A landmark study in the history of sexuality which redefines thinking about sex and gender in nineteenth-century France and beyond.

During the nineteenth century, words like 'intersex' and 'trans' had not yet been invented to describe individuals whose bodies, or senses of self, conflicted with binary sex. But that does not mean that such people did not exist. In nineteenth-century France, case studies filled medical journals, high-profile trials captured headlines, and doctors staked their reputations on sex determinations only to have them later reversed by colleagues. While medical experts fought over what separated a man from a woman, novelists began to explore debates about binary sex and describe the experiences of gender-ambiguous characters. Anne Linton discusses over 200 newly-uncovered case studies while offering fresh readings of literature by several famous writers of the period, as well as long-overlooked popular fiction. This landmark contribution to the history of sexuality is the first book to examine intersex in both medicine and literature, sensitively relating historical 'hermaphrodism' to contemporary intersex activism and scholarship.

Silver Medalist, 2012 Independent Publisher Book Awards in the Women's Issues category Honorable Mention, 2011 ForeWord Book of the Year in the Women's Issues Category Although conventional wisdom holds that women in the United States today are more sexually liberated than ever before, a number of startling statistics call into question this perceived victory: over half of all women report having faked orgasms; 45 percent of women find rape fantasies erotic; a growing number of women perform same-sex eroticism for the viewing benefit of men; and recent clinical studies label 40 percent of women as "sexually dysfunctional." Caught between postsexual revolution celebrations of progress and alarmingly regressive new modes of disempowerment, the forty women interviewed in Performing Sex offer a candid and provocative portrait of "liberated" sex in America. Through this nuanced and complex study, Breanne Fahs demonstrates that despite the constant cooptation of the terms of sexual freedom, women's sexual subjectivities—and the ways they continually grapple with shifting definitions of liberation—represent provocative spaces for critical inquiry and personal discovery, ultimately generating novel ways of imagining and reimagining power, pleasure, and resistance.

History of sex in the West from the ancients to the moderns by describing the developments in reproductive anatomy and physiology.

“Beliefs about men and women are as old as humanity itself, but Fine’s funny, spiky book gives reason to hope that we’ve heard Testosterone rex’s last roar.” —Annie Murphy Paul, New York Times Book Review Many people believe that, at its core, biological sex is a fundamental force in human development. According to this false-yet-familiar story, the divisions between men and women are in nature alone and not part of culture. Drawing on evolutionary science, psychology, neuroscience, endocrinology, and philosophy, Testosterone Rex disproves this ingrained myth and calls for a more equal society based on both sexes’ full human potential.

Humor is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. Throughout history, it has played a crucial role in defining gender roles and identities. This collection offers an in-depth thematic examination of this relationship between humor and gender, spanning a variety of historical and cultural backdrops.

Critical Sexuality Studies (CSS) and Lavender Languages/Linguistics (LLL) are leading modes of inquiry in two different fields of sexuality studies. In this edited collection, chapters reveal how these can be combined to produce a new approach to analyzing language use, sexuality and gender, and discourse on authority and power. The book demonstrates how together LLL and CSS iterate each other through their mutual concern with sexuality, gender, and power, especially when considering the materiality of daily life. Authors then compare CSS to other fields of sexuality studies to reveal commonalities and tensions that are addressed via the LLL-based interventions exemplified in this volume. The body of the book organizes examples of Lavender Languages projects around a four-part CSS framework, with an introductory essay for each section indicating the connections between the CSS theme and the LLL examples. The volume concludes with reflections showing how CSS interests in sexuality and power benefits from LLL with its emphasis on socially focused studies of discourse and text. Strengthening pathways to future knowledge-making, this book provides a detailed roadmap for scholarly and activist engagements in language-centered critical sexuality studies.