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Before Intimacy: Asocial Sexuality in Early Modern England.

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Before Intimacy: Asocial Sexuality in Early Modern England By Daniel Juan Gil Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005

Daniel Juan Gil's book is a fascinating and novel study of sexuality in Renaissance literature. It begins with a short introduction, and since this introduction is in so many ways so different from the rest of the book, it seems appropriate to discuss it separately (and first). Before Intimacy begins, as so many books on sexuality in Renaissance literature now do, with the author's somewhat defensive situation of his project in relation to larger discussions about the use of the past and the role of sexuality in society. Gil argues strongly against seeing "the modern identitarian regime" of sexuality as inevitable, and he insists that early modern concepts of sexuality are very different from ours, rather than being merely nascent versions of them. This is a useful point to make, although it is compromised by Gil's use of...