What is Sexual History?

What is Sexual History?
Author: Jeffrey Weeks
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2016-06-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 1509508880

Until the 1970s the history of sexuality was a marginalized practice. Today it is a flourishing field, increasingly integrated into the mainstream and producing innovative insights into the ways in which societies shape and are shaped by sexual values, norms, identities and desires. In this book, Jeffrey Weeks, one of the leading international scholars in the subject, sets out clearly and concisely how sexual history has developed, and its implications for our understanding of the ways we live today. The emergence of a new wave of feminism and lesbian and gay activism in the 1970s transformed the subject, heavily influenced by new trends in social and cultural history, radical sociological insights and the impact of Michel Foucault’s work. The result was an increasing emphasis on the historical shaping of sexuality, and on the existence of many different sexual meanings and cultures on a global scale. With chapters on, amongst others, lesbian, gay and queer history, feminist sexual history, the mainstreaming of sexual history, and the globalization of sexual history, What is Sexual History? is an indispensable guide to these developments.

Making Sexual History

Making Sexual History
Author: Jeffrey Weeks
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 404
Release: 2013-05-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0745669085

Jeffrey Weeks has established an international reputation as one of the most original and influential writers on the social history of sexuality.

American Sexual Histories

American Sexual Histories
Author: Elizabeth Reis
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2012-01-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 144433929X

The second edition of American Sexual Histories features an updated collection of sixteen articles and their corresponding primary sources that investigate issues related to human sexuality in America from the colonial era to the present day. Fully updated with ten new chapters, featuring recently published essays by prominent scholars in the field Provides readers with the source documents that historians have analyzed in their articles Allows readers to see how historians craft arguments based on available sources Encourages readers to evaluate historical documents, test the interpretations of historians, and draw their own conclusions

Capitalism's Sexual History

Capitalism's Sexual History
Author: Nicola J. Smith
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2020-08-27
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 019753029X

As ongoing controversies over commercial sex attest, the relationship between capitalism and sexuality is deeply contentious. Economic and sexual practices are assumed to be not only separable but antithetical, hence why paid sex is so often criminalized and morally condemned. Yet, while sexuality is highly politicized in moral terms, it has largely been overlooked in the discipline devoted to the study of global capitalism, international political economy (IPE). Likewise, the prevailing field in sexuality studies, queer theory, has frequently sidelined questions of political economy. This book calls for critical scholarship to challenge the economy/sexuality dichotomy as it not only structures disciplinary debates but is part and parcel of capitalism itself. Capitalism's Sexual History brings IPE and queer theory into close dialogue to explore how the division between economy and sexuality has been historically produced to appear both natural and moral. By examining sex work in Britain, Nicola J. Smith draws on in-depth archival research to chart a history of capitalism's sexual relations from medieval times to the present day. She shows how capitalist development was made possible by the appropriation of unpaid sexual labor that relied, in turn, on the repression and production of paid sex. By tracing the historical construction of boundaries around sex and work, this book exposes how capitalism has long profited from the notion that the sexual and economic spheres can and must be kept apart. In so doing, it offers a distinctive contribution to the study of sex and work as well as to wider scholarly, activist, and policy debates about political economy, reproductive labor, gender equality, and sexual justice.

The History of Sexuality

The History of Sexuality
Author: Michel Foucault
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 177
Release: 1990-04-14
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0679724699

Why we are so fascinated with sex and sexuality—from the preeminent philosopher of the 20th century. Michel Foucault offers an iconoclastic exploration of why we feel compelled to continually analyze and discuss sex, and of the social and mental mechanisms of power that cause us to direct the questions of what we are to what our sexuality is.

The Sexual History of the Global South

The Sexual History of the Global South
Author: Saskia Wieringa
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2013-04-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1780324057

The Sexual History of the Global South explores the gap between sexuality studies and post-colonial cultural critique. Featuring twelve case studies, based on original historical and ethnographic research from countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the book examines the sexual investments underlying the colonial project and the construction of modern nation-states. Covering issues of heteronormativity, post-colonial amnesia regarding non-normative sexualities, women's sexual agency, the policing of the boundaries between the public and the private realm, sexual citizenship, the connections between LGBTQ activism and processes of state formation, and the emergence of sexuality studies in the global South, this collection is of great geographical, historical, and topical significance.

