'Elderly years cause a Total dispaire of Conception': Old Age, Sex and Infertility in Early Modern England

Although the history of old age has been studied in much greater detail in recent years, the subject of sexuality in old age remains relatively under-explored. This article examines early modern ideas about old bodies and sex in relation to fertility, to argue that because old bodies were understood as either infertile (post-menopausal women) or sub-fertile (old men) they were therefore characterised as unsuitable, undesirable and inappropriate sexual partners. Perceptions of old bodies, their sexual abilities, desirability and behaviour were remarkably consistent from the sixteenth through to the eighteenth century. The ridiculing of old men and women's sexual behaviour that permeated contemporary culture in stories, ballads and jokes, alongside medical literature that characterised old bodies as sexually unappetising as well as unreproductive, carried the message that sexual activity was not for the old, and in large part because they were infertile.

'To[o] much eating stifles the child': fat bodies and reproduction in early modern England

This article examines associations between fat bodies and reproductive dysfunction that were prevalent in medical, midwifery and other literature in early modern England. In a period when fertility and successful reproduction were regarded as hugely important for social, economic and political stability such associations further contributed to negative attitudes towards fat bodies that were fuelled by connection with the vices of sloth and gluttony. Fat bodies were categorized as inherently, constitutionally, less sexual and reproductively successful. Consequently they were perceived as unhealthy and unfit for their primary purpose once they had reached sexual maturity: marriage and the production of children.

'To[o] much eating stifles the child': fat bodies and reproduction in early modern England

This article examines associations between fat bodies and reproductive dysfunction that were prevalent in medical, midwifery and other literature in early modern England. In a period when fertility and successful reproduction were regarded as hugely important for social, economic and political stability such associations further contributed to negative attitudes towards fat bodies that were fuelled by connection with the vices of sloth and gluttony. Fat bodies were categorized as inherently, constitutionally, less sexual and reproductively successful. Consequently they were perceived as unhealthy and unfit for their primary purpose once they had reached sexual maturity: marriage and the production of children.

"Private rooms and back doors in abundance": the illusion of privacy in pornography in seventeenth-century England

This article discusses pornography in seventeenth-century England in relation to the public/private debate. The seventeenth century is seen as bordering a shift from a communal, "public" style of living to a private, confined, inward-looking sensibility discernible from the eighteenth century. The increasing availability and development of a market for pornography, which goes hand in hand with the expansion of print culture, is seen as part of this shift, as it seems to exemplify par excellence the private consumption of printed material for private pleasure. The pornographic literature of the seventeenth century repeatedly invokes the idea of a public/private distinction to produce an eroticised narrative in which the illusion of privacy is constantly breached by the pursuit of voyeuristic pleasure.