Pantera Press has acquired Kinky History by Esmé Louise James

Pantera Press has acquired world rights for Kinky History: The Stories Behind Our Intimate Lives, Past and Present by TikTok sensation Esmé Louise James

From the creator of the popular online lecture series Kinky History comes an irreverent deep dive into human sexual history – and how we can harness this history towards a more liberated present and future.

Kinky History: The Stories Behind Our Intimate Lives, Past and Present draws on Esmé Louise James’s series on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube – which explores the evolution of human sexuality, from scandalous stories of the ancient world to the saucy secrets of famous figures like Albert Einstein and James Joyce – as well as the SexTistics series created alongside Esmé’s mother Dr Susan James, a statistician, which provides a snapshot of sexuality, gender and identity in the contemporary world.

By placing the past in conversation with the present, with the contribution of substantial statistical research from Dr Susan James, this book aims to blow open the conversation about sexuality and gender. Revisiting secret histories and folk tales allows us to debunk key cultural myths about sex; demystify sexual behaviours; and de-stigmatise readers in their own desires and identities. And refusing to let sex remain shrouded in secrecy and mystery allows us to take our power back.

‘Over the past two years, Kinky History has built a safe and inclusive corner of the internet to discuss our deeply complex history of gender, identity and sexuality. It has been a great honour to bring these lessons to a book, something that I hope our ever-growing community will treasure. Learning about the risqué secrets from the past is endlessly fun and entertaining, but it’s also so much more than that. This book tells a story of connection, community and compassion – it’s a story about us,’ said Esmé Louise James.

‘Esmé has built up a deeply engaged following on socials, and with this book she invites readers to continue that conversation with her. Kinky History will bring all of Esmé’s smarts, savvy and style to the page, challenging everything we thought we knew about sex and sexuality. This is the history they didn’t teach you at school,’ said Pantera Press Commissioning Editor Tom Langshaw.

Esmé Louise James (@esme.louisee) is best known for her series Kinky History on TikTok, where she currently has 2.3 million followers, and Instagram, where she has 55k followers. Esmé is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne; her thesis investigates the emerging genre of the pornographic novel in the eighteenth century. She has produced 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 was a speaker at TEDxSydney in 2022.

Kinky History: The Stories Behind Our Intimate Lives, Past and Present will be released August 2023.

 

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For media enquiries, please contact: Talie Gottlieb Ph: 02 8096 5192 E: taliesyn.gottlieb@panterapress.com