Kinky History

Irreverent and provocative, this is a history of sex, from TikTok sensation Esmé Louise James.

It’s time to take your seat for a dinner party like no other. Discover the long, long history of the dildo. Hear James Joyce celebrate the beauty of his wife’s farts. And you’ll never guess Albert Einstein’s thoughts on marital relations.

Kinky History draws on Esmé Louise James’s phenomenally successful series on TikTok, which explores scandalous stories in the ancient world and the saucy secrets of famous figures. Teaming up with her statistician mother, Dr Susan James, the pair have surveyed the nation for all of your intimate secrets – and the results are in.

By placing the past in conversation with the present, we'll explore five ‘kinks’ that challenge our thinking about sex. How has the idea of sin shaped our sex lives? Why is masturbation so taboo? Where are our hidden queer histories? How do kinks and fetishes play with the idea of sex? And why does pornography have so much power over us?

Kinky History aims to blow open our conversation about sexuality and gender. Strap yourself in (or on?) – let’s build a more liberated, sex-positive future.

About the Author

Esmé Louise James (@esme.louisee) is best known for her Kinky History series on TikTok, where she currently has 2.3 million followers, and Instagram, where she has more than 400,000 followers. Esmé is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne; her thesis investigates the emerging genre of the pornographic novel in the 18th century. She has written a range of non-fiction articles for The Age , the ABC and The Conversation , as well as short stories and poetry, and in 2020 she was listed in the Top 30 Emerging Writers by SBS Australia. Esmé also presents the popular Kinky History podcast, was a speaker at TEDxSydney in 2022, and was nominated for Best Digital Creator at the 2022 AACTA Awards.