An important contribution to the study of the history of sexuality, this book examines the emergence of a new kind of heterosexual rhetoric in the early eighteenth century, a rhetoric that ultimately displaced earlier and more diverse expressions of sexuality and the body. Drawing on traditional scholarly methods as well recent queer-theoretical perspectives, the book traces the rise of the modern paradigm of compulsory heterosexuality, and counters certain feminist assumptions about the nature of "masculinity" and "male character" during the period. Throughout, Parker offers intriguing...