Surveying a wide range of cultural controversies, from the Mapplethorpe affair to Salman Rushdie's death sentence, Wendy Steiner shows that the fear and outrage they inspired are the result of dangerous misunderstanding about the relationship between art and life. 27 halftones.

A new scandal sheet from USA Today Bestseller Jess Michaels!!! Miss Hannah Blankenship's awful father has finally done what he's threatened to do for years: arrange a marriage for her. And she's certain she knows the man he's chosen, a disgusting viscount even older than he is! She only knows one way to end this horrible engagement and that is to get rid of the innocence that has been the bartering point. So she goes to a hell, looking for trouble. Duncan Cavendish is at the hell trying to drink his own trouble away. As the second son of an earl, he has very little control over his future. His brother has demanded he settle down in order to inherit and now Duncan is stuck. But the alluring stranger who takes him to her bed helps him forget...and makes him want. But when Hannah realized it is Duncan, himself, who is her intended, she is shocked. The two decide to marry so that Duncan may get his money and Hannah her freedom. But their searing attraction may lead to feelings neither prepared for. And leave them both wondering if their mutual insistence to stay at arm's length is truly the best course of action. Novella Length

Critics often chastised the twentieth-century black press for focusing on sex and scandal rather than African American achievements. In Pleasure in the News, Kim Gallon takes an opposing stance—arguing that African American newspapers fostered black sexual expression, agency, and identity. Gallon discusses how journalists and editors created black sexual publics that offered everyday African Americans opportunities to discuss sexual topics that exposed class and gender tensions. While black churches and black schools often encouraged sexual restraint, the black press printed stories that complicated notions about respectability. Sensational coverage also expanded African American women’s sexual consciousness and demonstrated the tenuous position of female impersonators, black gay men, and black lesbians in early twentieth African American urban communities. Informative and empowering, Pleasure in the News redefines the significance of the black press in African American history and advancement while shedding light on the important cultural and social role that sexuality played in the power of the black press.

When Edmund Ware, Baron Kirkpatrick, proposes a hasty marriage to save her reputation, Jane Tindall thinks it to be the perfect pairing, until secrets and scandals turn a proper marriage into a very improper affair. Original.

Imagining an encounter between Moliere's Don Juan and Austin, this bold yet subtle meditation contemplates the seductive promises of speech and of love, in a telling exchange among philosophy, linguistics, literature, and Lacanian theory."

Second in line, first in love A secret society of younger sons, sworn to aid and abet each other, no matter the scandal or cost.... Their fathers and brothers may rule the world, but they run it . . . and when it comes to passion, they refuse to accept second best. Searching for hidden treasure, finding forbidden fantasy London's most sensual former courtesan, Viola Whedon, is incapable of being seduced-she does the seducing. Until she meets Leonidas Vaughn. Her salacious memoirs have made her the target of half the lords in England, and Vaughn is the only man she can turn to. When he promises to protect her-and to make her beg for his touch-the alluring beauty finds both offers impossible to refuse. Leonidas Vaughn secretly believes Viola possesses a fortune given to his family by the King of France. So the strong and sexy Vaughn charms his way into Viola's life . . . and her bed. But when their arrangement is consummated, he'll experience pleasure far beyond his wildest fantasies-and realize his heart may need the most protection of all.

With readings of novels by Thomas Hardy, Anthony Trollope, Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, Henry James, and others, this work explores the relationship between illicit sex and the postal service in Victorian Britain.

"Never has the Victorian novel appeared so perverse as it does in these pages - and never has its perversity seemed so fundamental to its accomplishment. By viewing this fiction alongside the most alarming public scandals of the day, Cohen exposes both the scandalousness of this literature and its sexiness." "In narratives ranging from Great Expectations to the Boulton and Park sodomy scandal of 1870-71, from Eliot's and Trollope's novels about scandalous women to Oscar Wilde's writing and his trials for homosexuality. Cohen shows how, in each instance, sexuality appears couched in coded terms. He identifies an assortment of cunning narrative techniques used to insinuate sex into Victorian writing, demonstrating that even as such narratives air the scandalous subject, they emphasize its unspeakable nature. Written with an eye toward the sex scandals that still whet the appetites of consumers of news and novels, this work is suggestive about our own modes of imagining sexuality today and how we arrived at them."--BOOK JACKET.

The ghosts that haunt our sexual pleasure were born in the Stone Age. Sex and gender taboos were used by tribes to differentiate themselves from one another. These taboos filtered into the lives of Bronze and Iron Age men and women who lived in city-states and empires. For the early Christians, all sex play was turned into sin, instilled with guilt, and punished severely. With the invention of sin came the construction of women as subordinate beings to men. Despite the birth of romance in the late middle ages, Renaissance churches held inquisitions to seek out and destroy sex sinners, all of whom it saw as heretics. The Age of Reason saw the demise of these inquisitions. But, it was doctors who would take over the roles of priests and ministers as sex became defined by discourses of crime, degeneracy, and sickness. The middle of the 20th century saw these medical and religious teachings challenged for the first time as activists, such as Alfred Kinsey and Margaret Sanger, sought to carve out a place for sexual freedom in society. However, strong opposition to their beliefs and the growing exploitation of sex by the media at the close of the century would ultimately shape 21st century sexual ambivalence. Book Two of this two-part publication traces the history of sex from the Victorian Era to present day. Interspersed with ‘personal hauntings’ from his own life and the lives of friends and relatives, Knowles reveals how historical discourses of sex continue to haunt us today. This book is a page-turner in simple and plain language about ‘how sex got screwed up’ for millennia. For Knowles, if we know the history of sex, we can get over it.

“Suzanne Enoch’s sparkling talent makes each book witty, romantic, and always an eagerly anticipated pleasure.” —Christina Dodd A much-beloved classic from the phenomenal Suzanne Enoch, A Matter of Scandal is a delightful showcase of the wit, style, and passion that have made this New York Times and USA Today bestselling author a historical romance star. In this delectable Regency romp, a lusty duke with a well-earned reputation for seduction tricks the beautiful headmistress of a girls finishing school into a wager she cannot possibly win…only to have his own unsuspecting heart won by the clever, resourceful lady. Julia Quinn fans, this Scandal is for you! Read it and see why bestselling author Karen Hawkins has called the novels of Suzanne Enoch, “romance the way it was meant to be written.”