MARC Record from marc_columbia

LEADER: 02722cam a2200301Ia 4500
001 9461386
005 20120716171955.0
008 110921s2012 caua b 001 0 eng d
020 $a9781582437965
020 $a1582437963
035 $a(OCoLC)ocn754723395
035 $a(OCoLC)754723395
035 $a(NNC)9461386
040 $aBTCTA$beng$cBTCTA$dBDX$dBIB$dYDXCP$dGG4$dOS3$dBWX$dOCLCO$dCPL$dMUU
050 14 $aHQ12$b.B47 2012
082 4 $a306.77
100 1 $aBerkowitz, Eric.
245 10 $aSex and punishment :$bfour thousand years of judging desire /$cEric Berkowitz.
260 $aBerkeley, CA :$bCounterpoint :$bDistributed by Publishers Group West,$cc2012.
300 $a456 p. :$bill. ;$c24 cm.
520 $a"The 'raging' frenzy of the sex drive, to use Plato's phrase, has always defied control. However, that's not to sat that every civilization has not tried, using its most powerful weapon: the Law. At any given point in history some forms of sex were condoned while others were punished mercilessly. Jump back or forward a century or two or cross a border and the harmless fun of one society becomes the gravest crime in another. {Title} tells the story of the struggle to regulate the most powerful engine of human behavior. Writer and lawyer Eric Berkowitz has accomplished what no scholar has yet achieved: to use flesh and blood cases--much flesh, even more blood--to evoke the entire sweep of Western sex law, from the savage impalement of an ancient Mesopotamian adulteress to the imprisonment of Oscar Wilde in 1895 for 'gross indecency.' The cast of [title] includes royal mistresses, gay charioteers, medieval transvestites, misbehaving government officials, lonely goat-lovers, priests, prostitutes, and London rent boys. Each had forbidden sex, and each was judged--though justice as Berkowitz shows, rarely has much to do with it. With the light touch of a natural storyteller, Berkowitz spins these tales and more, going behind closed doors to reveal the essential history of human desire."--Publisher's website.
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. 411-434) and index.
505 0 $aChanneling the urge: the first sex laws -- Honor among (mostly) men: cases from ancient Greece -- Imperial bedrooms: sex and the state in ancient Rome -- The Middle Ages: a crowd condemned -- Groping toward modernity: the early modern period, 1500-1700 -- The new world of sexual opportunity -- The eighteenth century: revelation and revolution -- The nineteenth century: human nature on trial.
650 0 $aSex and law$xHistory.
650 0 $aSex customs$xHistory.
650 0 $aSex in popular culture$xHistory.
650 0 $aSocial change$xHistory.
852 00 $bswx$hHQ12$i.B47 2012g