Reflection on The Joy of Sexus: Lust, Love, and Longing in the Ancient World by Vicki Leon

               This is a pretty cool social history book, mostly about how Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians got it on. There’s a lot of information about sexual norms, sex toys, conceptions of love and lust, and details about famous and not so famous people the survive to this day. By the end it feels like the author sort of runs out of sex stuff and starts talking about other things, but they’re all interesting details about classical life so it’s okay. The book is somewhat disorganized and is made up of several short pieces of info that last from bout 2-10 pages or so. I’ll just put some random facts I learned below.

               Roman women used olive oil as a lubricant and as a somewhat effective form of birth control (it slowed down the sperm). They also used alum, gum resin from the acacia tree, honey, vinegar, and wool plugs.

               Julius Caesar once said about masturbation, “To the lonely it is company; to the forsaken it is a friend; to the aged and impotent it is a benefactor; they that are penniless are yet rich, in that they still have this majestic diversion.” I was surprised to see a quote from Caesar on this “majestic diversion.”

               The Sacred Band was a group of Theban warriors in Greece made up of homosexual couples, who were famed for how well they fought on the battlefield. They were defeated and killed each one by Philip II of Macedon. Apparently there is a memorial there, restored in 1902 by the Order of Chaeronea, a secret society of English homosexuals.

               Romans used to greet each other with a brief kiss on the lips. Because of this, oral sex was considered to be especially gross while anal sex not so much.

               The ancients thought that “hysteria” in women was caused by the womb moving around to different parts of the body. They would try to get it back by using bad smells to force that nomadic womb back into submission.

               In the ancient world, the difference between homosexual and heterosexual wasn’t really a thing. What was more important was who was penetrating and who was being penetrated, as the active and passive roles determined effeminacy.