Sex: Lessons From History

(Hardback)

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Out now: the new book by Dr Fern Riddell, a powerful and entertaining history of sex.

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These are the facts: throughout history human beings have had sex. Sexual culture did not begin in the sixties. It has always been celebrated, needed, wanted and desired part of what it means to be human.

So: what can learn by looking at the sexual lives of our ancestors What does it tell us about our attitudes and worries today, and how can the past teach us a better way of looking forward

In this wide-ranging and powerful new history of sex, Dr Fern Riddell will uncover the sexual lives of our ancestors and show that, just like us, they were as preoccupied with sexual identities, masturbation, foreplay, sex, deviance; facing it with the same confusion, joy and accidental hilarity that we do today.

Sex: Lessons from History is a revealing and fascinating look at how we've always been obsessed with how sex makes us who we are.

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Reviews

Sex: Lessons from History is a furious and unflinching manifesto that debunks the many myths and misconceptions surrounding sex and sexuality. It is packed full of fascinating and provocative historical insights on the place sex has in our lives. -- Kate Wiles, History Today
Sex, in all its joyous, terrifying, disgusting, dangerous, criminalised, queer, constrained and kinky forms, is perhaps the constant major theme of human culture. Riddell's wonderful, erudite book simultaneously uses sex as a lens to understand modern English history, and modern English history to understand sex. The story is by turns horrifying, hilarious, enlightening and terrifying. -- Matt Lodder

Author Bio

Dr Fern Riddell is a historian specialising in sex, suffrage and culture in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. She appears regularly on TV and radio, and writes for the Guardian, Huffington Post, Telegraph and Times Higher Education among others, and is a columnist for BBC History Magazine.