Here’s a particularly fine case of Bad History, showing that while it’s bad enough to modify an ancient text to make it into a precursor of a modern condition, it’s even worse to misread a remedy as a symptom in order to make a historical text do what you want it to do! Trotula… Continue reading Making a disease from a remedy: Trotula and vaginismus
Tag: penis
One-sex and two-sex bodies?
Back in 2013, I published a book about the claim that there was a clear division in the history of Western Europe between two models of the body: ‘one-sex’ and ‘two-sex’. In the first model, men and women were seen as having exactly the same genital bits and pieces, but with men’s on the outside… Continue reading One-sex and two-sex bodies?
The vulva goes on pilgrimage
(updated February 2018) We've looked at several different aspects of menstruation here, and as a logical next destination, I suggest the female genitalia. That's the external parts, not the internal ones - the confusion between those I've discussed here. I'll start with the pewter badges worn in the hat during the Middle Ages, my favourite one… Continue reading The vulva goes on pilgrimage
Mistaking histories 