Put What Where?

Facts of Life and Love for Teen-Agers. Photo uploaded by Paula Wirth.

I followed the link Put What Where? from Early Modern Notes because I thought that taken a certain way it might sound a bit rude. Yes, I am a bit naive. It’s a link to a story about a book on 2000 years of sex advice. There’s also an interesting interview with the author at the Times website.

If you ever wanted to make a case that the study of history tells us more about our current times than the past, I’d reckon the History of Sex would be exhibit number one. One example would be that when the forbidden cupboard existed in the British Museum, 90% of the people who accessed it were women. Why? Umm… From personal experience I can say that I wouldn’t think ill of a woman who had an interest in studying the topic, but if a man does it my first reaction is to look for the dirty raincoat and weak handshake. This must be in part from my childhood experience. At one school I was at girls had sex education while boys had rugby. This may explain a lot of dissatisfaction in half of the British population.

This is probably not a healthy attitude. Sex is a universal in human experience rather like eating or disease. You could argue that this doesn’t actually apply to monks, nuns and some Catholic priests. Yet it’s still possible to pass through a history course only touching on the issue of sex as ‘gender’, which is somewhat different. It’s something I’ll need to look into as gender differences do play an important role in my PhD.