In The Origins of Sex: A History of the First Sexual Revolution, Faramerz Dabhoiwala makes the case for a revolutionary change around the erotic that took place in the eighteenth century in Britain. In elaborating this point, Dabhoiwala offers a readable tour of sexual highlights and debates from the period: novels of seduction; the debate over polygamy; Bernard Mandeville's call for legal, government regulated brothels; the controversial Magdalene House for reformed prostitutes; pornography; sex clubs for men; celebrity prostitutes; and royal mistresses. Most of this material is familiar and little of it has been neglected by scholarship, although Dabhoiwala gathers it all in one place and presents it in a lively way. He argues that these various texts and debates add up to the first sexual revolution in history—a sea change from an earlier era of state and religious repression. In the midst of this celebration of a newfound liberty, however, Dabhoiwala does not ignore its limits. Dabhoiwala often notes how little of this sexual freedom extended to women. While this period in his view opened up new sexual opportunities for men, it simultaneously presented heightened sexual danger for women with its new “cult of seduction.” This cult of seduction may have empowered men, but it threatened to damage women for the marriage market and, in the worst-case scenario, cast them into prostitution. Dabhoiwala further acknowledges that this sexual revolution did not extend beyond heterosexual relationships, although within that paradigm it opened up new opportunities outside of marriage for men.

While Dabhoiwala offers a tour through some inherently fascinating material, the precise nature of this sexual revolution for heterosexual men is not entirely clear. Does Dabhoiwala claim a revolution in practice, in law, in attitude, or in discourse? The Origins of Sex presents little evidence about practice. This is notoriously difficult to access, of course, although some historians have found creative ways to identify evidence of what people might have been doing in bed and how communities responded to sexual transgression. For example, Randolph Trumbach, whose work, like that of many of scholars who have addressed this material, is not engaged by Dabhoiwala, looks at trial records for cases of sexual violations in his Sex and Gender Revolution. Dabhoiwala mentions shifts in the law, such as the end of church involvement in the identification of sexual criminals, but The Origins of Sex is not a legal history. Most of the evidence that Dabhoiwala examines is textual and much of it literary or artistic: Dabhoiwala bases his case for the revolution on novels, prostitute narratives, scandal narratives, and pamphlet wars over sexual topics, such as polygamy and the Magdalene House for reformed prostitutes. He also explores the popularity of the visual depictions of London bawds, high-profile courtesans, and sexual situations, including an extended consideration of William Hogath's engravings. His account of life before this revolution is cursory. The Origins of Sex, then, ultimately does not demonstrate that sexual practice changed, although this certainly might have been the case given the new openness that the book describes. What the book does powerfully document, however, is the explosion of publications with sexual content, narrated in more detail, with more precision, and with more analysis of its social consequences than ever before. Dabhoiwala attends mostly to the publications that challenge sexual restrictions for heterosexual men, although certainly pamphlets warning against libertinism found shelf space at the booksellers as well. Nevertheless, Dabhoiwala's last chapters, which address print culture, are the strongest, for here the author expands on what has been implicit throughout the project: that eighteenth-century Britain produced a robust print culture that circulated narratives about a very broad range of topics, including sexual ones, and some from surprisingly tolerant and secular perspectives. This discussion of print culture brings an important context to all of the cases discussed in the study. For example, Dabhoiwala is right that there weren't famous brothel keepers before the eighteenth century, but it's not clear that celebrity itself existed in the same way. So while Dabhoiwala does not address this revolution in terms of sexual practice, he nevertheless presents considerable evidence in a highly readable way that eighteenth-century print culture engaged in an extensive discussion of sexuality with a wide range of views gaining traction.