In this study, Carolyn J. Dean focuses on the transformation of sexuality and its changing role in gender relations, politics, and culture. In Dean's view, a history of sexuality, by necessity, is a history of the changing relationship between sex and gender - that is, between our anatomy and our cultural expectations of what it means to be a man or woman.

Dean examines how turn-of-the-century concerns about deviant sexual behavior and the changing role of women in society led to a radical restructuring of sex-gender connections in the early part of the 20th century. Her review of debates on pornography, obscenity, homosexuality, and the role of women demonstrates how many of the pressing issues from the beginning of this century continue to haunt us at its end.

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Sexuality and Modern Western Culture makes a significant contribution to the nascent field of sexuality studies, bringing an innovative feminist approach to the current discussion of the body and the modern self. Dean's study is clear, concise, and comprehensive.

It combines empirical research, theoretical sophistication, and historiographical contextualization, showing how cultural and intellectual history can be combined to illuminate an important and complex topic of pressing moral, political, and aesthetic concern.