Introduction: A Prelude to Perversion

In this introduction to the edited collection Tainted Love: Screening Sexual Perversion, Kerr and Peberdy open with a discussion of Gregg Araki's controversial drama Mysterious Skin in order to establish the collection's approach and themes. The authors outline key interventions in the critical history of sexual perversion, charting the developing of definitions of and debates around sexual perversion from early sexologists to recent interventions by film and cultural theorists. Finally, an overview of the collection's chapters is provided.