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cryptolectI came across this Tumblr post by Cardinal Bitchface on the subject of sex between men in Renaissance Florence and a few things struck me about it:
1) "Rape of men was not uncommon during this time. Bernardino of Siena preached that women should keep their sons locked in their homes, and only let their daughters out into the town." Not so much just because the sons were kept home, but that at the same time, the daughters were allowed out. That's a strange world to imagine, I'm not sure whether it ever came to pass or just stuck at the preaching stage.
2) "A survey conducted during the Renaissance in both Siena and Florence found that 24% of men aged 18 and up who had sex with other men were also married, compared to 51% in Florence". Again, I'm exposing my terrible ignorance and lack of imagination here I am sure, but while I know people throughout history have counted and measured all sorts of things it hadn't really occurred to me that people were doing what you might call social science surveys at this time. It makes me wonder if the Phoenicians, the early Ottomans, the ancient Chinese etc. were all doing it as well?
3) I can't help having a quick moan that if this were a blog there might be more interesting discussions in the comments rather than just endless reblogs (although I guess to some extent those represent the people who would read a blog post and not comment). But there's no use fighting Tumblr and at least this has lots of lovely references in it.
1) "Rape of men was not uncommon during this time. Bernardino of Siena preached that women should keep their sons locked in their homes, and only let their daughters out into the town." Not so much just because the sons were kept home, but that at the same time, the daughters were allowed out. That's a strange world to imagine, I'm not sure whether it ever came to pass or just stuck at the preaching stage.
2) "A survey conducted during the Renaissance in both Siena and Florence found that 24% of men aged 18 and up who had sex with other men were also married, compared to 51% in Florence". Again, I'm exposing my terrible ignorance and lack of imagination here I am sure, but while I know people throughout history have counted and measured all sorts of things it hadn't really occurred to me that people were doing what you might call social science surveys at this time. It makes me wonder if the Phoenicians, the early Ottomans, the ancient Chinese etc. were all doing it as well?
3) I can't help having a quick moan that if this were a blog there might be more interesting discussions in the comments rather than just endless reblogs (although I guess to some extent those represent the people who would read a blog post and not comment). But there's no use fighting Tumblr and at least this has lots of lovely references in it.
