The evolution of Darwinian sexualities

Abstract Charles Darwin's Descent of Man was suffused with questions courtship, mating and sex. Following in his footsteps, biologists throughout the twentieth century interrogated sexual behaviour humans animals. This paper charts fate evolutionary theories sexuality to argue that – despite legal social gains past when used selection as a tool for theorizing evolution homosexual (which happened only rarely), effect their continuously reinscribe normative heterosexuality. If, at end nineteenth century, certain sex theorists viewed homosexuality marker intermediate sex, by late new generation idealized gay men hyper-masculine biological males whose behaviours were uncompromised necessity accommodating women's preferences. In both cases, assumptions about gender interwoven those sexuality. By twenty-first animal exemplars again mobilized alongside data gathered human practices defence rights, but this time creating opportunity naturalization without recourse determinism.