Introduction

Abstract

The history of sexuality defies easy categorisation; as Matt Houlbrook states, its vitality derives from its pluralism.1 It explores men and women in the past as sexual beings, the ways they understood and experienced their sexual desires, and how their sexual behaviour was organised, regulated and constrained. There is little that cannot be included in this field. Social and cultural histories, political and economic histories, nationbuilding and welfare, and gender relations — all are marked by sex and sexuality. The field has porous boundaries and connects to a number of areas such as gender history, women’s history, the history of the body, the history of science, and political and legal history.