Jon Knowles
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howsexgotscrewedup.bsky.social
Jon Knowles
@howsexgotscrewedup.bsky.social
#HistSex
"How Sex Got Screwed Up"
HowSexGotScrewedUp.com
DYK when #Pericles made laws in 5thCBCE to force citizen men to marry & have kids, artists began to make respectable women more sexually appealing? For the first time they appear nude in vase painting & #ReproductiveSex began to be equated w/#Lust.
January 8, 2026 at 5:05 PM
DYK the Vatican didn’t make marriage a sacrament until 13thC? It wanted to keep priests from taking wives & leaving church property to their kids. It cast out existing wives & kids, & made them homeless. #Ghosts of #WmnHist still #haunt. HowSexGotScrewedUp.com #doctrine
January 8, 2026 at 5:03 PM
DYK #WifeBeating was an everyday event in 18thC towns like Guadalajara. Some men used sticks & straps. Others used knives & stones, even gunstocks. Most women put up w/it. They’d rather be quiet about it than risk defying their husbands.
January 8, 2026 at 5:01 PM
DYK it was not unusual for medieval students & teachers to express intensely passionate love for one another? In 1036, one student wrote to his master:
“Let us love each other therefore w/that love in which God is, let us love each other mutually. ...
January 8, 2026 at 4:59 PM
DYK at #Charlemagne’s court, same-sex expressions of love & friendship were passionate & commonplace? #Alcuin wrote the following to an older bishop. “Love has pierced my heart w/its flame...” And perhaps to the same guy he wrote:
January 8, 2026 at 4:56 PM
DYK KKKristians have a phobia about all sex but procreative marital coitus w/o pleasure? Their doctrines vs #AnalSex, #BirthControl, #fornication, #OralSex, #SoloSex, #QueerSex & #zoophilia are medieval. Their hate is deep & their judgments worthless. Blog7 HowSexGotScrewedUp.com
January 8, 2026 at 4:54 PM
DYK Inquisitions kept excellent records? Sex trials in Aragon spiked 1560–1620 to stop #AnalSex, #bigamy, #QueerSex, #zoophilia & priests seducing confessees. It executed >80 men for anal & queer sex; <80 for #bestiality. All names are recorded. Blog7 HowSexGotScrewedUp.com
January 8, 2026 at 4:51 PM
DYK when Aztecs found the Catholic ranking of sin & guilt confusing, priests put it down to stupidity? But Aztecs learned how to exploit the flawed logic priests used to teach morals. E.g. one could argue it would be less sinful for a woman to have sex w/him than to refuse him!
January 8, 2026 at 4:50 PM
DYK for 17th–18thC Puritans, sinful sex was also a crime & public shaming was important to the punishment? “Evil doers” had to confess crimes in court, other public places, & in church. If they didn’t, the courts would have them publicly whipped, often on the bare back.
January 8, 2026 at 4:46 PM
DYK #MargaretSanger gave #MahatmaGandhi #WetDreams, frustrating his search for #bramacharya as she tried to convince him to accept #BirthControl? He got excited, but didn’t accept #contraception for India. Ghosts of #HistSex still haunt. Blog1: HowSexGotScrewedUp.com. #WmnHist
January 8, 2026 at 4:43 PM
DYK #TrumpKKKristians forget that one of the charges the church brought against SAINT #JoanOfArc was cross dressing? Is that why KKKristians still murder trans people for this #DangerousChurchDoctrine
HowSexGotScrewedUp.com
January 7, 2026 at 3:31 PM
DYK #troubadours sang about the art of #CourtlyLove across Europe in 12thC? They taught knights how to submit to the loving tyranny of their married #domina ladies & gave the seeds of love in marriage. Ghosts of #WmnHist still haunt. HowSexGotScrewedUp.com #HistMarriage
January 7, 2026 at 3:29 PM
DYK in 17thC Spanish colonies, unmarried people were not supposed to have sex, but HAD to marry to have it? A spouse had to provide #SexPlay whenever requested. Denying it was a mortal sin & a debt—“débito matrimonial”—both had to pay. They had few valid excuses for not paying.
