Katrina’s Reviews > Sex in History > Status Update

Beginning of Medieval period in Europe, switch from hating women to courtly love inspired by Arabs in Spain and the crusades of holy land. I think I will like this chapter.
It’s crazy how the Europeans took the longest of any other civilization (by far) to even recognize women as anything more than an incubator. Most of other civilizations obviously didn’t respect women but never to the european extent

End of the Islam segment, I need to do more research on Eunuchs because they definitely lost me there.

The middle east was such a fascinating place. all of this information from this book is new to me but it’s crazy how i can learn so much from topics im already familiar with. they skip so much in school

hindu sexual mysticism, tantric five enjoyments, buddhist nirvana, fertility goddesses.

there’s so much to unpack when it comes to religion in india— so many forms of buddhism and hinduism. though sex was definitely a factor in both, this was much more religious content heavy.

Indian society has by far been the most forgiving to women and that's something that no one would expect.

As much as I enjoy learning this history my brain gets burnt out a lot faster and I am only halfway through....

China was by far my favorite part so far.

It went from sex being spiritual and sacred (Taoism) to being something a man had to put up with and escape from (similar to the West)

One thing (& the only) I can appreciate is the importance of respecting a woman’s economic, sexual and emotionally, even if it wasn’t completely perfect, better than other societies.

Wow, China is making this shit way more interesting. Taoism is amazing. Why don’t I know more about it? I need a taoist sex manual.

Summary of Christian Church:
Christian morality had such a grip on Europe due to the fall of the roman empire and its universal reasoning for law enforcement was eternal hellfire. censorship began. sex and lust being the biggest sins and focus. also began the attempted eradication of homosexuality.

Roman society was ahead of its time. Very logical and anti religious almost. Had very large problems with population decline. Women had more freedom than of any other society documented at the time, though they weren't constructive freedoms.

Greece Chapter takeaways:
for most of prehistoric greek history, men hated women and women hated men— for both sexes homosexuality was the norm. Masturbation (with dildos) was also widely considered. Not until overseas conquests did men rediscover their interest for women and subjected them (once again) to certain roles for their pleasure