Resumen de Good Sex, Bad Sex: women and Intimacy in Early Moderm Spain
A witness discusses her sex life with inquisitors. A fictional character defends lesbianism. A widowed abbess recalis her unsatisfactory sex life. A nun defends women's right to touch their confessors. A defendant invokes menstruation as a way to avoid torture. Ah of these stories appear in documents from early modem Spain.
This article examines the treatment of sexuality and intimacy in fiction, non-fiction, and Inquisition records. Analyses of a broad range of documents reveal what issues women deemed appropriate for pubhie conversation what personal information inquisitors wanted from defendants, and how sexuality was viewed both in and out of convents. Analyzing women's expressions of intimate matters, "Good Sex, Bad Sex" argues that women across class unes in early modern Spain perceived close links between femininity, intimacy, and authority. This examination of records of Spanish women's words delineates a road map for reconstructing the otherwise elusive history of female intimacy and sexuality.
