"The low priority attached to sexual pleasure by people who lived in distant times is inexplicable unless one considers the hindrances that existed in those days," Shorter writes. He points especially to the 1,000 years of misery and disease-often accompanied by some very un-sexy smells and itching-that led up to the Industrial Revolution.
I disagree that there was a low priority attached to pleasure, sexual or otherwise, in the pre-Industrial period. At least since the classical era, there are no small number of texts devoted to sex: how to get it, how to keep getting it; how to make a girl like you; praising men; praising women; praising sexual organs; etc. Even in the Middle Ages, the troubadors wrote about sex in rather explicit terms. And let's not forget Chaucer.
And that's just off the top of my head.
So I disagree that it was a low priority; we're still grappling with the Victorian expunging of those texts from the public consciousness. When Francis Child collected his ballads, he deliberately left out anything that might be thought "unseemly". Thus, there were a large number of ballads--common songs most people knew--left out of his 5 volumes.
I disagree that there was a low priority attached to pleasure, sexual or otherwise, in the pre-Industrial period. At least since the classical era, there are no small number of texts devoted to sex: how to get it, how to keep getting it; how to make a girl like you; praising men; praising women; praising sexual organs; etc. Even in the Middle Ages, the troubadors wrote about sex in rather explicit terms. And let's not forget Chaucer.
And that's just off the top of my head.
So I disagree that it was a low priority; we're still grappling with the Victorian expunging of those texts from the public consciousness. When Francis Child collected his ballads, he deliberately left out anything that might be thought "unseemly". Thus, there were a large number of ballads--common songs most people knew--left out of his 5 volumes.
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