Episode 25 - Sex and Shakespeare

Looking at sex in Shakespeare’s time and works reveals a similar world stuck between two truths: the first that sex was always a many-splendoured, or at least multifaceted, thing; and the second that despite the crushing weight of legal, cultural, and religious dictates, in trying to police sex, Elizabethans wound up having a fairly free discourse on the subject.

Unfortunately for modern readers, that discourse is still much more obscure than our modern, ultra-liberal discussion of everything from kinks to polyamory; such talk, while still there in Elizabethan works, is far more layered and lacks a lot of the diction we take for granted...

Join The Bicks for a randy discussion about Shakespeare between the sheets!

Notes:

• Stanley Wells' Shakespeare, Sex & Love
• Hays Code
• Nunnery = whorehouse?
  • Some people insist this is not the case -- we'll let you be the judge!
  • Ophelia pregnant?!
• Two bros...chillin in a hot tub... because Vine will never die.
• Monty Python - The Meaning of Life condom skit
• Philip Larkin, "Annus Mirabilis"
  • "Sex began 50 years ago, Larkin said. How has the Earth moved since 1963?"

Ancient Bickerings:

In lieu of a proper bickering sesh, Aidan asks Lindsay if the discussion today has changed the way she looks at Shakespeare's writing about sex, and whether she views him as more liberal now or not. What do you think?