Product Description

At once daring and authoritative, this book offers a profusely illustrated history of sexual politics in ancient Athens. The phallus was pictured everywhere in ancient Athens: painted on vases, sculpted in marble, held aloft in gigantic form in public processions, and shown in stage comedies. This obsession with the phallus dominated almost every aspect of public life, influencing law, myth, and customs, affecting family life, the status of women, even foreign policy. This is the first book to draw together all the elements that made up the 'reign of the phallus' - men's blatant claim to general dominance, the myths of rape and conquest of women, and the reduction of sex to a game of dominance and submission, both of women by men and of men by men. In her elegant and lucid text Eva Keuls not only examines the ideology and practices that underlay the reign of the phallus, but also uncovers an intense counter-movement - the earliest expressions of feminism and antimilitarism. Complementing the text are 345 reproductions of Athenian vase paintings. Some have been reproduced in a larger format and gathered in an appendix for easy reference and closer study. These revealing illustrations are a vivid demonstration that classical Athens was more sexually polarized and repressive of women than any other culture in Western history.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #291446 in Books
• Published on: 1993-04-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 477 pages

Customer Reviews

Sex and Art
Judging from Greek mythology and art, the Ancient Greek appear to be obsessed with sex - but why? The author does a good job of explaining this obsession in terms of literature, art, and history. By understanding the suppression of women in Greek culture, one is able to understand many taboo aspects of Greek culture. The author states that museum's have censored many works of art due to the pornographic themes, and as a result Modern society has been misguided.

Although I did not agree with the authors interruption of every piece of art in the book, I did find the subject of female and male prostitution 'interesting'. It was also 'interesting' to learn what the Ancients Greeks considered beautiful in terms of male and female sexuality, and why the Greek's altered the size of certain body parts in art. Needless to say , I found this book interesting and very entertaining; however, I would only recommend it to a mature audience.

subjective but fab.
Subjective femininst arguments but full of fantastic info about a civilisation and their behaviour!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.Keuls should still make the reality of human( male and female) sexuality her own.Human behaviour could never be argued or explained by 1 dimentionall info.What people do sexualy and how they act are both rooted in reality;driven by our nature and enjoyment of the moment.She still needs to understand that.....and hopefully live it aswell.