Sex and Punishment tells the story of the struggle throughout millennia to regulate the most powerful engine of human behaviour: sex. From the savage impalement of an Ancient Mesopotamian adulteress to the imprisonment of Oscar Wilde for `gross indecency' in 1895, Eric Berkowitz evokes the entire sweep of Western sex law.
The cast of Sex and Punishment is as varied as the forms taken by human desire itself: royal mistresses, gay charioteers, medieval transvestites, lonely goat-lovers, prostitutes of all stripes and London rent boys. Each of them had forbidden sex, and each was judged - and justice, as Berkowitz shows - rarely had anything to do with it.
Interesting look at Sex and the control of it over the years. Starts with ancient history and moves to the late 19th early 20th century. It concentrates on western culture and the effect Christianity had on pre-existing European culture after looking at Classical Greek and Roman society. A mess was made of various societies by the attempt to control people and their reactions to people they are attracted to.
Sex and sexuality is complicated and we still haven't resolved a lot of our issues with it but this is an interesting romp through 4000 years of judging desire.
Reading updates
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25 November, 2015:
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25 November, 2015:
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