
statement about it
is bound to fall short. Structurally, this chapter is
an eclectic mix,
beginning with a section on spinning, weaving, sewing
and buying, then
turning to underwear and hygiene, then a page or two
on "protection and
making oneself attractive," a section on colors, one
on "clothes that
categorized people," and ending with a section on
livery. Here, the
author covers the clothing of European peoples over
three centuries and
innumerable geographic locations, in a scant twenty-
one pages. What the
reader learns about clothing in such a treatment is
doubtful. Certainly,
one chapter which covers how people clothed
themselves, in cities, in the
countryside, in the upper classes, in the peasantry,
in cold climes, in
the Mediterranean, must by definition, skim the
surface.
The final chapter of the book is ambiguously
entitled "Inside and Outside
the Home: A Few Final Considerations." Here, a series
of mini-discussions
covers such topics as the definition of domesticity in
sixteenth-century
Brescia (p. 222) and the relative gender specificity
of public and private
spheres across Europe. The author ends by attempting
to wrap up her
investigation by reintroducing the notions of
production, reproduction,
and consumption with which she began. With her
extremely broad thesis,
Sarti has cut out her work for herself, and she
reiterates here that any
definitive conclusions on "Europe at Home" remain
elusive, which is no
surprise, at least not for historians. One gets the
feeling however, that
the author herself seems to be disheartened by not
being able to bottom
line her findings.
Having said this, the author may have betrayed her
initial impulse to
write this work in her book's dedications, which are
to her grandmother,
mother, and father, who lived their lives enmeshed in
just such material
realities. It is to them that this book belongs, in
the old Italian
literary tradition of writing about antique domestic
practice, such as
Guido Biagi's _The Private Life of the Renaissance
Florentines_, published
in London in 1896, or Nino Tamassia's _La Famiglia
Italiana nei secoli
decimoquinto e decimosesto_, published in Milan in
1910. Like these older
historical works, it is to the memory of the Third
Estate of Old Europe
that this effort really belongs; to the memory of
those for whom
metanarratives only existed in the spiritual realm,
and not in the harsh
material world of cruel and ultimate difference.
Copyright (c) 2003 by H-Net, all rights
reserved. H-Net permits
the redistribution and reprinting of this work
for nonprofit,
educational purposes, with full and accurate
attribution to the
author, web location, date of publication,
originating list, and
H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online.
For other uses
contact the Reviews editorial staff:
hbooks@mail.h-net.msu.edu.
From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>
Sent: Thu, 20 Nov 2003 22:06:45 -0000
To: "Histsex:For historians of sexuality" <histsex@topica.com>
Subject: FWD: Colloquium: New Perspectives on Cavafy
Colloquium: New Perspectives on Cavafy
Saturday 22 November 2003, University College London, Gower St., WC1
Constantine Cavafy and his work will be the focus of a one-day
colloquium to be held at UCL to commemorate the 140th anniversary of
Cavafy's birth and the 70th anniversary of his death.
Speakers include H.Caygill, C. Robinson, G.Woods, G.Syrimis,
V.Lambropoulos, D.Kapsalis.
Chairs include R.Beaton, D.P.Tziovas, T.Mathews and J.Agar.
Full information is at
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/mellon-program/cavafy/
and at
http://www.greeceinbritain.org.uk/events.asp
There is no conference fee for this event, but advance registration is
advisable since space is limited. Please contact Dr Dimitris Papanikolaou
at d.papanikolaou@ucl.ac.uk
Dr Dimitris Papanikolaou
UCL/Mellon Fellow in the Humanities
French Department
University College London
Gower St
London WC1E 6BT
Tel: 020 7679 2295
Fax: 020 7813 3026
From: Wenpsych@aol.com
Sent: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 10:58:26 EST
To: histsex@topica.com
Subject: wife of bath
Could we say, that the garrlous Wife of Bath, is the most studied woman in
English Literature?
Regards to all,
Wendy
SUNY, NY
From: Haiduk Press <haidukpress@yahoo.com>
Sent: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 08:20:01 -0800 (PST)
To: histsex@topica.com
Subject: The role of the father in Greek pederasty
In the course of my work with the Greek coming-of-age myths, I was struck by the recurrent theme of the father in these stories. In almost every case, the father can be shown to play a role (Zeus has to make ammends to Erichtonius; Achilles promises Menoitius to bring his son, Patroclus, home safe; Tantalus is the one who initiates his son, Pelops, into the homoerotic shamanic cycle he has to pass through to become a man; Pelops himself is the one who assigns Laius to be instructor to his own son, Chrysippus; Thiodamas has to die in order for Hercules to enter into relationship with Hylas, etc).
Researching this connection further, I was fascinated to discover a segment in Xenophon's "Symposium" in which Socrates asserts that "Nothing in these relationships should be kept hidden from the father by a noble lover." And furthermore we are told in Ephorus, by way of Strabo, that in Crete, the father had to give his consent in order for his son to undergo ritual abduction.
I wonder whether others have pursued this line of thought, and what other ancient sources might illuminate this aspect of the tradition.
Regards,
Andrew Calimach
From: Lesley Hall <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>
Sent: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 20:21:10 +0000
To: histsex@topica.com
Subject: Cunnilingus
I have had a private enquiry about the origins of cunnilingus. While the
motive behind the question appears to be no more than curiosity, I would
be interested to know if anyone can suggest when and where the earliest
record of cunnilingus might be found. The word I know dates from the
late C19th, but is the practice referred to in earlier sources?
Thanks
Lesley Hall
lesleyah@primex.co.uk
website: http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>
Sent: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 22:51:21 -0000
To: "Histsex:For historians of sexuality" <histsex@topica.com>
Subject: FWD: Seminar: Gender, Crime and Culture
Gender, Crime and Culture: Rehabilitation and Prevention. Organised by the
Feminist Crime Research Network.
Location: United Kingdom
Seminar Date: 2004-01-21
Date Submitted: 2003-11-15
Announcement ID: 135996
The seminar will examine the historical and contemporary development of a
range of initiatives both to rehabilitate the offender and to prevent crime
and/or seek to draw insights for future application, particularly in the
light of forthcoming legislation. For example, areas for discussion might
include;
the historical and contemporary relationships between voluntary and state
organisations,
the roles, scope and autonomy of professionals,
the probation and after-care services, their paradigms, policies and
practices,
the relationships between rehabilitation and welfare.
re-offending
courts, lawyers, sentencing and the question of rehabilitation
juvenile justice and youth crime
restorative justice and the role of the victim
Speakers include: Sandra Walklate; Tony Kearon; Anne Schwan; Anne Logan;
Bronwyn Morrison; Helen Self, Josephine butler society; Sian Thornthwaite,
Derbyshire Magistrates; S, Tsogzolmaa. Mongolian Women Lawyers' Association
21st January, 2004; Galleries of Justice, Nottingham.
Funded by the ESRC
Organised by the Feminist Crime Research Network.
