Sciences of desire: Is sexuality a matter of instinct or learning, physiology or psychology, individual or social trait? Where are sexual functions and capacities localized and how to describe them treat or cure them ? Can sexual desire be materialized, its physiology described ? Is it similar to a quest for rewards ? Does it reveal the deep identity of the subjects? Does its nature and its expression differ depending on gender or sexual orientation? This book analyses scientific and medical discourses on female sexuality, in their grammars, their recurrent motives and their contradictions, in the social imaginaries they open up, in the conceptions of sex and sexuality they promote. It gives an account of the programs mobilized during a long XXth century-"from psychoanalysis to neuroscience"-to decipher it and treat its disorders. It is also attentive to lay knowledge about sexuality and to the way in which individuals appropriate this knowledge to give meaning to their sexual behavior. Bringing together unpublished research produced by historians, anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, social study of science and gender studies scholars, this book offers a broad overview of the medical, social and political issues raised by "women's desire" in contemporary Western societies.