Amatory Pleasures Explorations in Eighteenth-Century Sexual Culture

Encompassing the long 18th century, Amatory Pleasures examines a broad and enticing variety of topics in the history of sexuality in Georgian times. It includes discussion of sexual perversion, criminal conversation, erotic gardens, gentlemen's homosocial societies, flagellation, pornography, writings of courtesans and the world of female friendship, revealing the secret or hidden meanings circulating between mainstream and covert activities of the 18th century. Julie Peakman draws connections between these pieces and situates them within current debates and examines how Georgian sexual activity was integrated from low life and high places, from brothels to palaces.

Aimed at anyone interested in gender, history of sexuality, sex, literature and 18th-century history, Amatory Pleasures is an invaluable collection of the work of a key scholar in the field.

1. Introduction
2. Bodily Anxieties in Enlightenment Sex Literature
3. Perverse Acts
4. Medicine, the Body and the Botanical Metaphor in Erotica
5. The Eighteenth-Century Erotic Garden
6. Initiation, Defloration and Flagellation: Sexual Propensities in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure
7. Blaming and Shaming in Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth-Century Print Culture
8. Memoirs of Women of Pleasure: The Whore Biography
9. 'The Best Freind in the World' : The Relationship between Emma Hamilton and Queen Maria Carolina of Naples
10. The History of Sexuality Debate
Bibliography
Index

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