Shani D'Cruze
Department of Humanities and applied social Studies
Crewe & Alsager Faculty
Manchester Metropolitan University
Hassall Road
Alsager, Cheshire
ST7 4DL, UK
0161-247-5416/5546
Email: s.dcruze@mmu.ac.uk.
Visit the website at http://solon.ntu.ac.uk/FCRN/
From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>
Sent: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 22:53:06 -0000
To: "Histsex:For historians of sexuality" <histsex@topica.com>
Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?FWD:_CFP:_Women's_History_Revisited:_?=
Call for Papers: IFRWH Conference 3-9 July 2003
Women's History Revisited: Historiographical Reflections on Women and Gender
in a Global Context
We are pleased to announce a call for papers for an international
conference, Women's History Revisited: Historiographical Reflections on
Women and Gender in a Global Context, to take place in conjunction with the
World Congress of Historical Sciences, July 3-9, 2005 in Sydney.
The International Federation for Research in Women's History (IFRWH/FIRHF)
was founded in 1987. The aim of the IFRWH is to encourage and co-ordinate
research in all aspects of women's history at the international level. The
first conference was organised in 1989 and the papers were published in a
collection of essays "Writing Women's History. International Perspectives".
Since then, women's history, gender history and feminist history have
expanded both geographically as well as theoretically and thematically. The
2005 IFRWH conference will take a historiographical look at women's history
worldwide.
The organisers encourage theoretical reflections on all aspects of women's
history, gender history and feminist history. We welcome various theoretical
approaches and discussions. For example, what is the relationship between
women history, gender history and feminist history? What are the significant
theoretical turning-points? What is the future for women's history?
Equally important are thematic reviews analysing subjects of women's
history, gender history or feminist history. The themese may include, just
to mention but a few, women's movements, gendered histories of work, private
life, and religion.
Moreover, we invite proposals for regional reviews discussing the
historiography of women's history in particular regions. Are the
trajectories of women's history/feminist history different in differing
global settings? Where will women's history be in 2050?
The conference will consist of three half-day sessions to be held at the
World Congress. N.B. The participants need to register for the World
Congress. More information about the Sydney 2005 World Congress can be found
at http://www.cish.org/GB/Sydney.htm, and about the IFRWH at
http://www.historians.ie/women/index.htm.
The organisers invite ABSTRACTS of no more than 300 words. The title should
appear clearly at the top of the abstract. Each proposal must also include a
one-page curriculum vitae and full contact information (address, phone, fax,
and e-mail).
Please submit your proposal by February 15, 2004 to:
Professor Pirjo Markkola
Department of History
FIN-33014 University of Tampere
Finland
e-mail: pirjo.markkola@uta.fi
telefax +358-3-215-6980
phone +358-3-215-6553
From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>
Sent: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 22:49:03 -0000
To: "Histsex:For historians of sexuality" <histsex@topica.com>
Subject: FWD: CFP: Society and Exclusion
Call for Papers
Location: Quebec, Canada
Call for Papers Deadline: 2004-01-15
Date Submitted: 2003-11-18
Announcement ID: 136027
The Graduate Student Association of the department of History at the
University of Montreal (AEDDHUM) are seeking proposals for presentations for
the 11th Annual colloquium, entitled Society and Exclusion (from the
beginning to the present day) which will take place the 18th and 19th of
March, 2004.
The call is open to graduates students in the Masters or PhD program, as
well as those in their final year of undergraduate studies, whose research
topics touch upon the colloquium's theme. (Please consult the poster in the
AEDDHUM's web site to see several examples of subjects.)
Individual proposals must be no longer than 300 words, and include the title
and your coordinates (e-mail address, phone number, and postal address, as
well as your name, university and department). You can also submit a
proposal for a panel, which should include the title of the panel, the three
communication proposals (of a maximum of 300 words each) and if available
the name of the panel chair. We also ask that should you require a overhead
projector or other material for electronic projection (for example Power
Point or Internet). All proposals must be received before the 15th of
January, 2004.
Please send your proposals by e-mail or by post to the contact below.
Please note that all communications will be vetted by a committee composed
of graduate students. The text of the proposals will be used in the creation
of a detailed schedule of the colloquium. In addition, those communications
presented at the colloquium will be published in a special edition of the
journal Cahiers d'Histoire.
We invite you to consult the AEDDHUM's web site and the poster for more
information, http://www.hist.umontreal.ca/addhum/. We can also be reached at
the e-mail address or by telephone (below).
In hopes of seeing you at our colloquium,
AEDDHUM's colloquium committee
AEDDHUM
Université de Montréal
Départment d'Histoire
CP 6128, Succ. Centre-Ville,
H3C 3J7
Montréal, Qc
Phone: 514-343-6111 x5409
Email: aeddhum@umontreal.ca
Visit the website at http://www.hist.umontreal.ca/addhum/
From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>
Sent: Fri, 21 Nov 2003 22:50:08 -0000
To: "Histsex:For historians of sexuality" <histsex@topica.com>
Subject: FWD: CFP: Women, Wealth and Power
Women's History Network Annual Conference: Women, Wealth and Power
Location: United Kingdom
Call for Papers Deadline: 2004-04-19
Date Submitted: 2003-11-18
Announcement ID: 136020
Proposals (200 words)are invited for papers to be presented at the 13th
annual WHN Conference at Kingston-upon-Hull, UK, 3-5 September 2004. Themes
include women and wealth/poverty/global economies; sexual politics; women
and political thought/power and women and knowledge production. Confirmed
speakers: Amy Erickson, Hilda Smith.
Papers will be considered for a special issue of Women's History Review.
Dr Amanda Capern; Dr Judith Spicksley
Department of History,
University of Hull,
Hull HU6 7RX
Email: conference2004@womenshistorynetwork.org
Visit the website at http://www.womenshistorynetwork.org
From: "Margaret Robinson" <margaret.robinson@utoronto.ca>
Sent: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 10:23:27 -0800
To: <histsex@topica.com>
Subject: Re: Digest for histsex@topica.com, issue 798
Lesley Hall asked: "I would be interested to know if anyone can suggest
when and where the earliest record of cunnilingus might be found."
Bernadette Brooten's book, Love Between Women includes a reference that
bring us at least to Martial (40-104 c.e.).
"When, after all these things [a description of her monstrous appetite for
meat and wine], her mind turns back to sex, she does not engage in fellatio,
which she thinks is not manly enough." Instead she "devours girls'
middles." martial, Epigrammata 7.67.13-15: post haec omnia cum libidinatur,
non fellat--putat hoc parum virile--, / sed plane medias vorat puellas.
I don't know if it's the earliest (I actually doubt that it is). But it's
the earliest I could find with the books on hand.
Margaret Robinson
From: Wenpsych@aol.com
Sent: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 12:35:10 EST
To: histsex@topica.com
Subject: Fwd: [histsex] yo-yoing age of puberty?
