 Marinella thus appears to assert that women do not desire men, but experience only a polite reciprocal affection for those men who love them. This is likely to have been a strategic claim, aimed as a retort against Passi and other men writing against women, who often accused women of lasciviousness and promiscuity. Marinella is claiming that sexual desire is so foreign to women (at least to most women) that they are incapable of lascivious sentiments or acts.