Rebecca L. Davis is a professor of History and of Women and Gender Studies at the University of Delaware.

Today’s undergraduates want to understand the origins of American debates over sexual expression, gender identity, and bodily autonomy. A course on the history of sexuality in America can help them see how these intimate topics emerge from and shape our national politics and culture. Yet if you haven’t taught a course on the topic before—or if you’re looking to update your existing syllabus—knowing where and how to begin can seem daunting. I encourage instructors to assign my new book, Fierce Desires: A New History of Sex and Sexuality in America, which traces 400 years of history in 18 narrative chapters. And because I am passionate about making this history accessible, Peyton Cleary (MA, MLIS) and I designed a free Teaching Companion to support instructors who assign Fierce Desires. 

I wrote Fierce Desires to enliven the history of sexuality in America and developed the Teaching Companion to take the guesswork out of teaching it. Some instructors have a strong foundation in American history but know less about the histories of gender and sexuality, while others might be trained in gender and sexuality studies but have less experience with historical methods. Yet another group of instructors may have designed this course around other primary texts. This Teaching Companion provides the tools for you to develop or update your course on the history of sexuality in America.  

Each chapter in the Teaching Companion corresponds to a chapter in Fierce Desires, with summaries, key words and people, timelines, guided reading questions, and suggested classroom activities. All the hyperlinks connect to open-access primary sources, videos, podcasts, and other instructional materials. Find resources to incorporate into your lectures, activities for small or large group discussions, and writing assignments. Enjoy a text designed to be copied and pasted into your LMS or lecture notes.  

The Teaching Companion’s section for Chapter 2, for example, opens with a summary of that chapter’s exploration of sexual conflict in the American Southwest in the 1600s and 1700s, as Indigenous people confronted European arrivals. Students learn this history in Fierce Desires through the story of Juana Hurtado, the child of a Zuni Pueblo mother and a Spanish father. Key words for this chapter include settler colonialism and kinship. One of the suggested activities links to a short film about the Pueblo Revolt, a subject discussed briefly in the book but central to Hurtado’s story. All the chapters in the Teaching Companion conclude with additional resources. For Chapter 2, those include links to photographs of Po’pay, a leader of the Pueblo Revolt. Design part of your lecture or an in-class activity around interpreting the statues and discussing the challenges of historical commemoration.  

The suggested activities in the Teaching Companion supplement and amplify content in the corresponding chapter in Fierce Desires. Chapter 14 of Fierce Desires examines sexual liberation and feminism in the twentieth century, with a particular focus on sex educator Betty Dodson. The chapter mentions a split among American feminists in the 1970s and 1980s over issues such as pornography, S&M, and sex positivity. For one of the suggested activities in Chapter 14 of the Teaching Companion, we link to two primary source documents. One document is the mission statement for Samois (“Who We Are”), a lesbian BDSM advocacy and affirmation group; the other is the statement of purpose for Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media (WAVPM), a group that viewed all BDSM as patriarchal violence. These two documents could form the basis for a class debate, individual student writing assignments, or slides for a lecture about the “anti-porn” vs. “pro-sex” battles. Chapter 14 of the Teaching Companion also includes links to a brief documentary about Eve’s Garden, the first women-only sex shop in the United States; an open-source excerpt from Dodson’s book Liberating Masturbation; and an exhibit from the Human Sexuality Archive at Cornell about the lesbian pro-kink magazine On Our Backs. It concludes with links to open-source editions of The Ladder, Lesbian Tide, and off our backs.  

Because our students will find many of the topics in Fierce Desires relevant to their own lives, the Teaching Companion suggests summative assignments that engage those connections. Concluding projects and papers present an especially good opportunity to introduce students to the wealth of public history resources that are available on the web (without paywalls). My students combed through primary sources on the OutHistory.org site for short papers about the history of LGBTQ activism on college campuses. Continuing the theme of public engagement, I’ve had success with an “un-essay” assignment that asks students to answer the question, “What is one thing you learned in this class that you want other people to know?,” in whatever medium they choose. The appendices also include historical maps that might be useful for your lecture slides, as well as a selective list of public history resources.

I have been using the Teaching Companion’s activities in my own courses and find that they provide dynamic opportunities for student engagement. Students will complete your course with a broad knowledge of the history of sexuality in America and an appreciation for its effects on their lives today. 

Ready to get set up with resources? Request access to the Teaching Companion and your free exam copy of Fierce Desires.

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