--part1_17c.238ccc13.2cf0f84e_alt_boundary
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Dear Vern,
I have finally read the paper of which you sent me on "age of consent: an
historical overview" It did make for interesting reading, and clarified many of
my queries, thank you. I do have another query.
In a histsex posting (herein) you stated that the wife of bath's marriage was
consummated @ age 14, where did you find this information, it is claimed that
she was married @ 12, but where is it written that the marriage was
consummated @ 14? I would appreciate your opinion on the following: Do you consider,
psychologically, that a pubescent girl -even in the middle ages- was "ready"
for sexual relations? Also, where can I site material that references
prepubescent rape in medieval marriage, something of which I am "considering" may
have happened to the Wife of Bath. Just a consideration at this point.
Sincerely,
Wendy, SUNY, NY
From: "vern bullough" <vbullough@adelphia.net>
Sent: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 11:01:30 -0800
To: <histsex@topica.com>
Subject: RE: [histsex] yo-yoing age of puberty?
Dear Wendy: I am not sure where I got that her marriage was
consummated at 14. My sources say she was married at 14 but if you find
12 that is perhaps equally valid. I suspect that if most girls were
being married at 12 or 14, she was psychologically prepared. I don't
know where you can get any information on prepubescent rape in medieval
marriage. Canon law tended to look at women as ready for intercourse at
12, and those married younger if they had not consummated it by 12 were
allowed to divorce. I believe if a woman got married at 12 or 14 it was
automatically assumed that it was consummated. I guess the only way
we can tell is when the first child was born assuming that the girl
might become pregnant during the first year of marriage. Of course this
did not always happen. Vern
From: "Terrence Lockyer" <lockyert@mweb.co.za>
Sent: Sun, 23 Nov 2003 05:27:08 +0200
To: "History of Sexuality" <histsex@topica.com>
Subject: Re: [histsex] Cunnilingus
On Friday, November 21, 2003, Lesley Hall wrote
: I have had a private enquiry about the origins of cunnilingus.
: While the motive behind the question appears to be no more
: than curiosity, I would be interested to know if anyone can
: suggest when and where the earliest record of cunnilingus
: might be found. The word I know dates from the late C19th,
: but is the practice referred to in earlier sources?
There is a Roman wall-painting from Pompeii (therefore certainly before 79
CE, when Vesuvius erupted) showing it. This is one of several varied sexual
scenes from a single building. Much earlier in any case is an Attic
red-figure cup by the Thalia Painter (Berlin, Staatliche Museen 3251; ARV
113, 7; 2nd half of 6th century BCE), but whether this actually depicts
impending cunnilingus is disputed (as by Kenneth Dover, Greek Homosexuality
[Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard UP 1978, 1989], pp. 101-2, where the vase is his
R192).
The Athenian comic playwright Aristophanes (c. 445-c. 385 BCE) has a speech
in which one Ariphrades is abused for practising it (Knights 1280-9; also
Wasps 1280-3). John J. Winkler, The Constraints of Desire (New York and
London : Routledge 1990), pp. 37-8, with references in n. 20 on p. 223,
discusses the significance of oral-genital sex in the manual of dream
interpretation by Artemidoros (2nd century CE) and notes the generally
pejorative tone of references to it, especially to cunnilingus. According
to Winkler (p. 223, n.20), the second century CE medical writer Galen
referred to both fellatio and cunnilingus pejoratively, but considered the
latter the more disgusting.
The term "cunnilingus" is found in classical Latin, but it means "one who
performs cunnilingus". In Martial (12.59.10) it has this sense, and is
paired with "fellator" (= "one who performs fellatio"). Context shows that
it has the same sense also at Priapic Corpus 78.2.
All varieties of oral-genital sex seem to have been widely known, if not
widely approved, in Greco-Roman antiquity.
Terrence Lockyer
Johannesburg, South Africa
From: "Terrence Lockyer" <lockyert@mweb.co.za>
Sent: Sun, 23 Nov 2003 05:57:26 +0200
To: <histsex@topica.com>
Subject: Re: [histsex] Cunnilingus
I wrote
: The term "cunnilingus" is found in classical Latin, but it means
: "one who performs cunnilingus". In Martial (12.59.10) it has
: this sense, and is paired with "fellator" (= "one who performs
: fellatio"). Context shows that it has the same sense also at
: Priapic Corpus 78.2.
I should have been more precise: the masculine termination of "cunnilingus"
shows that it implies a male person. Martial was born between 38 and 41 CE
and died between 101 and 104 CE. The Priapea have no secure date, and those
suggested range at least from the late first century BCE to the end of the
first century CE.
Terrence Lockyer
Johannesburg, South Africa
From: "Terrence Lockyer" <lockyert@mweb.co.za>
Sent: Sun, 23 Nov 2003 05:59:08 +0200
To: "History of Sexuality" <histsex@topica.com>
Subject: Re: [histsex] Cunnilingus
I wrote
: The term "cunnilingus" is found in classical Latin, but it means
: "one who performs cunnilingus". In Martial (12.59.10) it has
: this sense, and is paired with "fellator" (= "one who performs
: fellatio"). Context shows that it has the same sense also at
: Priapic Corpus 78.2.
I should have been more precise: the masculine termination of "cunnilingus"
shows that it implies a male person. Martial was born between 38 and 41 CE
and died between 101 and 104 CE. The Priapea have no secure date, and those
suggested range at least from the late first century BCE to the end of the
first century CE.
Terrence Lockyer
Johannesburg, South Africa
From: "Terrence Lockyer" <lockyert@mweb.co.za>
Sent: Sun, 23 Nov 2003 08:23:41 +0200
To: "History of Sexuality" <histsex@topica.com>
Subject: Re: [histsex] yo-yoing age of puberty?
On Saturday, November 22, 2003, Wenpsych@aol.com wrote
: I would appreciate your opinion on the following: Do you
: consider, psychologically, that a pubescent girl -even in the
: middle ages- was "ready" for sexual relations?
This is one small aspect of a much wider issue for all of us who work in
chronologically distant periods: the people we study operated in societies
whose structures, values, norms and mores are frequently radically different
from our own. No doubt, five hundred, or a thousand, or two thousand five
hundred, years from now, if there is anyone about to study our societies c.
2000 (or whatever they may happen to call it then), they will face similar
difficulties, and ask similar questions as to how particular elements of our
world could obtain. The answer to the question posed above can be no more
than that, according to the laws, norms, and expectations of the time and
the society (in this case using church law that originated in Roman law), a
girl in her early teens was marriageable. That is how her society, her
family, and her life were organized, and that is what she and her
contemporaries would have seen around them and expected for themselves;
just as most of the societies inhabited by members of this list are
organized such that girls in their early teens are (and know they are)
expected, for example, to attend school regularly, perform various other
socially-prescribed activities, and not engage in sexual or other activity
that our societies mark as "adult".
