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 and private letters, Julie Peakman explores eighteenth-century heterosexual behaviour, male and female homosexuality and more curious or abnormal activities, such as foot-fetishism, flagellation, necrophilia and cross-dressing. Lascivious Bodies is the definitive account of a period of diverse sexual pleasures, and how they have shaped the way we think about sex today.