The Evolution of Cultural Attitudes Towards Female Sexuality

Historically, female sexuality has been perceived secondary to male sexuality and oftentimes has been exclusive to reproduction rather than for the wellness and autonomy of women. Female sexuality dates to 3^rd Century BC, where Sappho was recorded as writing poetry about loving other women. This poetry was destroyed and only fragments of the poems remain. This was reported to be because of her sexuality.

“An early and very short biography found on a papyrus from the 3rd century was one of the earliest surviving sources to mention her as a 'woman-lover', although the writer claimed that this was only an 'accusation'. 16th-century humanist scholars claimed that 4th-century Greek and Latin Church authorities had arranged for the systematic destruction of Sappho’s poems as a result. Her sexuality is also one of the primary features for which she is remembered today: the modern terms 'Lesbian' and 'sapphic' are references to Sappho, and her name was adopted by a gay rights magazine.” (British Library, 2017).

Throughout time, Sappho’s poetry has been misinterpreted, and misinformation has been given depending on what religion was dominant at the time and their points of view on homosexuality. “Several scholars now think there is a simpler explanation for the failure of medieval copyists' failure to preserve Sappho's poetry — they couldn't understand it! She wrote in an ancient and old-fashioned Greek which was not widely understood in the early Middle Ages. This is not to say that later writers approved of her affairs. The 3rd-century BCE biography frames the first stories about her attraction to women as rumours, while later Christian writers used the example of Sappho to argue against pagan lasciviousness. In other cases, Sappho was not always understood to be a homosexual by later writers. She was regularly portrayed in Athenian comedies as a voracious heterosexual, and there were other stories about her love affairs with men: some of them speak about her marriage and possibly even record the name of her daughter, while a later anecdote claims she committed suicide because of a young man called Phaon.” (British Library, 2017) There was accusations of promiscuity long before the claims about her sexuality and I would argue that this has significantly impacted the way women have been perceived.

Sex work was introduced in ancient Greece and Aphrodite (the goddess of love and sex) had a statue erected in her honour using funds raised by Polyarchis, a courtesan. However, even at that time, it’s acceptable for women to be an object of sex but not carry sexual desire and be expressive of it.

Fast forward to pre-Victorian era (around 1700s), masturbation was viewed as sin, sometimes punishable by death, and orgasms were treated as only necessary when attempting to conceive. At the time, this was believed to cause hysteria in women; Hysteria was a condition that was believed to be a “common diagnosis for women suffering from any number of symptoms, according to Maine’s research. Among these were nervousness, insomnia, spasms, respiration trouble, a drop in appetite for food or sex, and irritability. Maine found that it was common practice beginning in ancient times and continuing into the 19th century for doctors to diagnose said condition and prescribe a stimulating pelvic massage as a cure-all. The massage, which would induce “hysterical paroxysm” — aka. South Side fireworks — was administered with the idea that sexual release would provide temporary relief from the patient’s symptoms.” (JM, 2026) and this is where to production of sex devices and apparatus were brought into more domestic use, though still primarily for medical use. Doctors found female stimulation a tedious task and therefore encouraged apparatus, despite being costly.

These weren’t perceived as pleasure devices until the sexual liberation revolution in the 1960s. This is when female sexuality began to be widely accepted in Britain and the USA – “The 1960s is often remembered as a time when big shifts happened in the freedoms that young people enjoyed, with abortion and homosexuality (for those over the age of 21, at least) partially decriminalised in 1967, the same year the contraceptive pill was first made available to unmarried women.” (Herbert, 2022) which allowed women more freedom to explore sex as a pleasure too as well as for reproduction. This wasn’t a quick transition and took years for the contraception pill to be available for all women; “In practice, the “Sexual Revolution” of the 60s was less a sudden upheaval than a process of gradual change, that was far from complete even into the 70s and 80s. The pill, for example, was actually available on the NHS from 1961, but initially could be prescribed only to married women, due to fears around encouraging promiscuity.” (Herbert, 2022). It’s almost shocking that whether it was the 4^th century or the 1960s, the fears surrounding sex were still the same – female sexual agency and bodily autonomy.

Female homosexuality was erased from society with laws surrounding homosexuality applying to men only – “Laws against gross indecency and “procuring” remained in force, meaning that men could still be arrested for kissing, touching and even “chatting up” other men in public places. There were also fears about how young people might be influenced by shifting sexual mores, which ultimately led to the notorious Section 28 clause of the Local Government Act in 1986, which prohibited local authorities (including schools) from doing anything that could be interpreted as “promoting” homosexuality.” (Herbert, 2022). Section 28 (in the UK) is still referenced today and still addressed with anger and contempt from the LGBTQ+ community due to the issues it caused for the health, wellbeing and safety of the community. Despite Sappho’s fragmented poetry highlighting female same-sex relationships, even in the 1980s, this was erased and the experiences of women were still treated as though they didn’t exist. This brings the concept back to female ownership rather than agency.

In 1973, Nancy Friday collated a series of sexual fantasies written by women, titled My Secret Garden, and caused uproar from audiences. Despite being an integral part of this newfound sexual liberation, it posed a threat to the ideas surrounding sex, marriage and the family unit. Women were no longer objects of their husband’s desires or the nurturing homemaker, but they were now given an opportunity to explore their own desires and present themselves. Despite this freedom, many women detailed their sexual repression in their confessions and discussed how they didn’t know how to ask for what they wanted.

Actress Gillian Anderson read this book in preparation for her role on the television series, Sex Education, and published an updated version titled Want in 2024 and a follow up titled More in 2026. Anderson detailed how she was shocked that verry little had changed from Friday’s book and that a lot of women were still struggling to find ways to express what they want. Anderson described this being because of the access to pornography, which is predominantly targeted at men. I have to agree with Anderson to some extent however this concept of women not having sexual agency has been innate for hundreds, if not thousands, of years and I’m left questioning whether it is linked to the pornography or if it’s ingrained in society so deep that it is hard to resist the ideology. In 2026, we have more ways of communicating ideas and yet women still feel shame when being asked a question over desire, reproductive rights are being overturned and there are countries all over the world silencing women – are we making progress or is it the beginning of regression?