Introduction: Before Heterosexuality

Abstract

In 1928, Cole Porter wrote a song called “Let’s Do It” that begins, “Birds do it, Bees do it, Even educated fleas do it; Let’s do it; Let’s fall in Love.” More than 300 years earlier, William Shakespeare’s King Lear cries out,

…the Wren goes too’t, and the small gilded Fly

Do’s letcher in my sight. Let Copulation thrive…

Too’t Luxury pell-mell, for I lacke Souldiers.

Behold yond simpring Dame, whose face betweene her Forkes presages Snow; that minces

Vertue, & do’s shake the head to heare of pleasures name. The Fitchew, nor the soyled

Horse goes too’t with a more riotous appetite.

(TLN 2957–2576; 4.6.110–119)