How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer

by Sarah Bakewell

In his chapter “Of Cripples,” for example, Montaigne starts conventionally enough by repeating a rumor about lame women: they are said to be more enjoyable to have sex with. Why might this be? he wonders. Is it because their movements are irregular? Maybe, but he adds, “I have just learned that ancient philosophy, no less, has decided the question.” Aristotle says that their vaginas are more muscular because they receive the nourishment of which the legs are deprived. Montaigne records this idea, but then doubles back and introduces a doubt: “What can we not reason about at this rate?” All such theories are unreliable. In fact, he eventually reveals, he has tried the experiment for himself, and has learned a quite different point: that the question means little, for your imagination can make you believe you are experiencing enhanced pleasure whether you “really” are or not. In the end, the oddity of the human mind is all we can be sure of—an extraordinary conclusion which seems to bear no relation to the topic he was originally aiming at.