The Constraints of Desire (New Ancient World Series)

I remember this being good overall. Some interesting insights into Greek sexuality but it could have used more clarity and efficiency I thought

Since the previous reviewer loved the book, but his review was deemed somewhat unhelpful (I thought it was fine), I thought I'd add a bit. This book pretty much kickstarted the exploration of sexuality and gender in the Classical World. There were other works before it, particularly on gender, but the publication of The Constraints of Desire was one of those events that helped a particular area of study achieve critical mass, so to speak. If you have an interest in these topics, it will pretty much be assumed that you've absorbed what he has to say.The previous reviewer is quite right to spotlight Chapter 2. For me, when I read it as an undergraduate, it was of importance far beyond even the study of sexuality and gender. What Winkler helps one understand is one area of many where our own categories and horizons of expectation prohibit us from understanding another culture. Steeped in more modern methodologies of cultural and social history than Classicists usually were at the time, he was able to tear down the terribly ineffective framework of interpretation which he inherited and build a new one.While not critical to the appreciation of the work itself, on a biographical note, there is something both sad and inspiring about an author who struggled to reconcile his Faith and his sexuality and ultimately left the church (he was a Benedictine) to become a scholar who taught at Yale and Stanford. Sadly, he died at age 46. Having studied under some people who had known him personally as colleagues, I can say that his death was a great personal as well as professional loss to the community. So, in addition to its great value as scholarship, the book is treated with a certain amount of (I think merited) reverence. Not that it stopped anyone from engaging with it critically.

It's a very readable and well researched book about the sex and gender in ancient Greece.I recommend it for everybody who is interested in the Greek history, gynaikologia, sexologia, and anthoropologia.The most interesting thesis for me is the Chapter 2. of Part One ; "Laying Down the Law : The Oversight of Men's Sexual Behavior in Classical Athens",in which Mr. Winkler investigates the meanings of "kinaidos", "katapygon", "pornos" kai "kalos".