'Tis Nature's Fault

The essays in this 1988 volume address sexual phenomena in eighteenth-century Europe that were for one reason or another outside the legal or sanctified systems of acceptability: most notably, unwed heterosexual domesticity, masturbation, prostitution, libertinism, homosexuality, and pornography. The contributors, drawn from England, France, Italy, Holland, and the United States, illustrate the range of unauthorized sexual expression during the Enlightenment. The essays take an important first step toward integrating sexuality into our general understanding of eighteenth-century culture.