As to psychological advancement, there are two instances I like to cite that
do not bear specifically on sexuality, but do illuminate the problems with
retrospective evaluations of maturity. In 1565 and 1566, the Belgian
scholar Louis Carrion published at Antwerp two editions of the Latin epic
Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus based on a manuscript now lost, but that he
judged to be very old, in which the recent re-discovery of its final page
has vindicated him. He was born in 1547. In the early 1550s, Jane, Lady
Lumley, produced what is possibly the earliest extant (free) translation
into English of a tragedy from ancient Greek (Euripides' Iphigeneia at
Aulis). She was born in 1537. Both works are ones that few people would
now attempt without some years' experience, and probably a degree or two (or
more). Now, obviously these two stand out, and probably would in any
period. But the simple fact is that few people now would consider such
activities possible for a person aged under twenty, whose attempt would
probably be considered misguided or fanciful. Carrion's judgement, in fact,
used often to be questioned by (senior, experienced) scholars precisely on
the grounds of his youth. But they were wrong, and he was right, and his
editions are therefore of enormous importance now.
Terrence Lockyer
Johannesburg, South Africa
From: Lesley Hall <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>
Sent: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 09:38:13 +0000
To: histsex@topica.com
Subject: Thanks (cunnilingus)
Thanks to everybody for on and off list suggestions about the antiquity
of this practice.
Lesley Hall
lesleyah@primex.co.uk
website: http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
From: <D.F.Janssen@student.kun.nl>
Sent: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 12:45:51 +0000
To: histsex@topica.com
Subject: RE: Greek pederasty as form of gay marriage
Licht indeed has an index entry for 'marriage' (using Freese & Dawson
paperback), but few if any statements on age-stratified marital
institutions. You might like to try Hubbart's 'HOMOSEXUALITY IN GREECE
AND ROME: a sourcebook of basic documents in translation'.
http://www.utexas.edu/courses/cc348hubbard/
Cheers,
Diederik Janssen, Holland
From: Lesley Hall <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>
Sent: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 14:04:53 GMT
To: histsex@topica.com
Subject: FWD: RVW: Brown &Brown: The Hanging of Ephraim Wheeler
Irene Quenzler Brown and Richard D. Brown. The Hanging
of Ephraim Wheeler: A Story of Rape, Incest, and
Justice in Early America. Cambridge and London:
Harvard University Press, 2003. 388 pp. Illustrations,
index. $26.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-674-01020-5.
Reviewed by Randolph Roth, Department of History, Ohio
State University.
Published by H-SHEAR (September, 2003)
In February, 1806, Ephraim Wheeler was hanged in
Lenox, Massachusetts, for the rape of his thirteen-
year-old daughter, Betsey. Ephraim proclaimed his
innocence to the very end, but he was almost certainly
guilty. According to his daughter, the principal
witness against him, he had first tried to seduce her
with promises of presents. When that failed, he tried
to rape her, but his first attempt was unsuccessful.
He succeeded on his second attempt, on June 8, 1805.
Ephraim had decided that morning to leave his wife,
Hannah, and take their children with him. The
Wheelers, who had been living with Lucy and Bill
Martin, Hannah's sister and brother-in-law, quarreled
after the Martins moved the Wheelers' bed into a
shared bedroom. Lucy Martin, who had just given birth,
wanted more privacy. Ephraim saw that he and his wife
would have none. Hannah told him "it was Martin's
orders, and that we must sleep there for the future."
Ephraim was furious. "I told her it was my room, and
my bed, and it should be brought back" (pp. 145-46).
When Hannah took the Martins' side, Ephraim picked up
a bayonet and hit her with it. Bill Martin rushed in
and threw Ephraim out of the house. Ephraim then
declared his intention to leave.
Ephraim drove Betsey and her younger brother, Ephraim,
Jr., into a remote neighborhood and stopped. He
ordered his son to stay in the wagon while he went
into the woods with Betsey, ostensibly to gather a
medicinal herb. Betsey, suspecting her father's
purpose, asked not to go, but her father insisted. She
asked if her brother could go along, but her father
denied that request as well. When he had taken her a
distance into the woods, Ephraim ordered Betsey to lie
down. She refused, so he threw her down. She
struggled, and both were badly scraped and bruised. In
the end, however, as Betsey told her mother, her
father "had to do with her."
These events came to pass for complex reasons, as
Irene and Richard Brown show in their remarkable book.
The Browns tell the story from multiple perspectives:
first, from the public perspective of the trial;
second, from Betsey's point of view; third, from
Hannah's point of view; and finally, from Ephraim's
point of view.
The trial pitted two of the best defense lawyers in
Massachusetts, John Hulbert and Daniel Dewey, against
the state's accomplished attorney general, James
Sullivan. Each gave his all, but in the end it came
down to whether the jury believed Betsey's story. The
story that her brother told was consistent with hers,
but her brother did not see the crime itself. He
testified about Betsey's distress, her injuries, and
her words to him. Betsey's mother had examined her
daughter's wounds the day of the crime and could
verify that Betsey had been raped, but she could not
testify in court against her husband. The local
justice of the peace, Robert Walker, solicitous of
Betsey's feelings and deeply affected by what he saw
and heard, failed to ask a jury of matrons to examine
Betsey. That left the prosecution without the physical
evidence that was usually necessary to prove that a
rape had been committed. Had Ephraim had character
witnesses who could have vouched for him, he might
have escaped conviction or been found guilty of a
lesser charge, like attempted rape or aggravated
assault. No one, however, would stand up for him.
Ephraim's lawyers tried to poke holes in Betsey's
story, especially her failure to mention, until well
after the crime, the fact that her father had tried to
rape her before. They tried to prove that Ephraim's
estranged wife had concocted the story in a desperate
effort to maintain custody of her children. They
failed, however, to shake the jury's faith in Betsey,
nor could they counter Judge Theodore Sedgwick's final
instructions to the jury. He told the jury that
Betsey's willingness to speak now about her father's
previous attempts was a sign of her "integrity"--her
determination to tell the court everything about her
ordeal. After less than an hour of deliberation, the
jury found Ephraim Wheeler guilty.
The trial told only a small part of the story. The
next chapter helps readers understand why Betsey, an
unlettered servant who worked side by side with her
mother, had kept her silence until the day of the
crime, and only then found the courage to speak.
Betsey was in the habit of taking orders and accepting
her lot in life. Like many children in abusive
families, she had learned in the Browns' words "to
keep her head down" and to conceal unpleasant truths
for the sake of family "peace" (p. 111). Betsey knew,
however, what her life would be like if she did not
tell her mother about the rape. She would have to live
with her father, who would rape her repeatedly. Had
she been living at home with both her parents, she
might have told no one, afraid of what her mother
might say and afraid of breaking up her family. But
her home was already broken. Her mother was her only
hope, so she told her mother the truth. She repeated
her story to the authorities, once her mother was
allowed to sit by her side. When asked why she spoke
out, Betsey said "I thought I had as lieve [as soon]
die one way as another." "What Betsey meant," the
Browns believe, "was that she might as well die of
shame for disclosing her complicity with her father,
limited as it was, as die of guilt by continuing to
hide the truth" (pp. 122-23).
