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.