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On Lesbian Acts and Female Pleasures in Juvenal Commentaries from Antiquity to 1500

Schachter, Marc D.

Authors



Abstract

This article explores the representation of sex between women in an understudied archive: commentaries on Juvenal’s Satires from antiquity to the end of the fifteenth century. By tracking the changes in glosses to a passage in the Sixth Satire that refers to sex between women, it contributes to our understanding of how and when the discourse on sex between women changed with the rise of humanism and the increased availability of classical texts after the advent of print in Europe. The article also addresses the vexed question of “lesbian” sex and female pleasure as understood in early modernity by considering the interpretations offered for Juvenal’s mention of urinating women and their urine—which was sometimes taken to be female sperm generated through sexual contact between women. The article tracks how the implications of this generation are addressed in different commentaries to either emphasize or downplay female pleasure.

Citation

Schachter, M. D. (2015). On Lesbian Acts and Female Pleasures in Juvenal Commentaries from Antiquity to 1500. Renaissance and Reformation, 38(4), 19-40. https://doi.org/10.33137/rr.v38i4.26372

Journal Article Type Article
Online Publication Date Feb 9, 2016
Publication Date Nov 1, 2015
Deposit Date May 28, 2015
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Renaissance and Reformation
Print ISSN 0034-429X
Publisher ITER Press
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 38
Issue 4
Pages 19-40
DOI https://doi.org/10.33137/rr.v38i4.26372
Publisher URL http://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/renref/article/view/26372