Sex in Elizabethan England

About this book

Although there is much we will never know, poets and playwrights can provide valuable insights into our ancestors' sexual lives. Here, with help from the work of figures such as Shakespeare, Marlowe and Donne, Alan Haynes builds up a vivid picture of the sexual experiences of Elizabethans at all levels of society, from the 'virgin Queen' herself, who slept alone despite rumours that she was as sexually promiscuous as her mother was alleged to have been, to characters such as Moll Cutpurse, a gutsy female transvestite who shocked and amused generations of Londoners in almost equal measures. There is a full examination of the Elizabethan court, which 'seethed with clandestine sexual activity' and revolved round sophisticated rituals of courtship and display, and chapters on love and marriage, prostitution, brothels and bawdy behaviour in the playhouses, as well as impotence, homosexuality and sexual diseases.