Abstract
ABSTRACT Within research into the early modern maritime world and the contemporary treatment of sex and sexual expression in both Europe and America two terms continuously emerge and often appear linked: seamen and semen. It is impossible to encounter these terms without recognising them first as clear homophones and then secondly as terms that, when compared, might share more connections than solely their similar sounds. This paper investigates this homophone more deeply and argues that semen and seamen might be collapsed together through thinking about their attachment to liquid metaphors, their shared link to life and death, and finally in attending to the ways in which medical and religious groups sought to control them both through targeted programmes predicated on religion. This interdisciplinary investigation contends that semen and seamen are both related through particular cultural readings that evoke notions of fluidity, baptism, religion, life and death, and moral panic.
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