Illustration of a couple

Sex and love

Sir Lancelot of the Lake and Queen Guinevere seen embracing by King Arthur in a medieval illustration

Tudors in love: what were the dynasty's romantic secrets?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

(Illustration: Clair Rossiter for BBC History Magazine)

Beans, ale & 'windy meats': surprising 17th-century aphrodisiacs. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A medieval miniature depicts a monk and a woman in a bed.

Sex in the Middle Ages: have attitudes really changed?

A mosaic that shows two Roman women exercising, one holds a flower and another holds a leaf

7 things you (probably) didn’t know about Roman women

An ancient Greek vase depicting sexual intercourse

A brief history of sex and sexuality in Ancient Greece

A set of Tudor faces laid out on playing cards

Why the Tudors fell for courtly love. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A portrait of Lady Emma Hamilton

Nelson's sensational mistress: how Emma Hamilton took Europe by storm. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

An architectural grotesque of a woman displaying her vulva

How naughty was the past? The hidden depths of the medieval church

Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, on historical fiction. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Fern Riddell

Contraception, consent & erotic connection: sex through history. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Colour portrait of Jane Austen (1775–1817) drawn by her sister Cassandra. Dated 1810. (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)

Jane Austen: a guide to her life, books and death – plus 8 fascinating facts

Fern RiddellSex: Lessons from History. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Portrait of Carlo Broschi (stage name Farinelli), the most famous opera singer of the 18th century. (Photo By DEA/A. DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini/Getty Images)

Castrated Georgian opera stars: the stars of the 18th century

Leonardo da Vinci’s private life. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Drawing of an old and young man, possibly Salai, by Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci’s private relationships: what's known?

The bigamy trial that scandalised Georgian England. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Nell Gwyn was a mistress of King Charles II

Nell GywnThe orange girl who became a king's mistress in Restoration England

Rivalries and romances: couples that shook up history. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

An Athenian red-figure kylix (cup) dating from around 510–500 BC depicts a young pentathlete pulling his older lover towards him for a kiss. In many of the city-states of ancient Greece, sex between a man and a youth was an accepted – even idealised – form of love, its virtues extolled in works by writers including Plato. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Pride and prejudice: same-sex relations through history

Sex, romance and rights: women's lives since 1950. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, pictured in 1854. (Photo by Roger Fenton/Roger Fenton/Getty Images)

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert: what was their relationship like?

An account of the story of James Allen, whose sex at birth was revealed only by an autopsy conducted after their death

'Female husbands': the secret lives of 18th-century transgender pioneers

A portrait of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert with five of their nine children, by Frederick Winterhalter

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert: was their union a marriage of misery?

Queen Victoria in her coronation robes.

Your guide to Queen Victoria and a timeline of her life – plus 16 fascinating facts

Portrait of Anne of Cleves

Anne of Cleves: Henry VIII's most successful queen?

A 19th-century engraving. A young woman plays a harp, singing a duet with a man holding the music book, Duets de L’Amour. (Photo by Historica Graphica Collection/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

A survivor's guide to Georgian marriage

A cartoon depicting the Duke of Wellington, who demands attention outside a house, while the Duke of Argyll, inside with Harriette Wilson, pretends not to recognise him.

Georgian Britain: sex in high places

Rege-Jean Page as Simon Basset and Phoebe Dynevor as Daphne Bridgerton

Bridgerton season one: “A period drama like no other”

Nelson's passion for Emma – with whom he had a six-year affair – is writ large in his letters

Nelson in his own words

Jane Austen's fiction: an accurate portrayal of life in Georgian England?