Credit: Advocates for Youth

We sistas have definitely come a long way in our sexual development. On Women’s Day we could be in angry mode as we recall the misery that we have suffered and all the hurdles ahead of us, or else we could celebrate the victories. I like to look at how far we’ve come, by considering ways that it was not always as much fun being a woman, sexually speaking, as it is today. Here are 10 times and places I’d rather not be: 

Ancient Egypt
The princesses of the Egyptian royal family may have had the softest of skin from bathing in milk, but when it came to partnering up, the rules dictated that to become pharaoh, the prince had to marry a royal maid. This basically left his sisters or half sisters as options. So the beautiful royal ladies were having sex with their brothers, which would in time lead to not too beautiful children and not too smart pharaohs. Talk about complicated family dynamics!

10th Century China
Just because one Chinese prince fell in love with his lover’s tiny feet, he started the practice of binding little girls’ feet, thereby making the women around him look frail and helpless. Apparently this is a turn on to some men, and that was enough reason to mutilate them for the next 1,000 years. Taking such sex objects to bed would involve carrying them, or waiting forever for them to hobble over by themselves.

Salem 1690’s
The Salem witch trials exposed the profound belief in the connection between witchcraft and sexuality. Women were considered to be intrinsically evil and sexual, and therefore easy targets for the devil. All females were expected to exhibit piety and innocence, and any signs of independent action were seen as an indication of their being bewitched. Off with their heads!

South Africa early 19th century
The famous Zulu King, Shaka, had quite a thing for women. He just didn’t know how to give them good loving. His harem grew to include 1,200 wives, which he referred to as “sisters” because, as it turned out, he never managed to consummate his marriage with them. It is said that he was scared of having children, because of the threat they may pose to his leadership, so sex with them involved only “outercourse”. His virgin wives would apparently have to stay that way, or risk his not so gentle manners.

Victorian England
In the 1840’s the corset took on a life of its own, in the service of the latest fashion. Tightlacing came into fashion and for the remainder of the century, women sucked it in, crushed their ribs and did whatever it took to reach the smallest of proportions. Sadly these very uptight ladies didn’t have access to the wisdom of Tantra, otherwise they might have known the significance of breathing in order to improve their sexual experience.

1875
The telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell. From this date until 1983, when the mobile telephone came into being, women were known to sit at home and stare at the machine, in the act of willing it to ring. The ringing of such machine, in association with the right person, was so valued an occurrence, that it could very possibly be the trigger for sex. Since these early times, different codes have developed in different cultures which define the frequency and quality of the calls that precede sex. History has deemed sitting by the phone to be one of the biggest wastes of time in millions of women’s lives. Since switchboards were dismantled, sex ON the phone could be considered a creative development.

Freudian Vienna
Freud thought he was so cool and progressive in the early 1900’s when he took sexuality out of its Victorian closet and put it all out there. But what he really did is give perfectly innocent (if sexually oppressed) women a long list of diagnoses and obsessions that they didn’t need to have: penis-envy, electra complex, bla bla bla. Those dames were not all neurotic, they just needed someone to loosen their corsets once in a while.

World War II Japan
Join the war effort and enjoy fresh foreign bodies, for uncle Sam-San. In the best interest of the war effort, the Japanese government designated “comfort women” to pick up the morale of the troops. They enslaved mostly Korean and Chinese women, but also other Asians, Dutch and various girls that they carried off from countries they had invaded. These women were provided as sex slaves to Japanese soldiers. Actually, the Japanese thought this was a very ethical solution to preventing the soldiers from raping local women under their military control.

Taliban Afghanistan
No need to explain that the women were somewhat oppressed under Taliban rule. Let’s just think how the Taliban code affected the erotic side of life in Afghanistan from the mid-90’s until 2001. Setting the mood would be extremely tough, because music was banned and alcohol was out of the question. No sexy red underwear because brightly coloured clothes were banned. No cosmetics or high heeled shoes were allowed. And just in case – for some reason – a woman was still up for enjoying some sex, she needed to remember that no shouting or laughing would be tolerated.

1998
Straight women everywhere were ushered into a dark age (well, a quick one) when George Michael joined the esteemed list of luscious men who share absolutely no interest in their sexual desires. George came out of the closet, after being caught by an undercover policeman, when he tried to have sex with him in a California public toilet. Since then his music has only improved.

For more history of sexuality continue here.

Happy Women’s Day to all who enjoy the benefits of our (impending) freedom. We’re getting there…