Sexual politics in revolutionary England recounts a dramatic transformation in English sexual polemic that unfolded during the kingdom’s mid-seventeenth-century civil wars. In early Stuart England, explicit sexual language was largely confined to manuscript and oral forms by the combined regulatory pressures of ecclesiastical press licensing and powerful cultural notions of civility and decorum. During the early 1640s, however, graphic sex-talk exploded into polemical print for the first time in English history. Over the next two decades, sexual politics evolved into a vital component of public discourse, as contemporaries utilized sexual satire to reframe the English Revolution as a battle between licentious Stuart tyrants and their lecherous puritan enemies. By the time that Charles II regained the throne in 1660, this book argues, sex was already a routine element of English political culture. WINNER of the 2025 Book Prize from the Pacific Coast Conference on British Studies. 'Samuel Fullerton has produced an excellent debut monograph which is intelligent, ably written, and certain to be of great interest to a wide range of scholars... This welcome monograph is a valuable addition to the historiography of the English Revolution, early modern political culture, and the history of sexuality.' History: The Journal of the Historical Association 'Samuel Fullerton’s Sexual Politics in Revolutionary England is a narrative history of the use of sexualized language in printed polemic in the period of the English revolution, civil war, and commonwealth (1637–60)... The study is very detailed and traces the evolution of sexualized political discourse from the first resistance to King Charles in 1637 through the civil war, the execution of the king, the establishment of the Puritan commonwealth, and finally the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. It provides an excellent and thorough description of the many texts, both Royalist and revolutionary, that weaponized sexual discourse to denigrate their political opponents.' Ian Frederick Moulton, Journal of the History of Sexuality Sexual politics in revolutionary England explores the sudden appearance of graphic sex-talk in polemical print during the English Revolution. This was a novel development, for prior to 1640, explicit sexual language in England was largely confined to subversive oral and scribal forms. Yet after the collapse of press licensing that accompanied the outbreak of civil war, it rapidly evolved into a vital component of mid-century public culture. By the Stuart Restoration, sexual politics had become a routine element of English political life. This book tells that story for the first time in a sweeping narrative account. Drawing on print and manuscript sources from dozens of archives, it traces the evolution of explicit sex-talk from its pre-war underground roots into a premier mode of public politicking during the 1640s and 1650s. In those years, contemporary ideas about sex and the body invaded crucial mid-century debates over religious toleration, sectarian radicalism, and patriarchal kingship to dramatic effect. In the process, the book shows, sex-talk became a key tool of partisan identity formation and military mobilisation, as contemporaries repeatedly portrayed themselves as morally upright patriarchs and their enemies as promiscuous lechers. By 1660, twenty years of increasingly visible sexual politics had laid formative groundwork for the libertine antics of Charles II’s courtiers as well as the caustic slanders levelled against the Restoration court by its godly critics. This book offers an important new context for approaching the history of late Stuart sexual culture – and through it, that of Western sexuality more broadly. Samuel Fullerton is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of North Texas