PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Julie Peakman is a historian and author of many books on the history of sexuality, including The Pleasure's All Mine: A History of Perverse Sex, also published by Reaktion Books, and Amatory Pleasures: Explorations in Eighteenth-Century Sexual Cultures. She lives in London.
"""A wide-ranging and richly illustrated guide to the fascinating sexual cultures of eighteenth-century London.""--Fara Dabhoiwala, author of ""The Origins of Sex: A History of the First Sexual Revolution"" ""The Georgians did not invent sex but they were the first to explore publicly all its permutations. To discover more, read Peakman's frank and enticing study.""--Penelope J. Corfield, emeritus professor, London University, and author of ""The Georgians: The Deeds and Misdeeds of 18th-Century Britain"" ""It seems that eighteenth-century brothel owners had their own pre-Viagra cures for erectile dysfunction, aimed at men known as 'flogging cullies.' 'Flagellation was a fixation of the period. . . . The theory was a good flogging would increase the blood rush to the necessary parts, ' notes historian Peakman in Libertine London: Sex in the Eighteenth-Century Metropolis. This clear-eyed study of the sex lives of women from 1680 to 1830 also notes that diarist Samuel Pepys, a man whose name is usually spoken in reverent terms as a literary giant, was 'a known groper.' That revelation didn't seem to make it into his own diaries.""-- ""Independent"" ""Libertine London is the story of sex in the capital from the Restoration to Jane Austen's time. . . . The material is fascinating, if grotesque.""-- ""Daily Telegraph"""
