Unveiling Desire: What Ancient Women *Really* Said About Sex and Shame

When we envision women in the ancient world, images often surface of cloistered lives, veiled figures, and patriarchal oversight. Historical accounts typically paint a picture of women under the strict guardianship of fathers or husbands, their movements and property carefully managed. But was the concept of female desire in these societies merely a male fantasy? Or were the women of antiquity far more engaged with their sexuality than conventional history suggests?

Author Daisy Dunn’s new book,The Missing Thread: A New History of the Ancient World Through the Women Who Shaped It, courageously delves into this very question, offering a groundbreaking perspective. It challenges the prevailing narrative, pushing us to look beyond the often-misogynistic male voices that have historically dominated our understanding. Dunn reveals that if we scrutinize the past with fresh eyes, we can uncover what ancient women truly thought about sex, desire, and their own bodies.

Challenging Ancient Misogyny: The Myth of the 'Donkey-Woman'

Our journey into ancient female sexuality often begins with less-than-flattering male perspectives. Take, for instance, Semonides of Amorgos, a 7th-century BC Greek poet, whose classification of women reads like a litany of stereotypes. He described women akin to pigs (preferring food over chores), foxes (observant), and dogs (disobedient). Among his ten categories, the “donkey-women,” labeled as sexually promiscuous, stand out—a mysterious and arguably prejudiced label.

These male-authored sources, brimming with the biases of their time, tend to skew our perception. They often either exaggerated women's virtue to an almost saintly degree or demonized them as sexually insatiable to blacken their character. Such portrayals leave little room for nuance, presenting ancient women as either perfectly chaste or utterly sex-crazed. Fortunately, a deeper investigation allows us to glimpse the authentic experiences and desires of classical women, offering a far richer view.

Sappho’s Passionate Confessions: A Woman’s Voice Emerges

Peering into the same era as Semonides, we encounter the unparalleled voice of Sappho. This lyric poet, composing on the Greek island of Lesbos in the 7th century BC, bequeathed us some of the most vivid expressions of female desire. Observing a woman conversing with a man, Sappho documented an array of intense physical sensations: a racing heart, faltering speech, fire coursing through her veins, temporary blindness, ringing ears, cold sweat, trembling, and pallor. These are emotions intimately familiar to anyone who has ever experienced the overwhelming force of infatuation.

In another fragment, Sappho lovingly described adorning a woman with flowers and wistfully recalled how, on a soft bed, she would “quench [her] desire.” These are not the words of a cloistered, passive figure, but the raw confessions of a woman who profoundly understood the irrepressibility of lust and affection. Moreover, scholarly analysis of Sappho’s papyri fragments even suggests references to “dildos” (olisboiin Greek), objects known to be used in fertility rituals and for pleasure, as depicted in ancient vase paintings. In Rome, too, phallic objects held talismanic significance, believed to bring good fortune, making it unlikely that women would shy away from such symbols.

Eroticism and Agency: Beyond the Public Gaze

Far from recoiling at erotica, some ancient women were even buried alongside it. Before Rome's rise, the skilled Etruscans adorned the Italian mainland with romantic scenes. Numerous artworks and tomb statuary portray men and women reclining intimately. An incense burner depicting individuals touching each other's genitals was interred with an Etruscan woman in the 8th century BC, revealing a comfort with sexuality that challenges modern assumptions.

Brothels, such as those preserved in Pompeii, further illustrate the public presence of sex. Their cramped, cell-like rooms are covered in graffiti, much of it from male clients commenting on the “performance” of sex workers. Historical accounts often detail the severe hardships faced by these women, offering glimpses into their precarious lives. Yet, occasionally, a female voice from this world surfaces, delivering unexpected insights.

In the 3rd century BC, the poet Nossis, from southern Italy, praised an artwork funded by a sex worker. She celebrated a glorious statue of Aphrodite, the goddess of sex and love, erected in a temple with money raised by Polyarchis. This wasn't an isolated incident; an earlierhetaera(courtesan or high-status sex worker) named Doricha similarly used her wealth to acquire impressive oxen spits for public display at Delphi. For these women, it wasn't just about embracing sex, but seizing the rare opportunity it afforded them for lasting remembrance in a world where most women were destined for anonymity.

