Sex and Punishment: Four Thousand Years of Judging Desire
Sex and Punishment: Four Thousand Years of Judging Desire
Berkowitz, Eric
product information
Condition: New, UPC: 9781619021556, Publication Date: Mon, April 1, 2013, Type: Paperback ,
join & start selling
description
, to use Plato's phrase, has always defied control. However, that's not to say that the Sumerians, Victorians, and every civilization in between and beyond have not tried, wielding their most formidable weapon: the law. At any given point in time, some forms of sex were condoned while others were punished mercilessly. Jump forward or backward a century or two (and often far less than that), and the harmless fun of one time period becomes the gravest crime in another. Sex and Punishment tells the story of the struggle throughout the millennia to regulate the most powerful engine of human behavior.

Writer and lawyer Eric Berkowitz uses flesh-and-blood cases--much flesh and even more blood--to evoke the entire sweep of Western sex law, from the savage impalement of an ancient Mesopotamian adulteress to the imprisonment of Oscar Wilde in 1895 for "gross indecency." The cast of Sex and Punishment is as varied as the forms taken by human desire itself: royal mistresses, gay charioteers, medieval transvestites, lonely goat-lovers, prostitutes of all stripes, London rent boys. Each of them had forbidden sex, and each was judged--and justice, as Berkowitz shows, rarely had much to do with it.

With the light touch of a natural storyteller, Berkowitz spins these tales and more, going behind closed doors to reveal the essential history of human desire.

reviews

Be the first to write a review

member goods

No member items were found under this heading.

notems store

listens & views

INTERPRETA A RAFAEL HERNANDEZ MARIN

by PIRELA,FELIPE

COMPACT DISC

out of stock

$10.25

OCTOBERT ROSES

by DAUBNEY

COMPACT DISC

$17.99

NENHUMA CONDENACAO

by FILHO,ARMANDO

COMPACT DISC

out of stock

$16.99

TIMEAWAY

by DARKSTAR

12-INCH SINGLE

$22.75

Return Policy

All sales are final

Shipping

No special shipping considerations available.
Shipping fees determined at checkout.
promoting relevance through notable postings ]
share it, buy it, sell it ]

A notem is a post that highlights an experience, idea, topic of interest, an event ... whatever a member believes worthy of discussion. Each notem becomes a pathway by which to make meaningful connections.

notems is a free, global social network that rewards members by the number and quality of notems they post.

notemote® © . Privacy Policy. Developed by Hartmann Software Group