This!! Could never get into Brandon Sanderson but Robin Hobb is fantastic

Oh yes!! Someone recently recommended that series to me and I've been meaning to check it out!

Yes this is the exact night that stood out to me as being something "extra" if you will

Wow, this is amazing context, thank you!! I hadn't paid attention to the Greek allusions really, and (revealing my own ignorance here) didn't realize anal was illegal for heterosexual couples as well. That helps explain the accusations his estranged wife starts making about Mellors being one of the "low, beastly men with women" too. Now I know there was definitely so much more that went over my head.

[Edited an autocorrect spelling error]

This isn't strictly an answer to your question so apologies, but there is a podcast called By the Book where the 2 hosts "live by" a self help book for 2 weeks at a time, and explain the main takeaways and whether it was actually helpful or not. It's great for figuring out whether a self help book will be worth your time and sometimes hearing the takeaways on the podcast is enough to actually do the helping

That potentially makes sense as well, though there are descriptions of them having sex earlier which don't necessarily seem shameful in the same way. So it seems like it could be less about the fact and more about the specific things they're engaging in in this moment

Thanks for the thoughtful response! Ha yes - regardless of what they're doing, I love the kind of freedom she experiences through sex, it's really beautiful!

🤷‍♀️ fair enough, though I think it's natural to wonder

There are lots of ways to have sex and I was curious about the culture of sex at the time and what specifically would have been considered shameful

I've never heard of those, but perhaps. I'm less interested in graphic descriptions of sex, more interested in the culture around sex in different time periods and what was considered "shameful"/particularly "sensual" at the time

For me, the ultimate in cozy mysteries is any book in the Mrs. Pollifax series!