The Story of Sex

CLOSELY GUARDED SECRETS

The Story of Sex lifts the lid on closely guarded secrets and old wives’ tales to reveal what has long been hidden from us: the story of sex and love.

How did our sexual organs change when we evolved from animal to human? When did the first couple show up? Where does our sense of modesty come from? Or eroticism? Or love, that most momentous of human concerns? What about our earliest customs?

Is prostitution really the “oldest profession in the world”? Was homosexuality really accepted in antiquity? What were the earliest rituals for warding off impotence? Which ancient civilization championed equality between men and women? How did Ramesses contribute to the fertility of Egypt? And why was masturbation prohibited? No history textbook will ever tell you all this because it delves too far into the sexual realm – still a taboo in our society, however free its customs may be.

Do scholarly books tell us about Cleopatra’s “fellatory” compulsion with her guards? About Priapus’s ways with the women of Lampsacus? About the phallic festivals of antiquity – of Dionysia and Bacchanalia? About chastity belts or the droit du seigneur? No respectable historian would venture down the slippery slope of everyday exploits of sex and intimacy. Though these stories are genuine they are generally consigned to the margins by official history. However, this little chronicle of sexual habits can offer us a clearer understanding of the extraordinary evolution in customs which has led us from an existence ordered by family and society, and reinforced by religion, to the freedoms we know today in the West.

History books gloss over the idiosyncrasies of famous figures, but their sex lives help us to understand them better. Does anyone today talk about Casanova, the Marquis de Sade, the Chevalier d’Éon, or the libertines of the Directory during the French Revolution? Have you heard about the hypersexuality of Henry IV or Louis XV? Or Queen Victoria’s sex life?

Or Prince Albert’s genital piercing? As well-known as the homosexuality of Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci or Montaigne may be, it still has no place in their “official” biographies. The Story of Sex sets the record straight.

There are still many misconceptions that circulate in private, shying away from awkward questions: the difference between homosexuality and pederasty, between male need and female desire, between vaginal and clitoral women… Still more shadowy realms where The Story of Sex can shine a light.

At the start of this third millennium, sexuality seems to be all around us – within easy reach, shown on our screens, talked about in the media – but, paradoxically, it’s rarely explained and almost never taught. In our schools there is no real sex education. At the very most, some information about contraception and STDs. But nothing that helps to understand the nature of intimate relationships, or the difficulties of developing these, or the vital link between respect and equality between partners, or questions about sexual orientation… And in this educational void, the Internet and porn offer themselves as models.

The Story of Sex reveals this essential aspect of human intimacy.

PHILIPPE BRENOT LAETITIA CORYN