The Book of Minor Perverts: Sexology, Etiology, and the Emergences of Sexuality

Statue-fondlers, wanderlusters, sex magicians, andnymphomaniacs: the story of these forgotten sexualities—what MichelFoucault deemed "minor perverts"—has never before been told. InThe Book of Minor Perverts, Benjamin Kahan sets out tochart the proliferation of sexual classification that arose withthe advent of nineteenth-century sexology. The book narrates theshift from Foucault's "thousand aberrant sexualities" to one:homosexuality. The focus here is less on the effects of queeridentity and more on the lines of causation behind a surprisingarray of minor perverts who refuse to fit neatly into our familiarsexual frameworks. The result stands at the intersection ofhistory, queer studies, and the medical humanities to offer us anew way of feeling our way into the past.