Abstract

This chapter examines the ways in which certain processes of globalization and the academic global turn shaped notions of sexuality. In a first part, this piece briefly reflects on the histories and theories of human sexuality and illustrates how this concept took various turns during the last two centuries. This overview is followed by a second section which focuses on the global turn by discussing certain aspects of the encounter of European and Middle Eastern “sexualities”, thereby showing how various complex processes involved effectively shaped notions of sexuality. The paper concludes by addressing both the potential and the challenges of research on the interrelation of sexuality and globality.