history of sexuality

Indiana U. Pres.: Legislative Attack on Kinsey Institute a Attack on Academic Freedom

Ironically, Alfred Kinsey's work was the subject of moral panics and suppression in his own lifetime. 

Indiana's Kinsey Institute will Have to Carry on Without State Funds

The pioneering research institute for the study of human sexuality has been a victim of the "groomer" moral panic; the legislator introducing the funding restrictions has called the late Alfred Kinsey a pedophile and suggested the institute was "hiding child predators." 

Kelsy Burke's "Pornography Wars" Examines America's Conflicted Relationship to Smut

by Laura Kipnis

The sociologist is less concerned with the substance of pornography than with the multiple roles it holds in Americans' discussions of sex, labor, gender, and morality. 

Why Didn't 60 Minutes Push Back on MTG's "Pedophile" Smear?

While Lesley Stahl responded that Democratic politicians aren't "pedophiles" or "groomers," historians Manisha Sinha and Brandy Schillace explain that the term has a longer and uglier history in campaigns to marginalize queer people and to use fears around sexual purity to justify oppression of outgroups. 

Gladys Bentley: Gender Outlaw

by Cookie Woolner

Gladys Bentley was one of the most popular speakeasy performers in prohibition-era New York, and used the performance category of "drag king" – women playing on stereotypes of masculinity – to be herself. 

Is Archaeology Due for a Sexual Revolution?

What if the phallic objects of antiquity were less about ceremony or symbolism and had extremely... practical uses? Have Victorian attitudes toward sexuality suppressed discussion of ancient artifacts' use in sex? 

Indiana Legislature Votes to Defund IU's Kinsey Institute

Conservative lawmakers invoked the specter of child sexual exploitation to argue for defunding the leading American center for research on human sexuality. 

Will the Era of the Butt Ever End?

Heather Radke's "Butts: A Backstory" isn't (just) a provocation, but a carefully researched study of how bodily ideals and attractiveness are constructed and reproduced in societies. 

We Discovered the Archive of a Sex Education Academy; Is its Value for Auction or Research?

by Allison Miller

What happened when a historian and an archivist-in-training tracked down the much-rumored but long unseen archives of a defunct institute for the study of sexuality? 

Sex, Society and Scandal in 19th Century France

Historian Sarah Horowitz found the tale of Marguerite Steinheil too juicy to confine to an academic book, though the scandal shows how women navigated sex and inequality at the end of the nineteenth century. 

75 Years On, the Kinsey Institute Continues to Influence How we Think About Sex

Tasked with teaching a course on marriage and family, biologist Alfred Kinsey was shocked by the lack of scientific research on human sexuality. In 1947 he launched a research institute to fill that void. 

The Democratic Possibilities of Cruising

by Jack Parlett

As a practice, cruising exemplifies the possibilities of urban culture by bringing people into contact with strangers and enabling them to recognize common desires. The history of crusing shows it's not just about sex, but about democracy. 

Historians Ask what the Decline of Nude Beaches Tells Us about the Internet's Influence

Historians of naturism Sarah Schrank and Stephen L. Harp believe that the panoptical nature of social media is eroding a longstanding divergence between European and American attitudes about nudity in public spaces, particularly among young women. 

Dangerous as the Plague: The History of Moral Panics over Queer "Seduction"

by Samuel Huneke

From the perspective of the post-Obergefell US, this year's politicized attacks on LGBTQ people—particularly as threats to the nation's youth—seem like a sudden reversal. But such attacks have a long and miserable history that has shadowed movements for queer freedom at every turn. 

The Secret of Successful Royal Marriage? History Says it's a Mistress

by Kate Lister

The transactional nature of royal marriages meant that bonds of affection or attraction between parties was an afterthought, making royal paramours (for kings, at least) commonplace. 

The Asian-Canadian Gay Pioneer Theorist of Sexuality

by Laurie Marhoefer

Li Shiu Tong, the partner of better-known German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld, was an important theorist and activist whose once-lost writings anticipated today's politics of gay rights and liberation. 

SCOTUS is Enabling a Backlash Against Free Sexual Expression

by Rebecca L. Davis

The history of legislation aimed at suppressing "vice" shows that abortion is tied to other forms of free sexual expression. The last sweeping attack on sexual freedom took decades to reverse.

The 19th Century Woman's Secret Guides to Birth Control

Women have always tried to share information enabling them to control their reproductive health, and others have always tried to stop them. Secrecy, coded language and misdirection are historical puzzles to untangle, say Andrea Tone, Naomi Rendina, Lauren Thompson and Donna Drucker. 

Antiabortion Movement Gunning for Contraceptive Rights, Too

by Anya Jabour

A century ago, sex researcher Katharine Bement Davis was silenced because she fought to redefine women's sexuality and contraceptive use as normal and fight for its decriminalization. The right today wants to undo her legacy through the courts.

Elizabeth Reis on "Bodies in Doubt," Her History of Intersex in America

"People born with bodily differences that fall outside the bounds of “normal” have suffered tremendously, as physicians have tried to “fix” their bodies and their psyches to fit into a narrow conception of acceptability."