Hannah stood up for her daughter, just as she had
stood up to her husband. She had left him several
times before the day he left her. Hannah was a hard
worker, but her husband was not, and he spent too much
of what he did earn on drink. That is why they never
had a place of their own. They moved from farm to
farm, working as live-in help for strangers or for
members of Hannah's extended family, who gave Hannah
and her children considerable support during the
difficult times in her marriage. Hannah's family
viewed Ephraim as a ne'er-do-well and as an outsider:
he was white and they were not. Though Hannah and her
children were taken for white, most of Hannah's
relations were mixed-race. They were descended from
Europeans, Africans, and perhaps Native Americans.
They were hard workers and had a solid reputation in
western Massachusetts, where racial prejudice was not
as virulent as elsewhere in the United States. But
they were neither rich nor privileged, and they were
not happy about having to support a failed white like
Ephraim Wheeler. From Hannah's point of view, the rape
was the last straw. Expelling Ephraim from the family
and protecting her daughter was an easy choice. She
did not hate her husband; she and her children
petitioned for clemency. She would not have minded,
however, if he spent the rest of his life in prison.
Ephraim Wheeler, for his part, was a man who admitted
his faults, even if he protested the criminal charges
against him. He blamed his failings, however, on
circumstances beyond his control. He was orphaned at
an early age, apprenticed to a cruel master, cut off
from his kin, and mistreated by most every one who
came his way. His capacity for self-pity may have
played a large role in driving him to incest. Despite
his drinking and laziness, he felt entitled to a
certain amount of gratification, including sex, and if
he could not get it from his wife, he would take it
from his daughter. It is possible, in the Browns'
opinion, that Ephraim actually believed he was
innocent: he may have convinced himself that his
daughter had consented to have sex with him. He never
said so; he claimed that he had never had sex nor
sought sex with her. But as the Browns speculate, he
may have thought so, which would explain his refusal
to confess and his hope that he would end up in
heaven.
The Hanging of Ephraim Wheeler concludes with
excellent chapters on the denial of Wheeler's petition
for clemency and on the execution itself. Neither was
pro forma. No rapist had been executed in
Massachusetts for a quarter century, and no white had
been executed for rape since 1681. Wheeler was not
singled out because he had married across racial
lines, but because the Massachusetts legislature had
pointedly, if narrowly, rejected a bill in 1805 that
would have ended the death penalty for rape.
Massachusetts, like many other states after the
Revolution, revised its criminal laws substantially.
It decreased the number of capital crimes and
gradually replaced corporal punishment with terms in
the state prison. The Massachusetts Senate, however,
refused to go along with the one-vote majority in the
House of Representatives; it maintained the death
penalty for rape. Thus Governor Caleb Strong had
little room to maneuver. Despite his qualms about the
death penalty in cases other than murder or treason,
he refused to commute Ephraim Wheeler's sentence.
Finally, there was Wheeler's execution. It was a
dramatic occasion. Wheeler refused to confess, which
cast doubt upon the proceedings, and many townspeople
had petitioned for clemency, including the sheriff,
Simon Larned, who had to conduct the execution. Larned
did his duty compassionately and professionally, but
when he announced to the assembled crowd that clemency
had been denied, the crowd was restless, even angry.
Wheeler's death undermined what support was left in
Massachusetts for executing rapists.
The story of Ephraim Wheeler is interesting in every
way, and the Browns' beautifully written book makes
the most of it. Their book is a microhistory, one that
takes full advantage, analytically and narratively, of
the genre's ability to engage a subject from multiple
points of view. Of course, the book benefits from the
Browns' expertise on domestic violence. But they wear
their expertise lightly, and they are as fascinated by
the occasions on which people did not act as
contemporary psychological theory would have predicted
as they are by occasions on which people acted in
accord with theory. That is what makes this book
revealing and rewarding. Like all good history books,
it reveals to us things that we do not expect in past
societies or in human nature, and thereby broadens our
understanding of what to expect. It is an admirable
effort and one well worth reading by professional and
lay readers alike.
Library of Congress call number: HV6565.M4 B76 2003
Subjects:
Wheeler, Ephraim.
Rape--Massachusetts--Berkshire County--History--19th
century--Case studies.
Incest--Massachusetts--Berkshire County--History--19th
century--Case studies.
Hanging--Massachusetts--Lenox--History--19th century--
Case studies.
Problem families--Massachusetts--Berkshire County--
History--19th century--Case studies.
Interracial marriage--Massachusetts--Berkshire County--
History--19th century--Case studies.
Capital punishment--Massachusetts--Berkshire County--
History--19th century--Case studies.
Berkshire County (Mass.)--Social conditions--19th
century.
Berkshire County (Mass.)--Social conditions--18th
century.
Citation: Randolph Roth. "Review of Irene Quenzler
Brown and Richard D. Brown, The Hanging of Ephraim
Wheeler: A Story of Rape, Incest, and Justice in Early
America," H-SHEAR, H-Net Reviews, September, 2003.
URL: http://www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?
path=99501069473052.
Copyright 2003 by H-Net, all rights reserved. H-Net
permits the redistribution and reprinting of this work
for nonprofit, educational purposes, with full and
accurate attribution to the author, web location, date
of publication, originating list, and H-Net:
Humanities & Social Sciences Online. For any other
proposed use, contact the Reviews editorial staff at
hbooks@mail.h-net.msu.edu.
From: John Lauritsen <j.lauritsen@neandertech.com>
Sent: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 10:54:15 -0800
To: HistSex <histsex@topica.com>
Subject: Executions of gay men
The review of the book on the hanging of Ephraim Wheeler
raises a question that has been in the back of my mind for a long
time. When was the last time in the United States (and in
Massachusetts) that a man was executed for the crime of sodomy
(i.e., having sex with another male)?
The last hanging for male-to-male sex ("buggery) in England
was in 1834. The death penalty remained on the books in England
until 1861, and in Scotland, until 1887.
Until the Lawrence decision a few months ago, men living in
Massachusetts committed a felony every time they had sex with
another male.
John Lauritsen.
Author: A Freethinker's Primer of Male Love (1998).
Editor: Plato: The Banquet, tr. Percy Bysshe Shelley (2001).
