verbminx

Hey hey, there are still something like 18 out of 40 unanswered in the SONG LYRIC GAME.

I had a dark night. I have not been sleeping enough over the last few days, and have reached the point where things crawl in my peripheral vision. Then some link I clicked last night wound up being on Crime Library. It's a great website, if sometimes sensationalistic; if you are of a certain disposition, there's a lot of reading material there. (And no, that disposition need not necessarily be the kind that collects Serial Killer trading cards; it might just be the kind that likes to watch CSI, Cold Case, Law and Order, and Crossing Jordan.) I just managed to get terribly spooked because of my lack of sleep.

Reading Marilyn Yalom's Birth of the Chess Queen and thinking about medieval sexual politics. They aren't what you might think if you haven't studied the period, because people forget that most of Europe - England especially - didn't use precepts of "Roman law" (women are chattel etc) until around 1500. The average medieval woman, especially one with money, would have had greater potential for relative independence than a woman living in similar economic and social circumstances in, say, 1690 or 1850. But something has been on my mind lately, I think since finishing 1215: The Year of Magna Carta.

There was a medieval medical belief that in order to conceive a child, a woman had to have an orgasm during the conceptual sex act. This is all well and good, and in a culture desirous of producing many heirs could have nice side effects for the ladies involved. However, before applauding this, I think it's good to examine the obvious, logical flip side that popular history books don't mention: men who didn't want their partners to get pregnant probably intentionally neglected the women's pleasure, something akin to treating them like meat tubes. Worse, men who had treated their partners like this could then accuse the women of infidelity if they conceived, because "hey, I know I didn't get you off."

And... meh, my head swims imagining all the trouble this could have caused.