I agree with the interpretation of the text, but I don’t agree with the “people thought it could never happen” bit—or at least, I see no reason to privilege that explanation over say “the ‘women withhold sex’ scheme was considered plausible, but the women’s sex drive was ramped up to increase conflict make the play funnier (and dirtier)”.
It’s not as if entertainment media has a history of realistically depicting sex-related topics.
Just to be clear, do you agree that people believed women’s sex drives to be stronger, just not to as great an extent as my original comment implied? If so, I have mostly updated to your position, though it is still possible that someone has stronger evidence for “people thought it could never happen”, but only told me their conclusion, not their evidence.
I agree with the interpretation of the text, but I don’t agree with the “people thought it could never happen” bit—or at least, I see no reason to privilege that explanation over say “the ‘women withhold sex’ scheme was considered plausible, but the women’s sex drive was ramped up to increase conflict make the play funnier (and dirtier)”.
It’s not as if entertainment media has a history of realistically depicting sex-related topics.
Just to be clear, do you agree that people believed women’s sex drives to be stronger, just not to as great an extent as my original comment implied? If so, I have mostly updated to your position, though it is still possible that someone has stronger evidence for “people thought it could never happen”, but only told me their conclusion, not their evidence.