War, Marriage, and the Female Experience: Aristophanes and Procne

Even male writers, despite their biases, can offer fascinating windows into women's thoughts on sex and life. In 411 BC, Aristophanes staged his comedyLysistrata, where Athenian women orchestrate a sex strike to force their husbands to make peace during the Peloponnesian War. While many of the play's women initially grumble about giving up pleasure, conforming to the “donkey-woman” stereotype for comedic effect, the play eventually takes a serious turn.

The titular character, Lysistrata, powerfully articulates the grim realities for women in wartime. Not only were they excluded from political assembly, but they endured repeated bereavements. Moreover, while married women suffered greatly, the war was even crueler for unmarried women, who were deprived of any chance to wed. Lysistrata poignantly observes that men might return from war grey-haired and still find wives, but virgins of a certain age would be deemed too old for marriage and procreation. These lines resonate with such accuracy that they likely echo the very fears and frustrations women of the day genuinely expressed.

Real women's anxieties surrounding sex and marriage also surface in Greek tragedy. Sophocles, renowned forOedipus Rex, had a female character, Procne, in his lost playTereus, describe the disorienting transition from virgin to wife. “And this, as soon as one night has yoked us,” she utters, “we must commend and deem to be quite lovely.” For upper-class women, whose marriages were often arranged, this initial experience of sex could indeed be as jarring as Procne describes.

‘A Woman Should Cast Off Her Shame Together With Her Clothes’: Timeless Advice on Intimacy

Occasionally, these intimate thoughts were committed to papyrus. In a letter attributed to Theano, a Greek female philosopher linked to the circle of Pythagoras, she offers her friend Eurydice advice that transcends millennia. Theano writes thata woman should cast off her shame together with her clothes when she enters her husband's bed. She can put both back on together as soon as she has stood up again. This powerful statement encapsulates a pragmatic yet liberating approach to marital intimacy, suggesting a conscious decision to embrace pleasure and discard inhibition, even if temporarily.

While the authenticity of Theano's letter has been debated, its sentiment remarkably echoes sentiments expressed by women in later eras. It offers compelling evidence that such advice was likely followed by women in the ancient world, pointing to a shared understanding of intimacy that encouraged a certain psychological freedom within the marital sphere.

Further hints of women's engagement with sexual guidance come from a Greek poet named Elephantis, who allegedly authored short books on sex tips for women. Though her works are lost today, Roman poets like Martial and biographers such as Suetonius mention them, with Suetonius claiming Emperor Tiberius himself owned copies.

While male contemporaries like Martial and Catullus often described sex explicitly, women's voices, when quoted in men's writings, tend to express themselves more in terms of love and connection. Lesbia, the pseudonymous lover of Catullus, famously stated that “What a lady says to her lover in the moment / Ought to be written on the wind and running water.” This evocative phrase brings to mind the intimate, fleeting nature of “pillow talk” – words shared in the most private of moments, charged with emotion rather than crude detail.

Sulpicia, one of the rare Roman poetesses whose verses have survived, vividly conveyed her agony at being separated from her lover, Cerinthus, on her birthday, and her subsequent relief at returning to Rome. These women didn't need graphic descriptions of sex to convey the depth of their feelings and their understanding of intimacy. Though male perspectives often dominate the surviving historical sources, women, as Aphrodite herself knew, were every bit as capable of passion and desire when the curtains were closed.

Daisy Dunn’sThe Missing Thread: A New History of the Ancient World Through the Women Who Shaped Itoffers an essential and enriching exploration of these untold stories, available now in the UK and arriving in the US on July 30th. It serves as a vital reminder that by actively seeking out and interpreting women's experiences, we can truly understand the ancient world in its full, complex, and human dimension.