. Enjoying sex too much was viewed as a sin, although a venial one– as opposed to a mortal sin. For women, virginity was the highest possible state, widowhood next best, with marriage coming in a distant third. Widows who chose to remarry were viewed with suspicion. Certainly these attitudes toward sexuality, if internalised, could well have inhibited women's enjoyment of sex.
             On the other hand, there were countervailing intellectual forces at work that suggested a more positive view of female sexuality. One that may have encouraged sexual pleasure for women was the existing Galenic medical misunderstanding of reproduction. Galen insisted that it was imperative that the woman ejaculate her sperm for conception to succeed. Many physicians in the Middle Ages had adopted this concept of the existence of female sperm. Thus, it was important that the woman as well as the man have an orgasm, preferably simultaneously. A downside of this belief was the insistence that a woman could not get pregnan
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