Amatory pleasures : explorations in eighteenth-century sexual culture / Julie Peakman.

"Encompassing the long 18th century, this reader examines a broad and enticing variety of topics in the history of sexuality in Georgian times. It includes discussion of sexual perversion, erotic gardens, gentlemen's secret societies, flagellation, pornography, writings of courtesans and the world of female friendship, revealing the secret or hidden meanings circulating between mainstream and covert activities of the 18th century. Including material previously available only in academic journals, revising these for a new readership and including two completely new chapters, Julie Peakman draws connections between these pieces and situates them within current debates. Her introduction examines how the covert life of Georgian sex was integrated from low life and high places, in brothels and palaces. Aimed at undergraduate and graduate students of gender, history of sexuality, sex literature and 18th-century history, Amatory Pleasures is an invaluable reader of the work of a key scholar in the field"-- Provided by publisher.

"Encompassing the long 18th century, this reader examines a broad and enticing variety of topics in the history of sexuality in Georgian times. It includes discussion of sexual perversion, erotic gardens, gentlemen's secret societies, flagellation, pornography, writings of courtesans and the world of female friendship, revealing the secret or hidden meanings circulating between mainstream and covert activities of the 18th century"-- Provided by publisher.

London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2016.

xvi, 224 pages : black and white illustrations ; 25 cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Machine generated contents note: -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Bodily Anxieties in Enlightenment Sex Literature -- 3. Perverse Acts -- 4. Medicine, the Body and the Botanical Metaphor in Erotica -- 5. The Eighteenth-Century Erotic Garden -- 6. Initiation, Defloration and Flagellation: Sexual Propensities in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure -- 7. Blaming and Shaming in Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth-Century Print Culture -- 8. Memoirs of Women of Pleasure: The Whore Biography -- 9. 'The Best Freind in the World' : The Relationship between Emma Hamilton and Queen Maria Carolina of Naples -- 10. The History of Sexuality Debate -- Bibliography -- Index.