Fierce Desires

Fierce Desires is a history of sex and sexuality in the United States, spanning four hundred years. Historian Rebecca L. Davis begins with the present: Roe v. Wade was overturned in the summer of 2022, school systems are banning books with LGBTQ+ themes, and the idea of the "tradwife" is gaining followers on the right while polyamory attracts converts on the left. Davis shows that arguments over which kinds of sex are acceptable have run through American life since before the nation's founding.

The account moves from public floggings of fornicators in early New England to passionate same-sex love affairs in the 1800s and the crackdown on abortion providers in the 1870s. It continues through the movements for sexual liberation to recent restrictions on gender affirming care. Davis draws on legal records, erotica and eighteenth-century romance novels, retells episodes such as Anthony Comstock's crusade against smut, and brings forward lesser-known figures. They include Thomas/Thomasine Hall, an indentured servant in colonial Virginia, Gay Liberation Front cofounder Kiyoshi Kuromiya, and the postwar female pleasure activist Betty Dodson.

At the center of the book is the argument that sexual identity is a fairly new concept, first appearing in the nineteenth century. Over time, Americans moved from seeing sexual behavior as an expression of personal preference or values, such as those rooted in faith or culture, to seeing sexuality as an essential part of who a person is. Throughout, legislators, police, activists and bureaucrats tried to regulate new sexual behaviors, and in doing so changed the shape of government.

The book is presented as the first major history of its kind since John D'Emilio and Estelle Freedman's Intimate Matters, published in 1988. It aims to help readers make sense of present-day turmoil by showing how fiercely Americans have always valued their desires and how far they will go to defend them.