What is the history of orgasm? The story of a hidden body, repressed desires, flesh restrained by social prohibitions and moral laws. Numerous documents, deeply hidden in the depths of archives and libraries, can shed light on this sensual, sometimes dissolute life. Robert Muschemble's book invites us to look at the past in a new way, to realize that the sublimation of erotic desire did not only relate to religious asceticism, but was the hidden driving force of the West until the 1960s. Now, for the first time in many centuries, the repressive model has given way to sexual freedom, and women, thanks to the advent of contraceptives, have gained the right to pleasure.