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The Erotics of History challenges long-standing notions of
sexuality as stable and context-free--as something that individuals
discover about themselves. Rather, Donald L. Donham argues that
historical circumstance, local social pressure, and the cultural
construction of much beyond sex condition the erotic. Donham makes
this argument in relation to the centuries-old conversation on the
fetish, applied to a highly unusual neighborhood in Atlantic
Africa. There, local men, soon to be married to local women, are
involved in long-term sexual relationships with European men. On
the African side, these couplings are motivated by the pleasures of
cosmopolitan connection and foreign commodities. On the other side,
Europeans tend to fetishize Africans’ race, while a few
search to become slaves in master/ slave relationships. At its most
wide ranging,
The Erotics of History attempts to show that
it is history, both personal and collective, in reversals and
reenactments, that finally produces sexual excitement.