Table of Contents

Introduction 1. Modern Women and Modern Marriage: Reinventing Female Heterosexuality 2. Between Freudianism and Feminism: Sexology's Postwar Challenge 3. Politicizing Pleasure: Radical Feminist Sexual Theory, 1968-1975 4. Desires and their Discontents: Feminist Fiction of the 1970s 5. Cultural Feminism: Reimagining Sexual Freedom, 1975-1982 Conclusion

About the Author

Jane Gerhard is lecturer in history and literature at Harvard University. She lives in Providence, RI.

Reviews

"This fascinating book enriches history, women's/gender/sexuality studies, feminist theory, American studies curricula, and the libraries of advanced scholars. Gerhard deserves great credit for her skillful application of contemporary debates toward a creative interpretation of feminist and sexuality history." -- Judith A. Allen, Journal of American History "Gerhard delves into the history of expert ideas about appropriate reproductive and sexual behavior. Late nineteenth-century women activists, suffragists, and settlement-house workers challenged the idea of separate gendered spheres and showed they could live independently of men... Gerhard does a nice job of showing how the early radical feminists wanted to reconstruct heterosexuality to make it more focused on women's pleasure." -- Barbara Ryan, NWSA Journal "Gerhard does a wonderful job of analyzing and situating the texts she has selected...This is a story well worth reading, teaching, and expanding." -- Deborah Cohler, Journal of the History of Sexuality