Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Sex
with her indoors 16th century style
Apologies for the non-PC heading but it
serves a purpose. Well, two. The first is to garner some attention and the
second is to point to the fact that times haven’t changed much since Montaigne
wrote the essays for which he is now remembered. I am basing this on Sarah
Bakewell’s excellent book: How to Live which
is a sort of discursive biography of the man.
Though he apparently loved his wife (more
as time went on) the very idea of having raunchy sex with her was not on the
ticket. He would have been sick at the thought. In France in the 16th
century it was a cultural no-no. The belief was that if you decided to try the
various positions one might find in the Kama Sutra you could easily turn your
wife into a nymphomaniac. Sex had to be sober and a duty rather than a
pleasure. If you wanted a bit (well, a lot) on the side you should find it
elsewhere in affaires or pleasure houses.
Montaigne liked sex very much, even if
beset by the small problem of his diminutive penis. Nevertheless,
amusingly, he had much to say
about female ardour. If a woman’s heart is not in it he says that she ‘goes at it with only one buttock’. In similar vein he addresses the lover
whose mind is not on the job but is fantasizing about another man altogether; ‘What if she eats your bread with the sauce
of a more agreeable imagination?’ He points out that the graffiti daubing the walls of stately homes,
which show male appendages at three times life size, have the dual effect of
raising unrealistic hopes on the part of passing women while making men cower
in low self-esteem.
The realization for any sociologically
minded person in the 21st century that the place of sex in society
is largely determined by convention rather than the result of some universal
verity, should be enlightening and lead to more challenge of what is regarded
as the norm. The assumption of what is unacceptable is rarely universal.
Religions reveal their shaky foundations as they try to proscribe certain
sexual acts. Governments likewise. Travel round the globe and cross not just
national boundaries but sexual ones too. Or dip into history.
For
various depictions of sex, from the unvarnished to the highly embroidered, you
could try my various books, some of them free at: www.chronometerpublications.me
Labels: #Sex, Bakewell, convention., Montaigne
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