A WOMAN'S HISTORY OF SEX

Harriett Gilbert and Christine Roche. London: Pandora, 1988.

Carol Greene

Harriett Gilbert and Christine Roche's A Women's History of Sex has what so few other feminist studies have - humour! The book is a tongue-in-cheek look at the ways women's sexuality has been controlled or has been the target of attempted control in history.

Gilbert's writing style and Roche's illustrations are perfect complements. Both are intelligently funny and discretely indiscreet. The text is wide in scope and succinctly written, yet there is no economy of laughs. Bold statements, titillating trivia and a personal voice give the reader a sense that she's sharing an uproarious laugh with a friend.

In the opening chronology, "Momentous Moments," Gilbert lists some milestones in our sexual past. We learn that Sappho of Lesbos wrote lyric poems in praise of love, lust and women in 6th century BC; that the bidet was invented to serve the growing popularity of oral sex in 17th-century France; and that in 1947 Dr. Helena Wright first challenged the 'efficacy of the penis-vagina combination' in producing orgasms for women. The text reveals the origins of misogyny and the hypocrisies of times past and present. Historically women's sexuality has been subjugated in the interests of patriarchal political expediency. With the discovery of agriculture, for example, hunters returned to the domicile. Ideas of land and livestock ownership and of inheritance were developed; men soon wanted to ensure the 'legitimacy' of the paternal line. The result was an array of vile laws that brought an end to the relative sexual independence women had experienced up to the 2nd millennium BC. Like land and livestock, women became 'legal property.'

Wherever there is an historical example of women being duped in power relationships, there is a contemporary parallel. Gilbert is quick to illuminate these. She maligns the idea of a 1960s 'sexual revolution.' In the chapter "Brotherhood," dealing with the French Revolution, she writes:

Revolutions for the rights of men do tend to be just what they say. In the more recent turmoils of the 1960s, women who gave their brains, hearts and bodies to Civil Rights, anti-Vietnam, anti-Gaullist and other revolutionary movements also realized that their 'radical' brothers valued them only as envelope-addressers; or sex objects.

Roche's illustrations, commissioned for Gilbert's text, are equally, if not more responsible for the hilarity. Roche's line has a spontaneous, unruly quality that is void of sleekness, and it's in this that the appeal and beauty of her work lie.

As Gilbert admits, this is not a comprehensive history. More precisely, it is a Western women's history of sex; even at that, the study is cursory. We are allowed only glimpses of the various epochs. A short bibliography is provided in which all directly quoted sources are listed, but there are no footnotes. This omission leaves the reader unable to pursue some of the more daring assertions, but it also reminds the reader that the work is intended primarily for fun.

In her final estimation, Gilbert optimistically asserts that we are "coming through" what has been a sexual history of repression and waste.

[We are] continuing to alter the social structures that cramp, hurt or do damage to us; continuing to assert our existence: our needs, our angers, our delights - it's things such as these that will determine whether the girls and women who follow us shrivel from the very mention of sex, or embrace it with mouths, breasts and thighs.