Heading South: An Introduction

This chapter briefly presents the interconnections between geography, masculinity, and sexuality in the nineteenth-century European imagination. Southern Europe and the Islamic world were conceptualized as sensuous and sexually libertine and, as a result, were prominent destinations for homosexuals. As an example, the author explores the work of Wilhelm von Gloeden. Rather than interpreting this through sexual orientation, the author explores how “erotics” are historically and socially conditioned. The author argues that a teleological model of sex grounded in reproduction should be avoided. This emphasis on the erotics of sex encourages the consideration and analysis of specific “fetishes” outside a heterosexuality/homosexuality binary.