Sexuality in Europe: A Twentieth-Century History

by Dagmar Herzog

• ISBN13: 9780521691437
• ISBN10: 0521691435
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-09-30
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This is a fascinating and accessible new account of the tumultuous history of sexuality in Europe from the waning of Victorianism to the collapse of Communism and the rise of European Islam. Although the twentieth century is often called 'the century of sex' and seen as an era of increasing liberalization, Dagmar Herzog instead emphasizes the complexities and contradictions in sexual desires and behaviors, the ambivalences surrounding sexual freedom and the difficulties encountered in securing sexual rights. Incorporating the most recent scholarship on a broad range of conceptual problems and national contexts, the book investigates the shifting fortunes of marriage and prostitution, contraception and abortion, queer and straight existence. It analyzes sexual violence in war and peace, the promotion of sexual satisfaction in fascist and democratic societies, the role of eugenics and disability, the politicization and commercialization of sex, and processes of secularization and religious renewal.

Author Biography

Dagmar Herzog is Professor of History and Daniel Rose Faculty Scholar at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Her previous publications include Sex after Fascism: Memory and Morality in Twentieth-Century Germany (2005) and Brutality and Desire: War and Sexuality in Europe's Twentieth Century (as editor, 2009).

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	p. vii
Introduction	p. 1
Reconceiving sexuality 1900-1914	p. 6
Prostitution, venereal disease, and the double standard	p. 7
Theorizing desire	p. 15
Separating sex from reproduction: contraception and abortion	p. 18
Eugenics	p. 24
Rethinking sexual orientation	p. 28
Further reading	p. 41
State interventions 1914-1945	p. 45
World War I and its aftermath: violence and opportunity	p. 45
Fascism: masculinism and reproduction	p. 61
Nazism: human engineering and the promise of pleasure	p. 67
Democratic welfare states: liberality and ambivalence	p. 75
Holocaust and World War II	p. 83
Further reading	p. 94
Cold War cultures 1945-1965	p. 96
Mass violence and the return to domesticity	p. 96
Conservatism, east and west	p. 100
The rise of romance	p. 106
Ambivalence about contraception	p. 111
The persecution of homosexuals	p. 117
The rise of reform	p. 122
Further reading	p. 131
Pleasure and rebellion 1965-1980	p. 133
The market of desire	p. 134
Revolutionary theories	p. 146
Changing the law	p. 152
Heterosexual disillusionment	p. 161
Homosexual liberation	p. 168
The turn inward	p. 172
Further reading	p. 174
Partnerships and practices 1980-2010	p. 176
HIV/AIDS	p. 177
The fall of communism	p. 183
Postfascist lessons in human rights	p. 195
Islam and the sexual borders of Europe	p. 198
Romantic liberality versus new conservatisms	p. 205
Further reading	p. 215
Epilogue	p. 218
Further reading	p. 221
Acknowledgments	p. 222
Index	p. 224
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