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Jon Knowles @howsexgotscrewedup.bsky.social · 20h

DYK Christians undid #IndigenousPeople's broad approval of nonbinary gender variations & #WomensRights? Their #Inquisitions used #sodomy to excuse #genocide, enslave “New World” women & men, & make their kids illegitimate. HowSexGotScrewedUp.com #GenderHistory

Jon Knowles @howsexgotscrewedup.bsky.social · 20h

Even #erotic poems about women were written as though they were about men. And same-sex images were common in the mystical writing of the Muslim world. HowSexGotScrewedUp.com #GenderHistory #HistSex #QueerHistory #QueerSex

Jon Knowles @howsexgotscrewedup.bsky.social · 20h

DYK #Muslim Spain in the Middle Ages exalted #QueerLove? There many expressions in Arabic for same-sex love, eroticism, & #SexWork. Most of the #Muslim erotic poetry published was about same-sex relationships.

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Jon Knowles @howsexgotscrewedup.bsky.social · 20h

Freud believed that women could only have a mature sexual experience w/coitus. Women were “frigid” if they could get off ONLY by clitoral stimulation. They were not “real women” if they did not have vaginal orgasm. To be “real” they had to enjoy a penis. HowSexGotScrewedUp.com

Jon Knowles @howsexgotscrewedup.bsky.social · 20h

DYK in 1905, #SigmundFreud published “Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality” claiming that the prime erogenous zone in girls was the clitoris, but he wanted adult women to make it their vaginas? If they couldn’t, he warned that they would become numb to sex. #WmnHist

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Jon Knowles @howsexgotscrewedup.bsky.social · 20h

“I do hope we shall not have to go into details in discussing this subject; it is not necessary. Its discussion is attended w/more or less filth & we besmirch ourselves by discussing it in public.” Ghosts of #GenderHistory still haunt. HowSexGotScrewedUp.com #WmnHist

Jon Knowles @howsexgotscrewedup.bsky.social · 20h

Howard A. Kelly spoke against publication:
“… I should be very sorry if in this country these matters became as freely talked about as they have been on the other side of the water. I do not believe pleasure in the sexual act has any particular bearing on the happiness of life.

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Jon Knowles @howsexgotscrewedup.bsky.social · 20h

DYK women were a puzzle to most men in the 20thC? In 1926, Freud thought each was “a dark continent”. Few authorities expected them to enjoy sex. In 1900, JAMA refused to print an article by Denslow Lewis that offered detailed information about how a woman could have an orgasm.

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Jon Knowles @howsexgotscrewedup.bsky.social · 20h

The final showdown was in 1563: Pope Pius IV called together the 24th session of the Council of Trent. It now required a formal service w/2 witnesses & a pastor of the church, & it would excommunicate any priest who married. Ghosts of #HistSex still haunt. HowSexGotScrewedUp.com

Jon Knowles @howsexgotscrewedup.bsky.social · 20h

The Fourth Lateran Council also called for publication of marriage banns well in advance of all weddings so no one could get married in secret. It demanded that priests throw their wives out onto the streets. But priests kept marrying.

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Jon Knowles @howsexgotscrewedup.bsky.social · 20h

The Synod of Bourges declared that sons of priests, deacons, & subdeacons were illegitimate, priests still got married & still had kids. Despite 400 yrs of more Vatican declarations, priests still married in secret, even when one made marriage a sacrament in 1215:

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Jon Knowles @howsexgotscrewedup.bsky.social · 20h

DYK the medieval church’s long struggle against married priests began in 1031 & shaped marriage for everyone else? Until 11thC, couples could marry in private w/only each other & God as their witnesses.

