Sexuality is a term used to describe the conception of sexual being, a characteristic unique to humankind and, like any other concept, a product of culture. It is aspects of this cultural construct that I shall attempt to examine here. I shall focus on the conception of sexuality of one Byzantine individual, as this can be reconstructed from his voluminous writings: St. Neophytos the Recluse, the late twelfth- and early thirteenth-century Saint of Cyprus. A holy man may seem a peculiar subject for an inquiry into conceptions of sexuality. But focussing on Neophytos has the advantage of offering us the rare opportunity, in terms of Byzantine sources, of examining the thought-patterns of a Byzantine man from close quarters, and concerning a subject as important, as intimate and as elusive as sexuality. For even though sexuality was as universal an experience as in any other culture, very few Byzantines discussed it in writing and even fewer in a manner as personal, as direct and as extensive as Neophytos the Recluse did. Why Neophytos discussed sexuality in his writings more extensively than other Byzantines is an interesting question, and one to which we shall return at the end of this paper.