Sex and Punishment: 4000 Years of Judging Desire, by Eric Berkowitz

Sex and Punishment makes for a lurid title, and while this history does spend a great deal of time looking at where law and sex intersect, showing how what is permissible and what is not fluctuates over time and between cultures, Eric Berkowitz's book has a much broader interest than cataloging outlaw sex. It's really a history of violence (especially against women), economic exploitation, power and religion. The chapters detailing the bizarre witch mania of the middle ages, with so many poor women burnt at the stake because of superstitious beliefs, make for grim reading. It's also shocking to see the weight of history when it comes to rape, the law so heavily stacked against women.

The book starts in ancient Rome and Greece, where slavery was normal and using your slaves for sex was the slave owner's prerogative. Women mostly stayed hidden indoors, and sex between men wasn't that frowned upon, as long as you weren't the one being sexually penetrated. With the rise of Christianity came a more punitive attitude towards sex, a legacy of its Jewish roots. Sex for its own sake was frowned upon and could only be countenanced for purposes of reproduction. Moving into the more modern age, laws around sex started inching slowly towards protecting the vulnerable from the clutches of entitled men.

The trial and imprisonment of Oscar Wilde is where Sex and Punishment ends. In the decades leading up to Wilde's conviction for gross indecency, Berkowitz shows how homophobia was very much on the increase. There was a particular prejudice against upper class men picking up working class boys. Wilde made many great missteps, recklessly launching lawsuits and thinking he could lie his way out of trouble. Anti gay laws passed only just before his trial would stay on Britain's books until 1967.

A very satisfying history of our troubled relationship to sex, revealing a hidden narrative of madness , guilt and self-loathing.  

Sex and Punishment: 4000 Years of Judging Desire, by Eric Berkowitz.