Some Like It Hot: Sex and the Sauna in Early Modern Sweden

By Charlotta Forss Early Modern

Early modern travellers found Sweden’s saunas both exotic and erotic, but local attitudes were more complicated.

CFP: Histories of Magic and Sexuality

By Mackenzie Cooley CFP

How have perceptions of magic shaped sexuality, love, and reproduction?

“She was both Poxt and Clapt together”: Confessions of Sexual Secrets in Eighteenth-Century Venereal Cases

By Olivia Weisser Early Modern, Medicine and the Body

Sexual secrets were nothing new in the 1700s, but confessing them to a doctor became surprisingly common.

Women’s Experiences in Fornication and Paternity Suits in Massachusetts, 1740-1800

By Kelly Ryan Early America

Women’s confessions and paternity suits reveal a host of information about the sexual lives of early Americans.

Sexual Curiosities? Aphrodisiacs in early modern England

By Jennifer Evans Early Modern, Food and Sexuality, Medicine and the Body

Aphrodisiacs were widely understood to be a central component in the fight against infertility.

The Allure of the Castrato

By Lisa Smith Early Modern

An introduction to one of the sex symbols of the eighteenth century: the castrato.