Aphrodisia

Was Ovid a surprising champion of women's sexual pleasure? Or did he just want them to fake it? Where did the British Museum curators hide the most pornographic of frescoes? And what exactly was the phallic wooden object excavated in 90's Northumberland?
In APHRODISIA, Dr Jean Menzies dives into the hidden history of women's sexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome. The classical world stretched across the Mediterranean for more than a millennium, its people and cultures wide and varied and its sexual proclivities equally so. Yet so often when we read about sex in antiquity it is about the men folk first and foremost: which brothels they were visiting, how they balanced wives and lovers, and what they got up to in the gymnasium. Delving into the literature, art and artefacts of the ancient world, from sex toys to seduction tips to kink, Dr Jean Menzies instead centres women and their desire. In doing so, she uncovers the many faces of women's sexuality over the course of thousands of years, and asks intriguing, and sometimes provocative questions about women, sex and desire today.

Dr Jean Menzies is an author and presenter. In 2020 she won the BAMB Breakthrough Author award for her first book, Greek Myths: Meet the heroes, gods, and monsters of ancient Greece and she is also the author of adult fantasy novel, The Flames of Albiyon, published in 2021. She has a PhD in ancient history with a specialism in the history of women in Classical Greece. She also produces the podcast That's Ancient History.