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Jon Knowles @howsexgotscrewedup.bsky.social · 20h

For many medieval people, Jesus & John were gay husbands? #GayMarriage has a long #history. #AbrahamLincoln even wrote #doggerel about it. #GayChristians #GayHistory #HistSex #LGBTQ #LoveIsLove #PopularCulture #relationships #NoKings

Jon Knowles @howsexgotscrewedup.bsky.social · 20h

DYK Christ & St. John embrace w/affection in medieval sculptures? This one is 14thC German. Marriage was the traditional meaning of right hands joining in this way—“dextrarum junction”, & a key gesture in #SameSexUnions. Blog4 HowSexGotScrewedUp.com #HistSex #QueerHistory

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Jon Knowles @howsexgotscrewedup.bsky.social · 1d

On October 16 1916, the first birth control clinic in the USA was opened, "illegally", by Margaret Sanger, her sister, Ethel, a nurse & an associate, Fania Mindell in Brooklyn. Police closed the clinic & were each sentenced to 30 days in prison.
HowSexGotScrewedUp.com

Jon Knowles @howsexgotscrewedup.bsky.social · 1d

Katharina Dalton coined the term “#PremenstrualSyndrome” in the 1950s & urged women to seek medical help for it. It was soon a standard plight of women in the west, perhaps a cultural one. Women in other parts of the world know little about the #PMS. HowSexGotScrewedUp.com

Jon Knowles @howsexgotscrewedup.bsky.social · 1d

DYK during the Great Depression the idea took hold that women became irritable, “foolish & ill considered” just before #menstruation? Robert Frank called it “premenstrual tension” & it became a “scientific” reason for keeping women out of the workforce.

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Jon Knowles @howsexgotscrewedup.bsky.social · 1d

DYK ancient Egyptians used a #pessary of crocodile dung in the #vagina for #BirthControl? The recipe was in a papyrus buried in a tomb in 1850BCE. #Egyptian women didn't want #UnwantedPregnancies in the after life either! HowSexGotScrewedUp.com #HistSex

Jon Knowles @howsexgotscrewedup.bsky.social · 1d

#Republicans in the Senate held hearings. They condemned the probe & set the gay sailors free. They held that “Perversion is not a crime in one sense, but a disease that should properly be treated in a hospital.” Ghosts of #QueerHistory still haunt. HowSexGotScrewedUp.com

Jon Knowles @howsexgotscrewedup.bsky.social · 1d

DYK U.S. Articles of War made its first rules against assault to commit sodomy in 1913? Consensual #sodomy became a crime 3 years later. In ‘19, Chief Machinist’s Mate Ervin Arnold launched an inquiry about gays in the Navy. He sent sailors to prison for up to 6 yrs. #QueerSex

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Jon Knowles @howsexgotscrewedup.bsky.social · 1d

DYK congressman & #Disney hero #DavyCrockett (d.1836) was a “sporting man” who had sex a lot? He died at the #Alamo defending slavery & leaving journals filled w/details about his #SoloSex, #QueerSex, straight sex & various acts of violence. HowSexGotScrewedUp.com #QueerHistory

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Jon Knowles @howsexgotscrewedup.bsky.social · 1d

“bruit creature, the offender & offenders in either of the cases before mentioned shall suffer the pains of death; and the beast shall be slain & burned.” Ghosts of #QueerHistory still haunt. HowSexGotScrewedUp.com #zoophilia

Jon Knowles @howsexgotscrewedup.bsky.social · 1d

DYK in 1697, Plymouth Colony passed The Act for the Punishment of Buggery, which conflated #QueerSex & #bestiality:
“…that every man being duly convicted of lying w/mankind as he lyeth w/a woman, & every man or woman that shall have carnal copulation w/any beast or

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Jon Knowles @howsexgotscrewedup.bsky.social · 1d

Striking any other pose—w/her or any other partner—was more sinful than #incest w/one’s mother & was only permitted if a spouse was disabled & couldn’t get into the position!
HowSexGotScrewedUp.com #QueerSex #SoloSex #zoophilia

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Jon Knowles @howsexgotscrewedup.bsky.social · 1d

DYK 13thC #ThomasAquinas & the Vatican decreed that the only allowed sex was the missionary position for #coitus in marriage? A man had to lie, face-to-face, on top of his wife—& only when pregnancy was possible.
Ghosts of #HistSex still haunt.

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