Gender issues are deeply implicated in many, if not all, aspects of Catullus’ poetry: sexual invective, politics, persona theory, the character of Lesbia, poetics and intertextuality, and the representation of social relations. In fact, isolating such concerns and approaches within a chapter is somewhat misleading. One of the central contributions of feminist and gender studies is the insight that Roman discourses about sexual behaviour and gender may be deployed in the ‘pursuit of non-sexual (as well as sexual) ends’ and that it is impossible to separate off discourses about sexuality and gender from other discourses, especially those involving ‘other hierarchical systems of power’. Although Catullus’ sustained engagement with issues involving gender and sexuality has long been recognised, more recent scholarship has illuminated Catullus’ use and exploration of gender positioning and sexual invective to articulate such concerns as masculinity, social and political power and poetics.