This document provides background information and discussion prompts for a course on the history of sexuality. It lists several recommended readings from the week's chapters and discusses several important figures mentioned in those readings, including John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, Rev. Michael Wigglesworth, and Thomas Morton, who founded the non-Puritan settlement of Merry Mount. Students are asked to discuss something interesting they learned from one of the readings, citing specific pages, and are given the option to write a short description of a figure like Rochester, Wigglesworth, or Morton to share in the class discussion.

1. QUESTION :
Briefly identify and discuss an interesting/important things you
learned from one of this week's chapters. (Remember to include
author's last name and specific page numbers you refer to!
THE FOLLOWING SOURCES ARE ALL PROVIDED IN THE
FORM OF PDF.
Starting points
Daniel Heath Justice, "Daniel's Take," extracted from
Introduction to Sexuality, Nationality, Indigeneity (special issue
of GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, co-edited by
Daniel Heath Justice, Mark Rifkin, and Bethany Schneider,
16.1-2, 2010). Justice provides an alternative view on
approaching Indigenous experiences and histories; a useful
perspective to consider even though most of our readings will
represent academic historiography.
Joane Nagel, “Sex and Conquest: Domination and Desire on
Ethnosexual Frontiers” (Chapter 3), pages 63-90. As a
sociologist, Nagel provides a useful lens as well as a multi-
century overview of white mis/understandings and
appropriations of Native sexualities.
Histories
Michael Bronski, Chapter 1: "The Persecuting Society" (1-18).
In addition to a fascinating description of a breakaway, non-
Puritan settlement called Merry Mount founded by Thomas
Morton, this chapter provides more information/interpretation
about Nicholas Sension (also discussed by Godbeer and Rupp),
as well as T. Hall, whom Rupp mentions.
Richard Godbeer, "Colonial North America (1600s-
1700s)" from Routledge History of Queer America (2018), ed.
Don Romesburg (Chapter 1, pages 15-26)
Leila Rupp, “In the Beginning: Same-Sex Sexuality in Early
America” (Chapter 2), pages 12-36
Beth Hutchison, 13-17th Century Timeline for 370 (background
information; clearly a draft, since the entire 15th century is

2. blank)
Some names from the readings who may come up in our
discussion:
What could you add about people mentioned in the readings?
You could write a description about one of these people (or
someone else who catches your interest) similar to the three
which follow and post it to our discussion, along with your
thoughts about their significance to understanding sexuality in
their time and place or to the history of sexualities more
broadly.
·
· T. Hall
· C. Linck (why do I use initials in place of the first names in
the readings for these two people??)
· Nicholas Sension
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1647-1680) was briefly
mentioned in Rupp's chapter (page 20); Rochester wrote
"missing my whore, I bugger my page"; see Three Poems by
John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester for context, if you like). He
lived during a period of conflict between the English upper
classes against the controlling, repressive worldview of the
Puritans and was part of the court of King Charles II of
England. As a courtier and sometime favorite of the king,
Rochester's poems illustrate how libertinism was a social force
elevating pleasure and excess over sober religiosity; this
licentious attitude was part of why the Mayflower colonists left
England in 1620. Arguably, the two opposing impulses have
shaped American views and practices ever since. (Religious
conflict came to a head in England as Wars of the Three
Kingdoms, 1639-1651. Charles II went into exile after his
father, Charles I, was beheaded. A faction of Puritans ruled
England from 1649-1660 as which point Charles II was restored
to the crown.)
17th century Puritan minister and Harvard professor Rev.
Michael Wigglesworth is mentioned in Bronski (page 11) and
Rupp (page 27) this week. Wigglesworth wrote a diary partly in

3. code to obscure his struggles with desires he believed were
sinful in his Creator's eyes. Wigglesworth's secret desires were
unknown until the code was deciphered centuries later, in the
1960s.
Merry Mount: This brief excerpt, "A Puritan Heritage," provides
a photo of a page from Michael Wigglesworth's coded diary as
well as additional information about a little-known, decidedly
not Puritanical, colonial settlement in Massachusetts called
Merry Mount founded by Thomas Morton (mentioned by
Bronski, 13-14, 16). The records about Morton and Merry
Mount demonstrate that although the Puritan worldview (which
did in fact endorse sexual pleasure within marriage--the
Puritans weren't so very puritanical!) was dominant, additional
and conflicting ideas and practices of sexuality existed among
European colonists during the same time period and locale.