Co-author: The Early Homosexual Rights Movement (1864-1935)
(1974/ Revised Second Edition 1995).
john_lauritsen@post.harvard.edu
From: "vern bullough" <vbullough@adelphia.net>
Sent: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 08:58:15 -0800
To: <histsex@topica.com>
Subject: RE: [histsex] Greek pederasty as form of gay marriage
The best recent study is by William Percy, pederasty and Pedagogy in
Ancient Greece (University of Illinois Press). Vern Bullough
From: "j.l. tallentire gilley" <jltallen@interchange.ubc.ca>
Sent: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 10:54:32 -0800
To: <histsex@topica.com>
Subject: RE: [histsex] Victorian passing
Hi Karen - you might want to check out Laura Doan's _Fashioning Sapphism_
(Columbia UP 2001)
Cheers,
Jenéa Tallentire Gilley
___________________________
j.l. tallentire gilley
Ph.D. candidate, History
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC, Canada
jltallen@interchange.ubc.ca
===========================
Co-editor, thirdspace
journal for emerging feminist scholars
www.thirdspace.ca
___________________________
Founder and list admin
Scholars of Single Women Network
www.medusanet.ca/singlewomen
___________________________
Web editor
Canadian Committee on the History of Sexuality
www.cha-shc.ca/cchs/
From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Michael=20O'Rourke?= <tranquilised_icon@yahoo.com>
Sent: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 18:40:52 +0000 (GMT)
To: histsex@topica.com
Subject: Final Reminder: Queer Studies Symposium at UCD *PLEASE NOTE VENUE CHANGE*
Dear all,
You are invited to attend the plenary symposium for
The(e)ories: Advanced Seminars for Queer Research 2003
which will take place on Thursday 27th from 5pm to 9pm
in Room A109 of the John Henry Newman (Arts) Building.
Please note that the symposium venue has changed
because ThP is not an accessible theatre. Room A109 is
located in the AD block on the first floor (there are
colored lines running from the main doors to assist
you). Details of the event and the final The(e)ories
seminar of 2003, which will be given by Susannah
Bowyer (University of Manchester) are included below.
We look forward to seeing you,
Michael & Noreen.
------------------------------------------------------
Does the term QUEER offend you or do you embrace it as
a powerful descriptor for yourself? When we say
someone is QUEER who are we referring to? Simply
lesbians and gays or does the term have wider
meanings? Can we use QUEER theory for political
purposes or is it only useful for those privileged few
who work in universities? What do people who call
themselves QUEER theorists and activists do anyway?
Why not come along and find out?
QUEER STUDIES SYMPOSIUM
Thursday 27 November 2003
A109, Arts Building, UCD
5-9 p.m.
FOLLOWED BY A WINE RECEPTION
NO CHARGE ~ ALL WELCOME
Further details available from Noreen Giffney (WERRC,
UCD, 7168326, noreen.giffney@ucd.ie) or Michael
O'Rourke (English, UCD, 7168297,
tranquilised_icon@yahoo.com), or check out the
web-site: www.ucd.ie/~werrc/theeories.htm and
www.ucd.ie/~werrc/theeories.html
_______________________________________________________
AGENDA FOR THE EVENING
WELCOME & OPENING REMARKS (5-5:10 p.m.)
Noreen Giffney & Michael O’Rourke
_______________________________________________________
PANEL DEBATE (5:10-6:40 p.m.)
Chaired by Danielle Clarke (English, UCD)
Queer Studies:
Pros, Cons, & ‘Futural Imaginings’
I Que(e)rying Ireland & Irishness
(5:10-5:15) Phillip Andrew Bernhardt-House, ‘The
Future of the Past: Queering Premodern Ireland’
(5:15-5:20) Katherine O’Donnell, ‘Queer Fella: The
Shape of Irish Queer Studies’
(5:20-5:25) David Cregan, ‘Critical
Questions/Questioning Critics’
II Queer Approaches to the Arts & Sciences
(5:25-5:30) Peter Stoneley, ‘Dance and Queer
Visibility’
(5:30-5:35) Sonja Tiernan, ‘The Queerness of the
Oyster in Sarah Waters’s Tipping the Velvet’
(5:35-5:40) Michael O’Rourke, ‘Fuzzy Logic: A New
Queer Science?’
III Queer Theory & Identities
(5:40-5:45) Emma Bidwell, ‘Finding the "We of Me"’
(5:45-5:50) Tam Sanger, ‘Queer Theory’s
Marginalisation of Bi and Trans Identities’
(5:50-5:55) Suzy Byrne, ‘Creating a Space for Queers
in Social Policy’
(5:55-6:40) Questions & Discussion followed by a break
with tea, coffee, & snacks (6:40-7:10)
_______________________________________________________
PLENARY LECTURE
Chaired by Kay Inckle (Sociology, TCD)
(7:10-8:00) Tamsin Wilton, ‘All Foucault and No
Knickers? Assessing Claims for a Queer-Political
Erotics’
(8:00-8:40) Questions & Discussion
_______________________________________________________
THE(E)ORIES QUEER SEMINARS 2004
Launched by Ailbhe Smyth (WERRC, UCD) followed by
Closing Remarks (Noreen Giffney & Michael O’Rourke)
_______________________________________________________
WINE & SOFT DRINKS RECEPTION
------------------------------------------------------
Monday 1 December 2003
‘COMING OUT TO THE NEIGHBOURS/COMING ON TO THE
NEIGHBOURS: SAME-SEX DESIRE, SPEAKING IT AND BEING IT
IN DUBLIN 2001’
Ms Susannah Bowyer (University of Manchester, UK)
WERRC Resource Room, Arts Annex Building, University
College Dublin, 7:30-9:30.
ABSTRACT
The 1970s US model of self revelation and speaking out
about sexuality has gained increasing cultural
currency and widening global influence, to the extent
that ‘the Doctrine of Coming Out’ may be seen as a
dominant belief system in relation to identity
formation and sexual self-hood in the late-twentieth
century. In the course of my doctoral fieldwork in
Dublin, I have become interested in the accounts of
those who experience same-sex desire while resisting
this ‘dominant sexual structure’. My paper explores
the relationships between language, the performance of
sexual identity and active same-sexual engagement.
SPEAKER
Susannah Bowyer was involved in lesbian, feminist, and
queer activisms in London and New Zealand in the 1980s
and early 1990s. Since 1995, she has been a student at
universities in Lancaster, Cambridge, and Manchester.
She is currently writing up her doctoral research in
anthropology. The fieldwork was done in Dublin, where
she has been looking at lesbian and gay visibility,
and the impact that has on social relations beyond the
‘gay community’ itself.
------------------------------------------------------
________________________________________________________________________
Want to chat instantly with your online friends? Get the FREE Yahoo!
Messenger http://mail.messenger.yahoo.co.uk
From: Hera Cook <hera.cook@history.usyd.edu.au>
Sent: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 16:47:28 +1100
To: histsex@topica.com
Subject: Re:cunninlingus
Does the word really translate as 'middles'?
Hera
Margaret Robinson wrote:
>Histsex: discussion list for historians of sexuality. List homepage http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah/listinf.htm
>Lesley Hall asked: "I would be interested to know if anyone can suggest
>when and where the earliest record of cunnilingus might be found."
>
>Bernadette Brooten's book, Love Between Women includes a reference that
>bring us at least to Martial (40-104 c.e.).
