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Sex and the eighteenth-century man : Massachusetts and the history of sexuality in America

Author

Foster, Thomas A.

Title

Sex and the eighteenth-century man : Massachusetts and the history of sexuality in America / Thomas A. Foster.

Format

Book

Published

Boston : Beacon Press, ©2006.

Description

xx, 223 pages ; 24 cm

URL

<Table of contents> http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0612/2006012858.html <Publisher description> http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0634/2006012858-d.html <Table of contents> http://bvbr.bib-bvb.de:8991/F?func=service&doc_library=BVB01&local_base=BVB01&doc_number=015057805&line_number=0001&func_code=DB_RECORDS&service_type=MEDIA

Notes

Includes bibliographical references (pages 183-217) and index.

Contents

• "He is not a man, that hath not a woman"
• Sex and the shattering of household order
• Rape and seduction : masculinity, misogyny, and male sexuality
• Sex and the community of men
• "Half-men" : bachelors, effeminacy, and sociability
• "When day and night together move" : men and cross-cultural sex
• "The paths of monstrous joy."

Review

"With few exceptions, sex is noticeably absent from popular histories chronicling colonial and Revolutionary America. Moreover, it is rarely associated specifically with early American men. This is in part because sex and family have traditionally been associated with women, while politics and business are the historic province of men. But Thomas Foster turns this conventional view on its head. Through the use of court records, newspapers, sermons, and private papers from Massachusetts, he shows that sex - the behaviors, desires, and identities associated with eroticism - was a critical component of colonial understanding of the qualities considered befitting for a man."--Jacket.

Subject headings

Men--Sexual behavior--United States--History--18th century. Men--United States--History--18th century. Men--United States--Social conditions--18th century.

Kinsey subjects

Men --18th century --United States. Social conditions --18th century --United States. Gender role identification.

ISBN

0807050385 (hardcover ; alk. paper) 9780807050385 (hardcover ; alk. paper) 9780807050392 (pbk.) 0807050393 (pbk.)

Standard Identifier

99815406996