An American obsession: science, medicine, and homosexuality in modern society

that). But in earlier times, castration made a man essentially null and void in terms of the economy of genders. That is, he was no longer a man, no longer a citizen, and no longer able to participate in some religious practices. This contrast between ancient and modern gender relations and their signifiers is captured in the opening anecdote where 48-year-old Taylor's 29-year-old girlfriend boasted about his vasectomy at a party (and, incidentally, there are many other personal allusions to sons and ex-wives throughout the work in case you think I am being quaint by drawing attention to this story). It would not be possible to consider the "cut" Taylor a real man for most of the history of the west, although such a notion is possible in the modern, secular age. Taylor is at his most erudite when he is discussing Augustine, Jesus (as found in the Gospel of Matthew, and reinterpreted by Taylor from the Greek rather than relying on later English translations, where the word "eunuch" is translated as "chaste"), and Middleton's (unheard of outside seventeenth-century literature studies) A game at chess (1624). One might expect this of such an eminent Renaissance scholar, expert on Middleton, and general editor of the Oxford Shakespeare. In other sections, Taylor refutes Michel Foucault's theory that, rather than being repressive about sexuality, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were times of proliferation of discourse about sexuality. His criticism, relying on simple publication statistics, does not hold water as it fails to investigate the new fields of science focusing on sexuality rather than reproduction. Furthermore, gender was being recast outside reproduction in these very texts which Taylor argues indicate nothing. His discussions of Freud are sometimes strange, as he seems put out that Freud had never heard of Middleton, and that he reinterpreted castration to pertain to the penis rather than the testicles, although Taylor rectifies this in the later sections where he relies heavily on Sander Gilman's interpretation of Freud and Judaism. Beyond these academic quibbles, Taylor has a strong tendency to write in journalese (replete with boxed in asides, magazinestyle), although his arguments are on the whole strong, and are presented in a very "non-stuffy" way. Does Taylor's book offer us anything new? Yes, if we wish to consider the testicular economy as it might be found in the seventeenth century and earlier. Yes, if we want to make post-modern arguments about representing gender and the body. No, if we want to address contextually Freud's ideas about childhood sexual development, or if we want to understand the change in women's attitude towards sexuality. These last two points are both parts of bigger stories, unfortunately not addressed here.