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fyoosha's review
3.0
I probably should have paid more attention to the summary, because my expectations going in were that this book would cover the concept of virginity worldwide. Instead, it's very, very heavily focused on Medieval Western Europe, with some analysis of the modern day as well. Which is fine. It was sort of interesting to see all the different ways people in Medieval Europe interpreted virginity and how that changed over time and going into the nineteenth century. It was a bit dry at times, but an okay read overall.
linguisticali's review
4.0
I found this a very interesting read, looking at how virgins and virginity have been constructed and presented in Western culture through the ages. The book does a good job of illustrating how our beliefs around gender roles, sexuality and "purity" have changed over time - drawing attention to how what we may see as "common sense" beliefs today (e.g. about women being naturally less sexual than men) are constructed, and have not remained unchanged through the ages.
This was an easy and engaging read, but a bit dry. It read like an academic thesis, and the thread of argument running through the book as a whole didn't feel clear. Bernau gives example after example to illustrate her points, which is valuable, but these examples didn't always tie together well enough into a clear main point.
Nevertheless, definitely worth a read!
This was an easy and engaging read, but a bit dry. It read like an academic thesis, and the thread of argument running through the book as a whole didn't feel clear. Bernau gives example after example to illustrate her points, which is valuable, but these examples didn't always tie together well enough into a clear main point.
Nevertheless, definitely worth a read!
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