>
>"When, after all these things [a description of her monstrous appetite for
>meat and wine], her mind turns back to sex, she does not engage in fellatio,
>which she thinks is not manly enough." Instead she "devours girls'
>middles." martial, Epigrammata 7.67.13-15: post haec omnia cum libidinatur,
>non fellat--putat hoc parum virile--, / sed plane medias vorat puellas.
>
>I don't know if it's the earliest (I actually doubt that it is). But it's
>the earliest I could find with the books on hand.
From: "Terrence Lockyer" <lockyert@mweb.co.za>
Sent: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 23:42:29 +0200
To: "History of Sexuality" <histsex@topica.com>
Subject: Re: [histsex] Re:cunnilingus
On Wednesday, November 26, 2003, Hera Cook quoted
: "When, after all these things [a description of her monstrous
: appetite for meat and wine], her mind turns back to sex, she
: does not engage in fellatio, which she thinks is not manly enough."
: Instead she "devours girls' middles." martial, Epigrammata
: 7.67.13-15: post haec omnia cum libidinatur, non fellat--putat
: hoc parum virile--, / sed plane medias vorat puellas.
and asked
: Does the word really translate as 'middles'?
Yes, it ("medias") does, and what it means is made explicit in the following
two lines:
16 di mentem tibi dent tuam, Philaeni,
17 cunnum lingere quae putas virile.
16 May the gods restore your mind, Philaenis,
17 if you think that licking a cunt is manly.
I choose the noun in line 17 advisedly - we know from Cicero (106-43 BCE)
that "cunnus" was considered indelicate in his period, and he was considered
a literary classic by Martial's day (b. 38-41 CE, d. 101-4 CE), especially
by those such as Martial's near-contemporary, the rhetorician Quintilian (c.
35 - c. 95 CE), who considered themselves his stylistic heirs.
The poem, by the way, characterizes Philaenis as a "tribas" (l. 1; a word
sometimes, though inaccurately, translated "lesbian"), and the point of
these final lines derives from the speaker's presentation of her as a woman
who behaves like a man: this is clear not only from her considering
fellatio "not manly enough" (parum uirile, l. 14), but also from the poem's
opening statement that she "buggers boys" (paedicat pueros, l. 1). The
final lines undermine her pretensions to "manliness" by attacking her for a
sexual behaviour considered even *less* "manly" than fellatio.
Terrence Lockyer
Johannesburg, South Africa
From: "vern bullough" <vbullough@adelphia.net>
Sent: Sat, 29 Nov 2003 09:33:17 -0800
To: <histsex@topica.com>
Subject: RE: [histsex] yo-yoing age of puberty?
I have sent you three emails and they keep bouncing back. If this one
goes through, I will try again. Vern
From: Hera Cook <Hera.Cook@arts.usyd.edu.au>
Sent: Sun, 30 Nov 2003 17:08:30 +1100
To: histsex@topica.com
Subject: Re: [histsex] Re:cunnilingus
Dear Terence,
Thanks for this explanation. I understood that rejection of female genitals as implied by the use of a euphemism and
rejection of
the word 'cunnas' was a product of early Christianity.
There is a difference between thinking that cunnilingus is unmanly which seems consistent with Roman culture and the
valuing of women within it (in my limited understanding) and an active rejection of female genitals - or am I
misinterpreting this?
Hera
Terrence Lockyer wrote:
> Histsex: discussion list for historians of sexuality. List homepage http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah/listinf.htm
> On Wednesday, November 26, 2003, Hera Cook quoted
>
> : "When, after all these things [a description of her monstrous
> : appetite for meat and wine], her mind turns back to sex, she
> : does not engage in fellatio, which she thinks is not manly enough."
> : Instead she "devours girls' middles." martial, Epigrammata
> : 7.67.13-15: post haec omnia cum libidinatur, non fellat--putat
> : hoc parum virile--, / sed plane medias vorat puellas.
>
> and asked
>
> : Does the word really translate as 'middles'?
>
> Yes, it ("medias") does, and what it means is made explicit in the following
> two lines:
>
> 16 di mentem tibi dent tuam, Philaeni,
> 17 cunnum lingere quae putas virile.
>
> 16 May the gods restore your mind, Philaenis,
> 17 if you think that licking a cunt is manly.
>
> I choose the noun in line 17 advisedly - we know from Cicero (106-43 BCE)
> that "cunnus" was considered indelicate in his period, and he was considered
> a literary classic by Martial's day (b. 38-41 CE, d. 101-4 CE), especially
> by those such as Martial's near-contemporary, the rhetorician Quintilian (c.
> 35 - c. 95 CE), who considered themselves his stylistic heirs.
>
> The poem, by the way, characterizes Philaenis as a "tribas" (l. 1; a word
> sometimes, though inaccurately, translated "lesbian"), and the point of
> these final lines derives from the speaker's presentation of her as a woman
> who behaves like a man: this is clear not only from her considering
> fellatio "not manly enough" (parum uirile, l. 14), but also from the poem's
> opening statement that she "buggers boys" (paedicat pueros, l. 1). The
> final lines undermine her pretensions to "manliness" by attacking her for a
> sexual behaviour considered even *less* "manly" than fellatio.
>
> Terrence Lockyer
> Johannesburg, South Africa
>
From: "Terrence Lockyer" <lockyert@mweb.co.za>
Sent: Sun, 30 Nov 2003 15:55:10 +0200
To: "History of Sexuality" <histsex@topica.com>
Subject: Re: [histsex] Re:cunnilingus
Hera Cook wrote
: I understood that rejection of female genitals as implied
: by the use of a euphemism and rejection of the word
: 'cunnas' was a product of early Christianity.
Early Christianity is beyond my competence. In pre- and non-Christian
Latin, "cunnus" is found in various senses (including both the literal
anatomical and to denote an "unchaste" woman) in (at least) Catullus,
Propertius, Horace, Martial and the Priapea, so it and cognates are
certainly not avoided. I have looked at the Ciceronian passages, and the
more extensive (Ad Fam. 9.22) is an exuberant epistolary discourse on the
Stoic doctrine that a wise man will not turn to euphemism, but will "call a
spade a spade": Cicero rehearses the arguments that obscenity is illusory,
because it must reside either in the word itself or in what the word refers
to, but in fact can be shown to exist in neither. He praises the Stoic
frankness of his correspondent (who had used the word "mentula", an obscene
term for "penis" that can also be used of a person as an insult, much like
some English equivalents), though saying that he prefers to employ what he
calls "Plato's modesty". He therefore provides indirect evidence of the
perceived register of "cunnus" and other words to which he refers
(obliquely), but also of their currency.
HC wrote further
: There is a difference between thinking that cunnilingus is
: unmanly which seems consistent with Roman culture and the
: valuing of women within it (in my limited understanding) and
: an active rejection of female genitals - or am I misinterpreting
: this?
