Desire: A History of European Sexuality (review)

In Desire: A History of European Sexuality, Anna Clark provides a valuable point of entry into a relatively new area of undergraduate studies- the history of sex and sexuality. Although scholars have been working in the field for a generation, it's hard to translate the theoretical and evidentiary sophistication that they have brought from feminism, queer studies, and social history to undergraduates. Clark provides an overview that will eminently useful as a bridge between scholarship and teaching. Her textbook distills much of the work done on the topic to create a valuable introduction to the field.

The introduction outlines the main theories and problems that animate current research. Clark's clarity deserves commendation, including topics like Foucault's sense of sexual discourse and Butler's ideas of performativity. Clark renders these ideas clearly and succinctly. She then provides a broad survey; it starts in the classical world, proceeds towards the early Judeo-Christian world, stops off at medieval monasteries, and moves into the Renaissance and Reformation where Clark examines northern Italy before turning to the German states. Clark then examines the age of exploration by focusing on the conquest of Mexico as an example of a larger process. The book then turns to the Enlightenment and focuses on France before ending the chapter with a brief discussion of the French Revolution. Next, the account considers the Victorian age, assesses the age of nationalism, and considers inter-war sexuality in two separate chapters- one based on Western patterns and one that compares eugenics policies and practices in USSR, Nazi Germany, and Sweden. Clark ends her account with a chapter that considers how consumerism triumphed over sexual liberation in the postwar world. Clark uses a periodization standard to the European survey so that instructors can incorporate the book into a broad array of courses.

Clark's discussion of Athenian and Roman sexuality takes great pains to set up a system based on hierarchies, models of gender, and meanings of citizenship. This chapter considers sexuality, not as a political or cultural predecessor to current models of sexuality, but as system that is far removed from current beliefs. This distinction remains important to undo much of the conceptual confusion wrought when previous generations of European intellectuals set themselves up as heirs to the most appealing parts of the ancient world, without an adequate reconstruction of its sexual system.

Clark discusses the Athenian system of sexuality in terms of tensions, energies, and dangers. Older men might have sexual relations with boys or girls as long as the men attended to maintaining the honor of the household. The pollution of the household held greater importance than did amorous adventures per se. In contrast, Roman society stressed the opposing virtues of virility and austerity. A virile man might have sex with women, slaves, boys, and other social inferiors as long as such passions did not lead him into profligacy. These sorts of ideas can be revolutionary for students who tend to see sex along an axis of heterosexuality and homosexuality and who understand monogamy as synonymous with respectability. By providing an account of very different forms of social organization, Clark's text can radically transform a reader's sense of the inevitability of a singular sexual system.

Clark's account rests upon the concept of the "twilight moment" as a way to discuss sexual behaviors and beliefs that remain incompletely articulated or acknowledged. I find this concept most useful, for example, in her discussion of sexual relationships between women that were largely ignored by social and legal proscription. On page 80, she discusses sex between women during the fifteenth century when, according to her account, authorities showed little concern "since no 'seed' was wasted" with such unions. In a very different sort of example, she mentions "date rape" on page 128 as a twilight moment because it could not be fully perceived or articulated in the Victorian age. Later she suggests that "twilight" was less of a process through which cultures avoid confrontation and more...