How were male bodies viewed before the Enlightenment? And what does this reveal about attitudes towards sex and gender in premodern Europe? This richly textured cultural history investigates the characterization of the sex of adult male bodies from ancient Greece to the seventeenth century. Before the modern focus on the phallic, penetrative qualities of male anatomy, Patricia Simons finds that men's bodies were considered in terms of their active physiological characteristics, in relation to semen, testicles and what was considered innately masculine heat. Re-orienting attention from an anatomical to a physiological focus, and from fertility to pleasure, Simons argues that women's sexual agency was perceived in terms of active reception of the valuable male seed. This provocative, compelling study draws on visual, material and textual evidence to elucidate a broad range of material, from medical learning, high art and literary metaphors to obscene badges, codpieces and pictorial or oral jokes. -Cambridge University Press

Features
• Provides a new and provocative interpretation of male bodies and the role of gender in premodern Europe
• Richly illustrated, drawing on examples of material culture from across Europe
• This interdisciplinary model of cultural history will appeal to readers interested in gender history, art history, medical history and European literatures as well as critical theory and cultural studies

Pat Simons in professor of art history and women's studies at the University of Michigan.