The Psychology of Sex plugs the gap between conventional wisdom about sex and what we know about sex and sexuality from academic theories and research in this area. It draws on psychology in its broadest sense, arguing that for a complete understanding of sex we need to study the history of human sexual behaviour, and the social context in which it happens, as well as researching individual human experience and the way the body and brain work. The book teases out the ways in which psychology and sexology have influenced our understandings of sex, as well as exploring how current academic work can helpfully inform our thinking about sex. The book draws the reader in by taking as a starting point for each section some of the main misunderstandings that people commonly have about sex: misunderstandings that psychology and sexology have often perpetuated or reinforced in the past. Each chapter explores two of these misunderstandings, how they are commonly put across, the impact that this has, why it is useful to question them, and what we can learn from the wider psychological evidence on these topics.