The Pleasure's All Mine: A History of Perverse Sex. By Julie Peakman (London: Reaktion Books, 2013. 472 pp. £25.00)

Abstract

This book sets the notion of sexual “perversion” into historical context for a general audience by examining “the gamut of sexual activity that has been considered strange, abnormal or deviant over the last 2,000 years” in the West (7). By investigating how and “why people were—and remain—intolerant of other people's sexual preferences,” Peakman seeks to look beyond recent taxonomies of sexual desire to find “sexual ‘perversion’ before it was ‘discovered’” in the nineteenth century and “trace its development” (8, 12). Encompassing twelve chapters over 472 pages, The Pleasure's All Mine certainly explores a wide range of human sexual experience. The first chapter, “Taking it Straight,” wisely lays groundwork for Peakman's investigation of sexual “perversion” by situating the notion of sexual normality itself within historical context: it outlines the variant ways in which people have conceived normative sexuality over the past two millennia and offers a brief history of the concept of heterosexuality. The next eleven chapters cover a dazzling array of sexual practices and desires that have been considered abnormal or “perverse” in the West at different times, ranging from masturbation, same-sex sexual activity, role-playing, cross-dressing, fetishism and oral sex to zoophilia, sadomasochism, necrophilia, incest, pedophilia, infibulation and fisting. Each chapter shows how cultural perspectives on a sexual practice or group of practices (Chapter 12 focuses on “body parts” and covers oral sex, fetishism, infibulation, and fisting) have changed over the span of 2,000 years in rough chronological order. Although The Pleasure's All Mine's scope is daunting, Peakman's brisk, lively prose and its 178 high-quality illustrations make the book easy to read. Peakman has a keen sense for telling historical anecdote, and skillfully incorporates material drawn from personal letters, court records, medical reportage, newspaper accounts, literary texts, artworks, and films into her discussion. She is not above observing these histories' humorous elements, as in her comments on the “aptly named” Thomas Hogg's trial for copulating with a sow in Chapter 6, which focuses on zoophilia (190).