Sexuality in World History

Sexuality in World History
Author: Peter N. Stearns
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2017-02-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 1351976451

This book examines sexuality in the past, and explores how it helps explain sexuality in the present. The subject of sexuality is often a controversial one, and exploring it through a world history perspective emphasizes the extent to which societies, including our own, are still reacting to historical change through contemporary sexual behaviors, values, and debates. This new edition examines these issues on a global scale, with attention to anthropological insights on sexuality and their relationship to history, the dynamics between sexuality and imperialism, sexuality in industrial society, and trends and conflicts surrounding views of sex and sexuality in the contemporary world.

A Curious History of Sex

A Curious History of Sex
Author: Kate Lister
Publisher: Unbound Publishing
Total Pages: 444
Release: 2020-02-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1783528060

This is not a comprehensive study of every sexual quirk, kink and ritual across all cultures throughout time, as that would entail writing an encyclopaedia. Rather, this is a drop in the ocean, a paddle in the shallow end of sex history, but I hope you will get pleasantly wet nonetheless. The act of sex has not changed since people first worked out what went where, but the ways in which society dictates how sex is culturally understood and performed have varied significantly through the ages. Humans are the only creatures that stigmatise particular sexual practices, and sex remains a deeply divisive issue around the world. Attitudes will change and grow – hopefully for the better – but sex will never be free of stigma or shame unless we acknowledge where it has come from. Based on the popular research project Whores of Yore, and written with her distinctive humour and wit, A Curious History of Sex draws upon Dr Kate Lister’s extensive knowledge of sex history. From medieval impotence tests to twentieth-century testicle thefts, from the erotic frescoes of Pompeii, to modern-day sex doll brothels, Kate unashamedly roots around in the pants of history, debunking myths, challenging stereotypes and generally getting her hands dirty. This fascinating book is peppered with surprising and informative historical slang, and illustrated with eye-opening, toe-curling and meticulously sourced images from the past. You will laugh, you will wince and you will wonder just how much has actually changed.

The Sexual History of the World War

The Sexual History of the World War
Author: Magnus Hirschfeld
Publisher:
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2006-03-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781410225405

CONTENTS: Introduction The Release of Sexual Restraints War Wives and Immorality Eroticism of Nurses Sensuality in the Trenches Venereal Diseases Women Soldiers and Female Battalions Homosexuality and Transvestitism Regulation of Army Brothels Prostitution Behind the Lines Lust in the Conquered Areas Civilian Debauchery Back Home Genital Injuries, War Eunuchs, Etc. Sex Life of War Prisoners Amatory Adventures of Female Spies Eroticism Behind Military Drill Propaganda and Sex Lies The Bestialization of Man Sadism, Rape, and Other Atrocities Post-War Revolution and Sexuality Appendix-U.S. Starts Cleanup of Camp Followers

The Origins of Sex

The Origins of Sex
Author: Faramerz Dabhoiwala
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 513
Release: 2012-05-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 019993939X

A man admits that, when drunk, he tried to have sex with an eighteen-year-old girl; she is arrested and denies they had intercourse, but finally begs God's forgiveness. Then she is publicly hanged alongside her attacker. These events took place in 1644, in Boston, where today they would be viewed with horror. How--and when--did such a complete transformation of our culture's attitudes toward sex occur? In The Origins of Sex, Faramerz Dabhoiwala provides a landmark history, one that will revolutionize our understanding of the origins of sexuality in modern Western culture. For millennia, sex had been strictly regulated by the Church, the state, and society, who vigorously and brutally attempted to punish any sex outside of marriage. But by 1800, everything had changed. Drawing on vast research--from canon law to court cases, from novels to pornography, not to mention the diaries and letters of people great and ordinary--Dabhoiwala shows how this dramatic change came about, tracing the interplay of intellectual trends, religious and cultural shifts, and politics and demographics. The Enlightenment led to the presumption that sex was a private matter; that morality could not be imposed; that men, not women, were the more lustful gender. Moreover, the rise of cities eroded community-based moral policing, and religious divisions undermined both church authority and fear of divine punishment. Sex became a central topic in poetry, drama, and fiction; diarists such as Samuel Pepys obsessed over it. In the 1700s, it became possible for a Church of Scotland leader to commend complete sexual liberty for both men and women. Arguing that the sexual revolution that really counted occurred long before the cultural movement of the 1960s, Dabhoiwala offers readers an engaging and wholly original look at the Western world's relationship to sex. Deeply researched and powerfully argued, The Origins of Sex is a major work of history.