This seems right to me: in Rome (and Greece) it seems usually to have been
behaviours that attracted approval or disapproval, not specific parts of the
body per se, and indeed, especially in Greece, phalloi and even images of
female genitals (as at the women-only festival of the Haloa at Eleusis)
were typical features of religious ritual that continued into the Roman
period. Aristophanes (fifth century BCE), at least, provides us with some
Greek slang for the female genitalia ("khoiros", Akharnians 764-820, which
also means "pig" or "piglet" - puns on this were very popular with Old Comic
playwrights), as well as a more straightforward term ("kusthos", Akh. 789),
and there is no sign that such terms are problematic for him or his
audience.
For the Greeks, full or partial nudity was normal for men and boys in
various public venues (including athletics, especially the "gymnasion",
which is literally a "place for being naked", while male athletes also
competed nude, as, for example, at Olympia, where unmarried women were
admitted as spectators). It became something of a marker of ethnicity and
citizenship: the Greeks, or some of them at least, were aware that their
attitudes on this score set them apart. In Greek art, nudity is normal for
men in both figural sculpture, and scenes both of myth and of everyday (but
not domestic) life, from an early date. The Romans seem to have been less
comfortable with social nudity (although the public baths must presumably
have been one venue in which it was practised, and they did to an extent
adopt the Greek practice of athletics), but did frequently use nudity in
depictions of heroic myth, and for heroized depictions of historical
figures: there are extant nude portraits of the emperors Lucius Verus
(mid-second century CE) and Septimius Severus (early third century CE),
among others.
For women, however, both Greeks and Romans seem to have regarded public
nudity as shameful. In Greek vase-painting, women appear fully nude only in
scenes of private life (e. g., bathing, some probable scenes of ritual), of
social activity in which they are most likely prostitutes, "hetairai", or
non-citizen entertainers such as dancers and musicians (e. g., symposia,
scenes of sex), and of myth in which the narrative requires it and it may
symbolize the enormity of an event (e. g., the rape of Kassandra). In
monumental sculpture, female nudity is rare in early times, but becomes
common from the later fourth century BCE. The Roman polymath Pliny the
Elder (Natural History 36.20-1) describes how the sculptor Praxiteles
(mid-fourth century BCE) carved two large statues of Aphrodite (Latin
Venus), one clothed and one nude (of which we have various imitations). The
Koans, who had first choice, chose the former. The Knidians bought the
latter, and constructed for it a special shrine allowing it to be viewed
from all angles. It became very famous and widely admired, which seems to
have been taken as a sign of the goddess' approval.
Praxiteles' innovation seems to have been to employ such complete and such
overtly erotic nudity (Pliny also records a story about a man who fell in
love with the piece, went into the shrine secretly at night, and left
evidence of his lust on it) in a major statue of a goddess (and especially
of the goddess of sexual love). Subsequently, Hellenistic sculptors (that
is, Greek sculptors of the period beginning with the death of Alexander in
323 BCE) regularly employed nudity for numerous depictions of both divine
(especially Aphrodite) and human women, sometimes with an obvious debt to
the Praxitelean model, but also with great variety and invention, as in the
sculpture of a sleeping hermaphrodite, which appears female from behind, and
whose sexual ambiguity would be clear only once the viewer walked around it
and saw the figure's front. It is this period in which the Romans begin to
become a Mediterranean power and to acquire Greek lands and Greek art.
Apart from overtly sexual scenes such as those from some buildings at
Pompeii, female nudity is also found in Roman depictions of myth or of
religious behaviour, such as the Pompeian wall-paintings of the Villa of the
Mysteries. At the same time, one also finds male, and especially female,
figures with the sort of improbable lower-body drapery of which the most
famous example is the "Venus di Milo" (2nd century BCE, from Melos). On the
other hand is, for example, a larger-than-lifesize full-length portrait of a
Roman woman as Venus (later first century CE), in which the lower body
drapery falls *below* the line of the genitals.
These trends and changes in artistic convention do not seem to reflect a
change in attitudes to actual nudity, which remained shameful for women
whose reputations mattered; that is, for citizen women, whether married or
not yet married (whose sexual behaviour was also quite closely regulated in
both Greece, especially Athens, and Rome, although in Rome citizen women
could have greater autonomy sometimes by law and sometimes in practice, and
the role and lives of citizen women in the Greek state of Sparta, while much
disputed, seem clearly to have been conducted on very different lines from
the apparently approved ones in Athens). I don't think there is any
indication, however, of a rejection of specific parts of the body, rather
than a general prohibition on public nudity for citizen women, and the
artistic and literary evidence seems to suggest that it was the *actual*
nudity of such women, rather than the concept of female nudity or of
specific parts of the female anatomy, that aroused social and moral
anxieties.
The extant texts that are most concerned with anatomical specifics are
medical writings, on which there is a fairly recent and possibly helpful
study by
- Lesley Dean-Jones, Women's Bodies in Classical Greek Science (Oxford
1992)
[One source I have here gives 1994, which may suggest there are other
editions.]
The anatomy and physiology of the female body, including specifically the
genitals, were topics of ongoing discussion and dispute in ancient medicine:
opinions seem to have ranged from seeing women as extremely similar to men
(and in one theory at least the female genitalia as the male in reverse) to
viewing them as virtually a different species. Summary treatments with
further bibliography may be found in Helen King's various articles (e. g.,
"the body", "gynaecology", "women") in
- Simon Hornblower and Anthony Spawforth (edd.), The Oxford Classical
Dictionary. Third edition (Oxford and New York : Oxford UP 1996)
That medical writers could discuss such topics is, I suppose, further
evidence that anatomical features were not rejected or suppressed.
If genitalia per se were not avoided, to *perform* oral-genital sex *on*
either a man or a woman seems to have been looked down on, but at the same
time seems to have been a widely known and probably a widely practised sort
of behaviour throughout Greco-Roman antiquity: fellatio is common on Attic
red-figure vases, referred to in various textual contexts, and also the
subject of a painting of the mythic hunters of the Calydonian Boar, Atalanta
(a female huntress also said by some to have sailed with the Argonauts) and
Meleager, said by Suetonius to have been presented to the Roman emperor
Tiberius (Tib. 44). This is offered in a general survey of Tiberius'
alleged sexual depravity during his retirement to Capri in old age, and is
probably to be seen as showing a perceived lack of morals, since Atalanta
was of the same social rank as Meleager, was a woman renowned for
conventionally male feats (such as hunting and participating in heroic
adventures), and would therefore be demeaning herself if she were known to
have done such a thing; yet Tiberius is said to have adored the painting.
Latin is capable of distinguishing the act of performing fellatio (for which
the verb is "fellare") from that of inserting one's penis into another's
mouth (for which the verb is "irrumare"), and Catullus 16 shows that a
threat to do the latter is a powerful expression of contempt. I know of
nothing, on the other hand, to suggest that to *receive* oral-genital sex
was considered in any way degrading.
Terrence Lockyer
Johannesburg, South Africa