Julie Peakman is an author and historian known for her books and media appearances.

LASCIVIOUS BODIES, A SEXUAL HISTORY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY is her latest book. A spicy ground-breaking history of sex in the eighteenth century, a period of wide-ranging experimentation which saw the birth of modern sexuality. Lascivious Bodies is set to become the standard account of a period of multi-sexual pleasures, and the extraordinary attitudes they engendered - a time that has shaped how we think about sex today.

The eighteenth century saw a revolution in ordinary people's sex lives. at a time of social flux, the sheer array of sexual experimentation during this period led to the birth of sexuality as we know it.                                                          From Florentine lesbian nuns to French cattle buggers, Lascivious Bodies examines all sorts of sex, in all sorts of places, with all sorts of people. Drawing upon vivid first-hand material, journals, memoirs and private letters, Peakman depicts the libertine men and flighty courtesans of the era, including such personalities as James Boswell, Casanova, Peg Plunket , Harriette Wilson and Julia Johnstone. She also explores behaviour in courtship, marriage, adultery, divorce and prostitution: more curious or abnormal activities, such as foot fetishism, flagellation, and necrophilia; as well as male and female homosexuality and cross-dressing.

Reviews

BBC History Magazine: BOOK OF THE MONTH. 'Peakman's book is distinguished by careful scholarship and a refusal of generalised theories...This pleasurable bedside encyclopedia   offers eloquent testimony to the anarchic misrule of 18th-century sexuality.' Rachel Holmes

Telegraph - 'Lascivious Bodies is a romp, full of racy anecdotes, and a pleasure to read.' Luscasta Miller.

The Spectator -' Peakman is a rarity: a scholar with all the credentials....who knows how to write a popular book...Deep research and erudition underpin all her allegro vivace discursiveness, insights and levity. She is like an artist who has drawn from plaster casts, then in the life class, before allowing herself of the leash for a bit of "self-expression"...most impressive.' Bevis Hillier

BBC History Magazine, 100 Books of the Year -'a treat '

New Statesman - 'Peakman is an energetic researcher', Edwina Currie

The Sunday Times - 'soundly researched and spiced with lurid detail...sparkling', Miranda Seymour

The Times - 'entertaining survey of C18th sexual tastes and habits

Click on other pages for further information on her other publications.