Illustration of a couple

Sex and love

Rivalries and romances: couples that shook up history. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

An Athenian red-figure kylix (cup) dating from around 510–500 BC depicts a young pentathlete pulling his older lover towards him for a kiss. In many of the city-states of ancient Greece, sex between a man and a youth was an accepted – even idealised – form of love, its virtues extolled in works by writers including Plato. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Pride and prejudice: same-sex relations through history. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Sex, romance and rights: women's lives since 1950. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, pictured in 1854. (Photo by Roger Fenton/Roger Fenton/Getty Images)

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert: what was their relationship like?

An account of the story of James Allen, whose sex at birth was revealed only by an autopsy conducted after their death

'Female husbands': the secret lives of 18th-century transgender pioneers. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A portrait of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert with five of their nine children, by Frederick Winterhalter

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert: was their union a marriage of misery?

Queen Victoria in her coronation robes.

Your guide to Queen Victoria and a timeline of her life – plus 16 fascinating facts

Portrait of Anne of Cleves

Anne of Cleves: Henry VIII's most successful queen?

A 19th-century engraving. A young woman plays a harp, singing a duet with a man holding the music book, Duets de L’Amour. (Photo by Historica Graphica Collection/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

A survivor's guide to Georgian marriage

A cartoon depicting the Duke of Wellington, who demands attention outside a house, while the Duke of Argyll, inside with Harriette Wilson, pretends not to recognise him.

Georgian Britain: sex in high places. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Rege-Jean Page as Simon Basset and Phoebe Dynevor as Daphne Bridgerton

Bridgerton season one: “A period drama like no other”

Nelson's passion for Emma – with whom he had a six-year affair – is writ large in his letters

Nelson in his own words. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Jane Austen's fiction: an accurate portrayal of life in Georgian England?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Henry VI of England. (Photo by iStock/Getty Images)

Henry VI may have had a "sex coach" - plus 4 more curious facts about his life

Diana, Princess of Wales, played by Emma Corrin in Netflix's 'The Crown'

The Crown S4 E6 real history: Charles and Diana’s 1983 royal tour of Australia & the start of ‘Dianamania’

Charles Dance as Lord Mountbatten in season 4 of 'The Crown'

The Crown S4 E1 real history: when Charles met Diana, and the death of Lord Mountbatten

Women in black: the surprising history of widows. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Katherine Willoughby in an 18th-century engraving after a Hans Holbein the Younger portrait. In 1546 the prospect of her marrying England's ageing King Henry VIII was causing tongues to wag in diplomatic circles. (Photo by Print Collector/Getty Images)

A seventh wife for Henry VIII? The story of Katherine Willoughby. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Henry VIII’s mistresses: who else did the Tudor king sleep with?

The Regency era: everything you wanted to know. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Diana and Charles being driven to Buckingham Palace after their wedding

Princess Diana and Prince Charles’s wedding: everything you need to know

Your guide to Mary Boleyn, sister of Anne Boleyn

Katherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII. National Portrait Gallery, London. (Photo by PHAS/UIG via Getty Images)

The lost heirs of Henry VIII: Alison Weir on Katherine of Aragon’s failed pregnancies

Portrait of Catherine of Aragon

Catherine of Aragon: Spain’s Virgin queen?

The Spanish Princess Part II. (Image by Starz)

The real history behind The Spanish Princess

Portrait of Catherine of Aragon

Your guide to Catherine of Aragon: Henry VIII’s first wife and mother of Mary I

Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor playing Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII in the 1963 film, Cleopatra. (Photo by Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images)

7 of the most memorable couples in history

c1954: A photo-fiction serial telling the story of a young couple on honeymoon in the South of France. The parts are played by actors Mark Hashfield and Simone Lovell. (Photo by Kurt Hutton/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

A brief history of honeymoons (and how the post-wedding holiday got its name)

The history of seduction. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Athenian red-figure cup showing a seated man with a naked boy in the inside tondo, 470 BC

What was pederasty in ancient Greece?