ABSTRACT
This article traces the evolution of modern histories of eighteenth-century theories of luxury and of sexuality; it argues that although these fields are crucially related, few commentators have linked them in an effective manner. It gives brief accounts of work by John Sekora and Christopher Berry, both of whom explore luxury in terms of socio-economic theories derived partly from J.G.A.Pocock. The article argues that these economic theories pay insufficient attention to the sexualized nature of eighteenth-century writings on luxury-in particular, they shy away from analysis of effeminacy even though this term is frequently encountered in enlightenment attacks on excessive economic consumption. Then there is an outline of recent work about gender and sexuality in the eighteenth century; this mentions Alan Bray, G.S.Rousseau, Randolph Trumbach, and others. This section traces the contributions that these writers have made to histories of effeminacy and homosexuality, but notes that they are less interested than they might be in luxury and the body politic. The article also argues that historians of luxury and sexuality tend to ignore visual aspects of eighteenth-century culture, although recent texts by Terry Castle and Kristina Straub use theories of the gaze to explore enlightenment constructions of gender. The article then describes a series of papers from Luxurious Sexualities: Effeminacy, Consumption and the Body Politic in EighteenthCentury Representation, a multi-disciplinary conference featuring scholars working on luxury, masculinity, the body, sexuality, and economic discourse in the eighteenth-century. The writers discussed are: Cath Sharrock (writing on masturbation and sodomy), Philip Carter (on effeminacy and economic theories of luxury), Miles Ogborn (on visual aspects of Macaroni culture in Vauxhall Gardens), Robert Jones (on effeminacy and military encampments), Sue Wiseman (on representations of the breast as both luxurious and virtuous), Marcia Pointon (on jewellery in representations of Queen Charlotte), and Brian Young (on Gibbon and sex).
