Body Guards investigates ambiguously gendered bodies - that defy ideologically produced gender boundaries. Body Guards demonstrates that this ambiguity has a long history and a wide cultural reach. Chronologically ordered, the book addresses topics from medieval Arabic vice lists, to representations of European female saints in late antiquity, to current sodomy laws in the United States. Body Guards locates a hotly debated set of issues in critical theory, history, cultural studies, and feminist studies within the context of the contemporary politics of sexuality, pathology, and the body. It also studies how gender ambiguity relates to the discourses of gay and lesbian politics, the politics of AIDS education, and conflicts over maternity and fetal rights.