January 7, 2026 at 3:27 PM
DYK #MagnusHirshfeld tried to gather each year’s writings about sex? In 1899, he founded the yearbook “Jahrbuch für Sexuelle Zwischenstufen”—“Yearbook of Sexual Intermediacy”. It brought hundreds of articles together from around the world until 1923.
January 7, 2026 at 3:25 PM
DYK only 5/100 species of mammal are sexually #monogamous? Some humans are too. LGBT or straight, some women & men have only one important partner for long-term sexual #relationships. But many have more. HowSexGotScrewedUp.com #HistSex #polyamory #polyandry #polygyny
January 7, 2026 at 3:23 PM
DYK toward the end of 16thC, Seville’s Holy #Inquisition burned 75 men at the stake in an #AutoDaFé? It first tortured them into confessing the “pecado nefando”—#QueerSex, #AnalSex, or #bestiality. Ghosts of #HistSex still haunt. HowSexGotScrewedUp.com #sodomy #zoophilia
January 7, 2026 at 3:21 PM
DYK the pope who invented papal infallibility in 1869 had his own contract killer? This is the robe & axe of Pope #PiusIX’s executioner, Giovanni Battista Bugatti, who executed 514 people. Such a #prolife pope! Ghosts of #HistSex still haunt. HowSexGotScrewedUp.com
January 7, 2026 at 3:20 PM
DYK the government of USA is the only one in the developed world to have a policy against premarital sex? It has spent $2 billion on abstinence-only education in pursuit of that goal. Give another thank you to the #HowSexGotScrewedUp.com
January 7, 2026 at 3:17 PM
DYK in 325 saint & #EmperorConstantine declared non-Catholic Christians were now slaves? He let the church seize their property & his Council at Nicea made sex out of marriage a sin/crime. Millions began to lie & converted to avoid becoming homeless. HowSexGotScrewedUp.com
January 7, 2026 at 3:16 PM
DYK there is now online #pornography ostensibly made for ultra #OrthodoxJews? #FrumPorn alleges to show #FrumSex, but it may have a wider audience. Ghosts of the #HistSex still haunt. HowSexGotScrewedUp.com #doctrine #FreeSpeech #PornHistory #PornStudies
January 7, 2026 at 3:14 PM
DYK #PopeInnocentVIII’s Witches Bull of 1484 led to execution of 1,000s of women, mostly midwives & wives of priests? Some villages had barely any surviving women left. HowSexGotScrewedUp.com #WmnHist
January 6, 2026 at 3:42 PM
DYK in 1929 police raided #MargaretSanger’s Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau to arrest doctors & nurses & seize supplies & confidential records? This violation of patient’s rights aroused strong support for #BirthControl from the medical profession & community leaders.
January 6, 2026 at 3:41 PM
DYK 18thC European #ServantGirls didn't earn a lot, were paid at job’s end, which could be years, had to save for a #dowry, had to have sex w/master of the house if he demanded it, & often had to earn coins w/#SurvivalSex? Ghosts of #WmnHist still haunt. HowSexGotScrewedUp.com
January 6, 2026 at 3:39 PM
DYK legitimacy became very important in the 17thC Spanish colonies. In 1591, the Viceroy of Mexico declared kids of mixed blood or unmarried mothers were “offspring of unknown parents”. They had little hope of becoming legitimate, & could lose their fathers’ property.
January 6, 2026 at 3:36 PM
DYK, from 1742 until at least ‘65, the favorite reads at Tench Francis’ bookstore & the lending libraries in Philadelphia were copies of the trial transcripts of sodomy cases in London? They appeared in four volumes.
Ghosts of #QueerHistory still haunt.
January 6, 2026 at 3:35 PM