Sex and the Church in the Long Eighteenth Century

William Gibson is Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Oxford Brookes University and Director of the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History. His publications include James II and the Trial of the Seven Bishops; The Church of England 1688-1832 and Religion and the Enlightenment 1600-1800. Joanne Begiato is Head of the Department of History, Philosophy and Religion at Oxford Brookes University. She is the author of Unquiet Lives and Marriage Breakdown in England, 1660-1800 and Parenting in England 1760-1830.

• IntroductionChapter One: The Church’s Teaching On Sex.Chapter Two: The Church, Sex and The Public SquareChapter Three: Illicit Sex and The Church CourtsChapter Four: The Church, Marriage, and Marital SexChapter Five: Evangelicals, Sex, and RespectabilityChapter Six: Celibacy, ‘Conjugal Chastity’, and ‘Moral Restraint’Chapter Seven: The Church, Sodomy, and Same-Sex DesiresChapter Eight: Scandals, the Public and the Clergy.Chapter Nine: Sexual Narratives, Obscenity and The Church

The authors have amassed a great deal of evidence that provides fascinating insights into how people throughout the long eighteenth century understood sexuality, and experienced different sexual behaviours. The book eloquently argues that a monolithic narrative that foregrounds the Enlightenment as the agent for increasingly liberal and secular understandings of sexuality is misleading. Rather, the sexual experiences of men and women across the eighteenth-century provoked contradictions, required critique and were, above all else, exceedingly varied.