December
10
/ 2022
Often referred to as the author of the Mediterranean Kama Sutra, little is known about Philaenis of Samos, who likely wrote this work around the 4th century BC. She is the most mentioned author of the erotic sex guide Joy of Sex, being a rare surviving work by a woman from antiquity. She is mentioned in more than a dozen sources, and fragments of a manual titled P. Oxy. 2891, found in Egypt’s Oxyrhynchus, and published in 1972 seem to trace their attribution to her. The Joy of Sex: Sentence and Structure “Philaenis of Samos, daughter of Ocymenes, wrote the following things for those wanting ... life”, begins the work. The papyrus preserves two adjoining columns from the upper margin
