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.
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.
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.
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.
Sex and the Single Witch
On witch-hunting and the pursuit of sexual knowledge in early-modern England.
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.
Jane Birkin’s Famous Love (Sex) Song
How the songs of the 1960s and ’70s captured the sexual liberation of women.
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.
“It’s Tight Like That”
A "dirty" song recorded by Georgia Tom and Tampa Red in 1928 launched the "hokum" blues.
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.