Sex and the Ancient City: Sex and Sexual Practices in Greco-Roman Antiquity

Description

This volume aims to revisit, further explore and tease out the textual, but also non-textual sources in an attempt to reconstruct a clearer picture of a particular aspect of sexuality, i.e. sexual practices, in Greco-Roman antiquity. Sexual practices refers to a part of the overarching notion of sexuality: specifically, the acts of sexual intercourse, the erogenous capacities and genital functions of male and female body, and any other physical or biological actions that define one’s sexual identity or orientation. This volume aims to approach not simply the acts of sexual intercourse themselves, but also their legal, social, political, religious, medical, cultural/moral and interdisciplinary (e.g. emotional, performative) perspectives, as manifested in a range of both textual and non-textual evidence (i.e. architecture, iconography, epigraphy, etc.). The insights taken from the contributions to this volume would enable researchers across a range of disciplines – e.g. sex/gender studies, comparative literature, psychology and cognitive neuroscience – to use theoretical perspectives, methodologies and conceptual tools to frame the sprawling examination of aspects of sexuality in broad terms, or sexual practices in particular. Acknowledgements Contents List of Figures Sex, Sexuality, Sexual Intercourse and Gender: The Terms and Contexts of the Volume Part I: Aspects of Homoeroticism Dover’s “Pseudo-sexuality” and the Athenian Laws on Male Prostitutes in Politics Group Sex, Exhibitionism/Voyeurism and Male Homosociality Making the Body Speak: The (Homo)Sexual Dimensions of Sneezing in Ancient Greek Literature “Fell in Love with an Anus”: Sexual Fantasies for Young Male Bodies and the Pederastic Gaze in Rhianus’ Epigrams Silencing Female Intimacies: Sexual Practices, Silence and Cultural Assumptions in Lucian, Dial. Meretr. 5 Part II: Sex and Medicine Clitoridectomy in Ancient Greco-Roman Medicine and the Definition of Sexual Intercourse Sex and Epilepsy: Seizures and Fluids in Greek Medical Imagination Part III: The Use and Abuse of Sex Objects Some Dirty Thoughts about Chairs and Stools: Iconography of Erotic Foreplay Olive Oil, Dildos and Sandals: Greek Sex Toys Reassessed Statues as Sex Objects Having Sex with Statues: Some Cases of Agalmatophilia in Latin Poetry Part IV: Sexual Liminality Hephaistos Among the Satyrs: Semen, Ejaculation and Autochthony in Greek Culture Human-animal Sex in Ancient Greece The Womb Inside the Male Member: A Lucianic Twist Part V: Sex and Disgust Sex and Disgust in Martial’s Epigrams Part VI: The Scripts of Sexuality: Drama, Novel, Papyri and Later Texts To Voice the Physical: Sex and the Soil in Aeschylus Seminal Figures: Aristophanes and the Tradition of Sexual Imagery The Maiden who Knew Nothing about Sex: A Scabrous Theme in Novella and Comedy Sex and Abuse in Unhappy Marriages in Late Antique Oxyrhynchus: The Case of Two Women’s Narratives Preserved on Papyrus “Asexuality” in the Greek Papyrus Letters From Plato’s Symposium to Methodius’ and Late Antique Hagiography: “Female” Readings of Male Sexuality Notes on Editors and Contributors Index Locorum General Index