An illustration of 19th-century lovers

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Lust

The turn from punishing sexual activity outside of marriage toward the idea of personal sexual freedom began in the West between 1600 and 1800.
A diverse polyamorous family cuddling in bed, genders and relationships, pansexual lifestyle

Is Consensual Nonmonogamy a (Good) Thing?

Social biases can restrict research into consensual nonmonogamy, especially when it's harder to understand the processes involved in these relationships.
The cover of The Joy of Sex by Alex Comfort

Dr. Sex and the Anarchist Sex Cookbook

Known for his runaway bestseller The Joy of Sex, Alex “Dr. Sex” Comfort was an anarchist and a pacifist who preferred love and sex to war crimes.
An illustration of bundling

Bundling: An Old Tradition on New Ground

Common in colonial New England, bundling allowed a suitor to spend a night in bed with his sweetheart—while her parents slept in the next room.
From a pamphlet about the discovery of a witch, 1643

Sex and the Single Witch

On witch-hunting and the pursuit of sexual knowledge in early-modern England.
Giovanni da Udine, detail of border surrounding Raphael’s Cupid and Psyche, Villa Farnesina, Rome.

Fruit and Veg: The Sexual Metaphors of the Renaissance

Using peach and eggplant emojis as shorthand for sex may seem like a new thing, but Renaissance painters were experts at using produce to imply intercourse.
English actress Jane Birkin and French singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, at home in Paris.

Jane Birkin’s Famous Love (Sex) Song

How the songs of the 1960s and ’70s captured the sexual liberation of women.
A group of women sit in the waiting room of the American Birth Control League Clinic, New York, 1921

Pro-Sex Feminists of the 1920s

In the early decades of the twentieth century, political and social activists saw separating sex from marriage and reproduction as an issue of freedom.
A Vocalion Records advertisement, 1929

“It’s Tight Like That”

A "dirty" song recorded by Georgia Tom and Tampa Red in 1928 launched the "hokum" blues.
Jack Parsons

Sex-Cult Rocket Man

Jack Parsons, one of the “suicide squad” trio of young rocket-boy founders of Jet Propulsion Laboratory, had an improbable extracurricular life.