This dynamic four week online siminar covers the following. For more information and to sign up, go to www.clitoraltruth.com.
Cells copulate in the primal stew, randy chimps make peace and love with sex, and corpulent Ice Age figurines tease, titillate, and mystify. Agriculture arises, the patriarchy evolves, but goddesses rule and sex is the central sacrament of early literate cultures. The intensely masculinist Greeks institutionalize pederasty, imprison wives and daughters to assure paternity, both adore and abuse prostitutes, claim birth as a male attribute, and use sex as an instrument of domination. The Hebrews blame women for sin, claim birth for men, and designate motherhood as the only appropriate role for women. The early Christians debase the body, see pleasure as spiritually corrupting, and define sex as shameful. The medieval church takes control of sexuality through confession and limits its legitimate pursuit to reproduction. Nonetheless, sexuality flourishes outside of the Church’s reach in castles, brothels, and bathhouses. Enlightenment philosophers focus on sexual differences, declaring that women are disabled by menstruation and pregnancy, and deny them education. Freud dismisses the clitoris as a child’s plaything, favoring the vagina as women’s sexual destiny. Nonetheless, the Victorians guiltily rediscover sex, lesbians go to college and couple in “Boston marriages,” and the “New Woman” emerges from radical Bohemian culture. Kinsey brings sex out of the bedroom and the Beats act out, presaging the 1960s. Masters and Johnson promote sex therapy instead of psychotherapy, the Pill provides women sexual choices, popular music becomes overtly sexual, and a rebellious youth culture celebrates sexuality, but sex is still defined by men’s needs and preferences. Feminists and gays move beyond the ‘60s and along with progressive scholars and sexologists, create the next, ongoing, sexual revolution. Meanwhile, a conservative backlash against a polymorphous sexuality arises and seeks to limit sexual choices, once again, to the confines of the patriarchal family. Course materials include online discussion and an extensive bibliography of articles, books, and films.
