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In distinguishing desire-as-appetite from romantic or ‘true love’, William Reddy has posited what he claims to be a unique Western conceptual dualism that first evolved during the High Middle Ages. 1 While desire-as-appetite conforms to the Christian concept of the flesh, romantic love was, according to Reddy, an attempt to overcome this polarisation by spiritualising and moderating sexual desire into a sublime, purified feeling of ‘true love’. Reddy’s study encompasses the period 800–1200. With the Reformation, celibacy was no longer an ideal, though the distinction between what was seen as spiritually passionate love and indiscriminate carnal desire continued to be of relevance, not the least in terms of gender. The aim of this chapter is to provide examples of how male sexual desire was problematised within three arenas in early modern Sweden – medical theory, the courts of justice, and literary culture. It will be claimed that the early modern period saw a shift in all these arenas, toward a more pronounced understanding of male sexual desire as irrefutable and imperatively compelled to find an immediate outlet. Woman as temptress was overshadowed by the male seducer. The freer rein given to male sexual lust was, however, tempered by new threats from masturbation and venereal disease, both real and imagined.

Erotic Desires - Requested, Forbidden and Secret

Marital sex was not an option, it was an obligation, and all other forms of sexual relations were crimes. Of course this did not prevent love, sexual desire and strong mutual attraction from developing before  a couple married or out of wedlock.

Roleplay in Miniature

"Ne savoir pas dissimuler, c'est ne savoir pas vivre" (To be unable to dissimulate is to be unable to live) is one of Queen Kristina's sayings. She lived at a time when the worls was likened to a theatre stage, theatrum mundi, on which you had to play your assigned role as well as possible. The theatre metaphor was reflected in society's range of social roles, where affiliations of estate or profession, male and female qualioties, were shown in easily recognisable attributes in dress, body language, speech and comportment. The strict but alos easily manipulated boundaries opened for a fascination with identity and roleplay.

In the 1750s Nils Gissler (1715–1771) natural scientist, Doctor of Medicine, member of the Royal Academy of Sciences, the first practising physician in northern Sweden, became mentally ill. Several years later he wrote down his experiences in an extensive account. What is remarkable is how he perceives the devil to be present not in visions and imagination, but as a most physical being and force, penetrating his whole body and senses. His account conforms neither to the classical symptoms of corporal possession nor to traditional images of the devil. Overcoming the devil’s attacks was a school of learning about God’s grace by experience. Personal first-hand experience is also highly valued by Gissler in his scientific research. The aim is to analyse how Gissler interpreted his afflictions in the light of contemporary medical and theological thought, to consider how the experience of his afflictions may have been influenced by the experience of his natural scientific observations, and to provide some critical reflections on the complexity of experience as an empirical category and analytical concept in historical studies.

Sex inom äktenskapet är inte bara det enda legitima utan också en påbjuden plikt. Alla andra sexuella relationer är straffbara. Det hindrar förstås inte att förälskelse, sexuell lust och en stark ömsesidig attraktion froda också före och utanför äktenskapet

Att inte kunna förställa sig är att inte kuna leva. Så kan ett av drottning Kristinas (1626-1689) tänkespråk översättas.Kristina levde i en tid då världen liknades vid en teaterscen theatrum mundi på vilken det gällde att spela sin tilldelade roll så väl som möjligt.