But can there really be a history of sexuality? This is the question that historian David Halperin wrote about in 1989.7 His widely cited article includes one of the most repeated mantras about queer history: “Sex has no history . . . sexuality, by contrast, does.” What he means is that sexual activity is a biological fact, and people have been getting it on in as many ways as you can imagine since forever. But sexuality as an identity, sexual preferences being something that we are rather than something that we do, is a cultural construction, which is why Halperin, along with philosopher
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