Fierce Desires: A New History of Sex and Sexuality in America
Norton, 2024
Agent: Sandra Dijkstra
From an esteemed scholar, a richly textured, authoritative history of sex and sexuality in America—the first major account in three decades.
Our era is one of sexual upheaval. Roe v. Wade was overturned in the summer of 2022, school systems across the country are banning books with LGBTQ+ themes, and the notion of a “tradwife” is gaining adherents on the right while polyamory wins converts on the left. It may seem as though debates over sex are more intense than ever, but as acclaimed historian Rebecca L. Davis demonstrates in Fierce Desires, we should not be too surprised, because Americans have been arguing over which kinds of sex are “acceptable”—and which are not—since before the founding itself.
From the public floggings of fornicators in early New England to passionate same-sex love affairs in the 1800s and the crackdown on abortion providers in the 1870s, and from the movements for sexual liberation to the recent restrictions on access to gender affirming care, Davis presents a sweeping, engrossing, illuminating four-hundred-year account of this nation’s sexual past. Drawing on a wealth of sources, including legal records, erotica, and eighteenth-century romance novels, she recasts important episodes—Anthony Comstock’s crusade against smut among them—and, at the same time, unearths stories of little-remembered pioneers and iconoclasts, such as an indentured servant in colonial Virginia named Thomas/Thomasine Hall, Gay Liberation Front cofounder Kiyoshi Kuromiya, and postwar female pleasure activist Betty Dodson.
At the heart of the book is Davis’s argument that the concept of sexual identity is relatively novel, first appearing in the nineteenth century. Over the centuries, Americans have shifted from understanding sexual behaviors as reflections of personal preferences or values, such as those rooted in faith or culture, to defining sexuality as an essential part of what makes a person who they are. And at every step, legislators, police, activists, and bureaucrats attempted to regulate new sexual behaviors, transforming government in the process.
The most comprehensive account of America’s sexual past since John D’Emilio and Estelle Freedman’s 1988 classic, Intimate Matters, Davis’s magisterial work seeks to help us understand the turmoil of the present. It demonstrates how fiercely we have always valued our desires, and how far we are willing to go to defend them.
Reviews:
"Davis’s sprawling account of sex and sexuality over the course of American history traverses the various behaviors, beliefs, debates, identities, and subcultures that have shaped the way we understand connection, desire, gender, and power. Comprehensive, rigorous, and unafraid to challenge readers, this history illuminates the present with brutal and startling clarity." —Sophia Stewart, The Millions
"An engrossing account of the surprising variety of sexual beliefs, behaviors, subcultures, and ‘culture wars’ that have marked American history from the beginning. This book will fascinate and challenge you." —Stephanie Coontz, author of Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage
"At a time when sex and sexuality are at the heart of our most polarizing debates, Rebecca L. Davis shows how both left and right have much to learn from history. Filled with colorful characters from a forgotten past, Fierce Desires is riveting, disruptive, and an essential book for our time." —Kristin Kobes Du Mez, best-selling author of Jesus and John Wayne
"The scope of Rebecca L. Davis’s knowledge and her vivid narratives make Fierce Desires an instant classic." —Christine Leigh Heyrman, author of Doomed Romance
"Rebecca L. Davis provides a fascinating account of the struggles over sexual identity and expression set in an unfamiliar geography and with historical actors new to many readers. She teaches us that such battles did not simply occur in the places we expect—New York and San Francisco—but across the South, the Midwest, and the Southwest, thanks to the courage and conviction of Native American, Black, and Latinx activists willing to challenge the limits of their local communities" —Kathleen M. Brown, author of Undoing Slavery
"In engaging prose and using truly fascinating examples, Rebecca L. Davis shows us that ideas about sexuality—far from being just a contemporary preoccupation—have always played a central role in how we organize our lives, construct our communities, and understand our differences." —Nicholas L. Syrett, author of The Trials of Madame Restell
"Fierce Desires is a smart and sweeping history of sexuality in the United States. It shows us how sexuality became a source of identity and a site of regulation; how it sustained race, class, and gender hierarchies; and how it inspired social movements and impassioned debates." —Joanne Meyerowitz, author of How Sex Changed