Contents -- Preface -- 1. Early Greece: 776-480 BCE -- A Millennium of Greek Love -- Homer's Iliad -- Crete, Sparta, Chalcis -- Athletics and the Cult of Beauty -- Sappho -- Alcaeus, Ibycus, Anacreon -- Theognis of Megara -- Athens' Rulers -- The Tyrannicides -- 2. Judea: 900 BCE-600 CE -- The Judgment of Leviticus -- The Threat to Population -- Sodom's Gold -- Who Were the Kedeshim? -- Philo of Alexandria -- The Talmud -- 3. Classical Greece: 480-323 BCE -- Pindar's Odes -- Greek Tragedy -- Phidias -- The Comedies of Aristophanes -- Plato's Symposium -- The Phaedrus and the Laws -- Xenophon -- Aristotle's Dicta -- Zeno and the Stoics -- Aeschines' Against Timarchus -- The Sacred Band of Thebes -- Philip and Alexander -- 4. Rome and Greece: 323 BCE-138 CE -- Sexuality and Empire -- Cicero and Roman Politics -- Greek Love in the Aeneid -- Meleager and Callimachus -- Catullus and Tibullus -- Theocritus and "Corydon" -- Horace's Odes -- Ovid's Myths -- Lesbianism -- Petronius' Satyricon -- Suetonius and the Emperors -- Statius, Martial, Juvenal -- Hadrian and Antinous -- 5. Christians and Pagans: 1-565 CE -- The Gospels -- Intertestamental Judaism and Paul -- "Moses" and the Early Church -- Greek Love in Late Antiquity -- Plutarch's Dialogue on Love -- The Lucianic "Affairs of the Heart" -- Two Romances and an Epic -- Roman Law before Constantine -- The Edicts of 342 and 390 -- Sodom Transformed -- Saint John Chrysostom -- The Persecutions of Justinian -- 6. Darkness Descends: 476-1049 -- The Fall of Rome -- Visigothic Spain -- Church Councils and Penitentials -- The Carolingian Panic -- Love in Arab Spain -- The Growth of Canon Law -- The Book of Gomorrah -- 7. The Medieval World: 1050-1321 -- The Fortunes of Ganymede -- Scandal in High Places -- The Theological Assault -- The Inquisition and Its Allies -- The Fate of the Templars.

Secular Laws: The Sowing -- The Harvest Begins -- Poets for the Prosecution -- Dante's Admirable Sinners -- 8. Imperial China: 500 BCE-1849 -- A Peach, a Fish, and a Sleeve -- The Han Emperors -- Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism -- Poets and Lovers -- From Tang to Song -- Ming China: The West Reacts -- Feng Menglong's Anatomy of Love -- Fiction and Drama -- The Qing Dynasty -- The Peking Stage -- 9. Italy in the Renaissance: 1321-1609 -- A New Ethos and an Old -- Repression in the Italian City States -- Death in Venice, 1342-1590 -- Florence: The Price of Love, 1325-1542 -- Donatello, Botticelli, Leonardo -- Michelangelo: Love, Art, and Guilt -- Sodoma and Cellini -- Rome and Caravaggio -- 10. Spain and the Inquisition: 1497-1700 -- The Spanish Inquisition -- Subcultures in Valencia and Madrid -- The Inquisition in Portugal -- Spain and the New World -- 11. France from Calvin to Louis XIV: 1517-1715 -- Outings, Protestant and Catholic -- Calvinism and Repression -- Henry III and the "Mignons" -- The Poets' Revolt -- Louis XIII, "The Just" -- Monsieur and Madame -- Six Generals -- Les Lesbiennes -- Queen Christina -- 12. England from the Reformation to William III: 1533-1702 -- Silence and Denial -- Monasteries and the Law -- Elizabethan Literature -- Christopher Marlowe -- The Tragedy of Edward II -- Shakespeare's Sonnets -- James VI and I -- Francis Bacon -- Puritanism and the Restoration -- Between Women -- William III in England -- 13. Pre-Meiji Japan: 800-1868 -- Europe Discovers Japan -- The Buddhist Priesthood -- Samurai and Shoguns -- No Drama and Kabuki -- A Debate and an Anthology -- Saikaku's Great Mirror -- Tokugawa Finale -- 14. Patterns of Persecution: 1700-1730 -- Policing Paris -- "Reforming" Britain -- Souls in Exile -- Witch Hunt in the Netherlands -- 15. Sapphic Lovers: 1700-1793 -- Law and Religion -- Romance and Innuendo.

A Nun and an Actress -- An Ill-Fated Queen -- 16. The Enlightenment: 1730-1810 -- Montesquieu and Beccaria -- Frederick the Great -- The Vagaries of Voltaire -- Diderot and Sade -- Toward Reform -- Bentham vs. Blackstone -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Acknowledgments -- Illustration Credits -- Index.