Desire

A History of European Sexuality

Anna Clark

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9781032961538
  9781032961521
• Edition: 3
• eBook ISBN:
  9781040917633
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

A sweeping survey of sexuality in Europe from the ancient Greeks to the present, Desire: A History of European Sexuality follows changing attitudes to two major concepts of sexual desire—desire as dangerous, polluting, and disorderly, and desire as creative, transcendent, even revolutionary—through the major turning points of European history.

Chronological in structure, and wide ranging in scope, Desire addresses such topics as sex in ancient Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, sexual contact and culture clash in Spain and colonial Mesoamerica, new attitudes toward sexuality in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and sex in Bolshevik Russia and Nazi Germany. The book introduces the concept of "twilight moments" to describe activities seen as shameful or dishonorable, but which were tolerated when concealed by shadows, and integrates the history of heterosexuality with same-sex desire, as well as exploring the emotions of love and lust alongside the politics of sex and personal experiences.

This new edition has been updated to include more on trans histories and sexual identities in the context of the recent multiplication of sexual and gender identities. It also brings in more on materialism, embodiment, and the history of emotion. In addition to the new chapter on imperialism from the second edition, the third edition now includes an additional chapter on early medieval Christianity and Islam, concentrating on the tensions between mysticism and regulation. The book concludes with a new chapter that explores how activists from the 1970s onward linked sexual pleasure to bodily care, particularly in the contexts of abortion, AIDS, and gender-affirming trans healthcare.

Drawing on a rich array of sources, including poetry, novels, pornography, and film, as well as court records, autobiographies, and personal letters, and written in a lively, engaging style, Desire remains an essential resource for scholars and students of the history of European sexuality, as well as women's and gender history, social and cultural history, and LGBTQ history.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Epigraph Page
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• List of Figures
• Chapter 1 Introduction: Sexuality and the problem of Western civilization
• Chapter 2 Sex and the city: Greece and Rome
• Chapter 3 Divine desire in ancient Judaism and the beginnings of Christianity
• Chapter 4 Desire in the early Middle Ages, 600–1200 ce: Mysticism and regulation
• Chapter 5 From twilight moments to moral panics: The regulation of sex from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century
• Chapter 6 Sexual contact and culture clash in Spain and colonial Mesoamerica
• Chapter 7 Enlightening desire: New attitudes toward sexuality in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
• Chapter 8 In the Victorian twilight: Sex out of wedlock, sexual commerce, and same-sex desire, 1750–1870
• Chapter 9 Boundaries of the nation, boundaries of the self, 1860–1914
• Chapter 10 Sex and imperialism, 1857–1939
• Chapter 11 Managing desire or consuming sex in interwar culture
• Chapter 12 Sex and the state in the 1930s: Sweden, the Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany
• Chapter 13 The reconstruction of desire and sexual consumerism in postwar Europe
• Chapter 14 Sexual citizenship and sexual nationalism in times of crisis
• Index