Is a history of sexuality possible? It is easy to envisage a history of the language of enticement, the trail of clothes on the floor, the bed even, but the coupling, the thing itself, how could we nail that to the historian's rack? An instinct timeless in its force, an experience at once private, secret and charmingly individual, how could it be made to submit to dates and social determination? It is easier to admit that the language of love knows its different tropes and turns in time than to admit that, if this is so, the experience it represents must have a history too. Sex is one of the last citadels to hold out against the sappers of historicism, one of the few domains in which it remains common to speak of a constant human nature and universal human experience.

LRB 4 March 1982 | PDF Download