Introduction
The Introduction makes a case for gendering the history of sexology; specifically it argues that focusing on women’s ideas facilitates a more complex understanding of sexology as a form of knowledge and power. It begins by introducing the key figures and exploring the kinds of political promise they saw in scientific knowledge. It then challenges the limits of Foucault’s highly influential analysis of sexology by contextualizing sexology’s emergence within the rise of the women’s movement in the later nineteenth and early twentieth century. Moreover, the Introduction draws on the sociology of science to reframe sexology as a field, and thus to argue that sexology was built and animated by a diverse range of actors with disparate investments in the creation of this knowledge. Finally, it discusses the limitations of women’s sexual scientific work and the ambivalent legacy it bequeathed.