ABSTRACT
This book will trace the competing concepts of sexual desire that run as a thread
through European history: sexual desire as polluting and dangerous, and sexual
desire as creative, transcendent, and transformative. The first has often been iden-
tified with Christianity. Since its inception, Christianity has regarded sexual desire
with deep ambivalence. Early Christians valued celibacy as superior to marriage
and feared that sexual desire would distract the believer from God. Over the
centuries, Christians eventually changed their attitudes to celebrate marital sex.
But the fear of sex as polluting has persisted.