ABSTRACT
This article analyzes European reactions to the practice of penile inserts in Southeast Asia during the early modern period, and argues that European remarks about Southeast sexual practice, genital alteration, and uncovering of (female) genitalia reflects primarily on European sexual mores and views of non-European sexuality. What Europeans observed in Southeast Asia inverted the sexual hierarchies to which Europeans were accustomed in the West, and thus their expressions of shock combined with fascination reflect much about European writers’ assumptions about male dominance and their own sexual desirability.
