History

In 1899, Edward Carpenter wrote a book called Civilization: its cause and cure, in which he argued that civilization is a disease no society has ever survived. Civilization is a disease Carpenter (1844-1929) was a social theorist, an early vegetarian and gay rights advocate. In the Edwardian world of increasing specialisation, he was a great […]

There is a common belief that viewing porn conditions men to objectify women, turning them into emotionless sex objects. This is a fallacy. The objectification of women happened at the dawn of patriarchy. This conditioning has been handed down from one generation to another via epigenetic inheritance. The formation of patriarchy As I wrote in […]

In a post a few months ago I posed the question, Does patriarchy traumatise the feminine? At the time, I was pretty certain that it did—that patriarchy arose through the institutionalised denigration of the feminine: It’s hard to imagine how the goddess-worshipping hunter-gatherer cultures of the Neolithic period gave way to patriarchy. What was that […]

Edwin Longsden Long’s 1875 painting, The Babylonian Marriage Market, is monumental in more ways than one. Firstly, in size: the painting measures 10 feet by 5 feet 8 inches. Secondly, in value: in 1882 it sold for £6,615, at that time a record price for a painting. Thirdly, and most importantly, it provides a window […]

Leonardo Da Vinci’s drawing, the Vitruvian Man, has always fascinated me. Drawn around 1490, Da Vinci’s drawing is named after the Roman architect Vetruvius. He not only stipulated the physical proportions of the ‘ideal man’ but also hypothesised that such a figure would fit inside both square and circle. The complex geometry of the Vitruvian […]

Some years ago, I read that the children of the Roman aristocracy used to wear a small penis-shaped charm called a fascinum. The charm signalled that they were members of the nobility and if anyone messed with them, they would be messed with—seriously. (The word ‘fascist’ derives from fascinum.) It intrigued me that the symbol […]

In What is ancestral trauma?, I wrote how traumas that occurred thousands of years ago yet remain embedded as genetic memories in our collective unconscious. As we go deep into our healing journey, these age-old traumas can surface for resolution through porn. In that post, I posited the origin of these traumas: How far back […]

The opening song of the Rolling Stones’ 1968 album Beggars Banquet kicks off with a screech and an insistent, hypnotic beat. “Please allow me to introduce myself / I’m a man of wealth and taste,” Mick Jagger sneers. A taste for violence, it turns out: “I rode a tank / Held a general’s rank / […]

I’ve been a little obsessed by penis size lately. I think it’s something to do with having recently begun life modelling with the good folks at Life Drawing MK. The prospect of exposing myself to a dozen assorted local artists for a couple of hours naturally drove me to studies into the average circumference of […]

Despite the recent downfall of the Islamic State, the term radicalisation is still largely associated with religious extremism. In The sexual radicalisation of Elliot Rodger, I wrote that religion is only one of several possible ‘radicalisation narratives’. Others include sex (Elliot Rodger), race (2015 Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof) and a combination of race and politics […]