Afterword on ‘compulsory sexuality’, sexualization, and history

My aim in this short afterword is neither to summarize the chapters of this book and provide contextualization for them, as that was one of the tasks fulfilled by the editors’ introduction, nor to provide a ‘final word’ to the collection by writing a conclusion. Rather, I intend to highlight some tensions, problems and areas deserving further scrutiny that my reading of this book suggested to me, and to underscore how the historical analyses carried out here resonate with contemporary cultural and intellectual debates about sex, gender and the body.