Sexuality and the Making of the Modern World Laura Schwartz Associate Professor of Modern British History

The history of sexuality is concerned with all or any of the below: 1. Sexual practices – sexual encounters between people (which can take many different forms) but also related behaviours such as masturbation, use of contraception, pornography etc. 2. Sexual desires – the feelings and preferences that motivated such practices. 3. Sexual identities – whether one defines as straight or gay or queer or pansexual, or none of the above. 4. Sexual morality – attitudes to 1,2 & 3, social norms and laws and regulations that surround them.

Adrienne Rich, 'Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence‘ (1980) 'the destruction of records and memorabilia and letters documenting the realities of lesbian existence must be taken very seriously as a means of keeping heterosexuality compulsory for women‘ (p.649)

Adrienne Rich, 'Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence‘ (1980) ‘heterosexuality… needs to be recognised and studied as a political institution’ (p.637)

Jeffrey Weeks, What is Sexual History? (2016), pp.3-4. Sexual historians look at: Sexual identities and non-identities Fertility, reproduction, birth control, abortion Celibacy, masturbation, fantasy, pornography and purity Transactional sex work Marriage, singleness, partnerships etc Organization and cultures of families Boundaries of private and public life Sexual health and sexual ill-health. Relationships between sexuality and gender, race, class, age, religion, and with geographies Histories of sexual cultures, movements and campaigns … and more…

Adrienne Rich, 'Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence‘ (1980) ‘For women heterosexuality may not be a "preference" at all but something that had to be imposed, managed, organised, propagandised, and maintained by force’

Edward Carpenter (in hat) and George Merill Kathlyn Oliver