On Thu, 4 Jul 1996 15:11:05 +0100 (BST) Jessalynn Bird wrote:
> From: Jessalynn Bird <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Thu, 4 Jul 1996 15:11:05 +0100 (BST)
> Subject: cases of sexual deviancy/impotence
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Cc: [log in to unmask]
>
>
> Dear list,
>
> Some time ago there was an extended discussion regarding an impotence
> case in court. I have since randomly chanced upon a reference to a case
> which Leah Lydia Otis cited in her work, Prostitution in Medieval
> Society: The History of an Urban Institution in Languedoc [U chicago
> Press 1985].
>
> 'Significant too, is the Venetian court register that records
> the trial of a man who, accused of carnal relations with a goat, claimed as
> extenuating circumstances a physical infirmity preventing his having normal
> relations with a woman, that the judge called in two of the city's
> prostitutes to 'do numerous experiments' in order to verify the accused's
> claim, much as today a psychiatrist is called in to verify a plea of
> insanity!' [Otis 71, discussing a case originally from S. Chjonacki, Crime,
> Punishment and
> the Trecento Venetian State,' in Violence and Civil Disorder in Italian
> Cities, 1200-1500, Ed. L Martines (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London,
> 1972) 211.
>
> If I remember, the discussion was about whether the 'good women' called
> in to verify impotence were prostitutes--in this case, they were!
>
> I'm waiting for a limerick!
Is this another case of "The penis mightier than the sword?" The Supple Doctor.
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