Today's podcast looks at a fascinating piece of historical research,

but I ought to warn you it contains explicit sexual content.

In recent decades there have been some remarkable discoveries in the archives of the Southern Netherlands.

Examining court records, today's guest has recovered the lives of women who were accused and sometimes charged

with the crime of female sodomy.

Punishment for such a crime was violent and fatal.

At first sight the phrase female sodomy might strike us as unusual.

The word sodomy derives from the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Book of Genesis,

so it is commonly associated with a phallocentric idea of sexuality.

It is in the early modern Southern Netherlands, that is, GENT, YEPT, Antwerp, Brussels, Louvaine and Mallons,

Sodomy could also relate to same-sex acts between women,

as well as some other sexual crimes which we'll learn about today.

And what does female sodomy have to do with female liberty?

The answer is quite fascinating.

Through his painstaking archival research today's guest believes

the brutal punishment of women for sodomy was a consequence of the high degree of liberty they enjoyed in the Southern Netherlands.

The greater a woman's liberty, the greater the price she paid,

if she used it unwisely by the standards of the time.

To learn more about women's lives in the early modern low countries,

I'm delighted to welcome Professor Jonas Roulens,

host doctoral researcher at GENT University.

His PhD on the perception and repression of sodomy in the early modern Southern Netherlands

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