A Second Coming

Manual sex

The discovery and sale last month (February 2018) of a Georgian ‘sex manual’, dating from 1720, provoked curiosity and some gentle mockery in the press. This was apparently due to some of its dubious and unscientific advice, such as the efficacy of root vegetables and songbirds on male fertility, or the female lying on her right after sex to produce a boy, on her left for a girl.

However, one of the most striking points of the manual for me is the fact that women were expected to...