Sex, death, and punishment: Attitudes to sex and sexuality in Britain since the Renaissance

In this book the author examines attitudes to sexuality in Britain with a special emphasis on the prudery, fear and hatred of deviance that underly those attitudes. He describes the self-hatred that often leads to persecution of homosexuals and sufferers of venereal disease, including AIDS. He suggests that the establishment that draws up and enforces laws against sexual expression are often trying to hide or deny their own proclivities. The author argues that sexual desire is part of the fecundity of life itself and that to fear sex is to fear part of our shared humanity. Richard Davenport-Hines won both the Wolfson and Wadhurst prizes for works of history for "Dudley Docker".