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However, to what extent were 'sharply-rising rates of syphilis recorded from the mid-nineteenth century' p. Chris Waters looks at 'Sexology' — the attempt to bring science and rationality to bear upon the vexed questions of sexual behaviour and attitudes. This endeavour was already in progress well before it was named: I might perhaps contend with Waters's suggestion that early sexology was most interested in 'the psychology of the perversions'.
As I have argued, sexology emerged against a backdrop of feminist protest against existing male-dominated sexual institutions of society, both prostitution and marriage, and many of the early sexologists were embedded in milieux in which debates on these issues, critiquing established assumptions about sexuality and gender, were flourishing. The chapter is otherwise an extremely usefully overview of the rise and development of sexology and of the ways in which historians have looked at it. Waters makes the often overlooked point that the roots of the history of sexuality itself lie in sexology and sexual reform.
This sometimes took the form of 'manufactur[ing] a usable past' p. Waters also demonstrates that the sexologists' writing of themselves into the history of the discipline constructed a narrative of progress into emancipation and enlightenment that endured until the s.
Post-Foucault, Walters claims, 'there was a tendency to veer to the other extreme, to view sexologists as insidious agents of social control', similarly overlooking sexology's 'origins as a complex product of social interaction' pp. More recent studies have looked at this complex process of the production of sexual knowledge, and the ways in which it was disseminated, transformed and used by a variety of constituencies.
Sex Seen provides a complex and intriguing account of the changes that have taken place in the Sex Seen The Emergence of Modern Sexuality in America. Sex Seen provides a complex and intriguing account of the changes that have taken place in the social construction of sexuality during the past century.
Matt Cook examines the role of law and legal systems both in 'delineating deviancy' and in creating an archival record which can provide insight into 'voices, subcultures and behaviours which would otherwise be lost' p. He emphasises that law was far from a static monolithic system; instead it was constantly changing over time and reft with internal contradictions at any given moment, not to mention the significant national differences in judicial institutions and procedures.
Legislation can reflect highly specific cultural anxieties and outbreaks of moral panic, while not necessarily embodying a general consensus. He mentions the opportunity that the courtroom provided for articulating 'overt dissent from domineering codes and values', such as Wilde's famous 'love that dare not speak its name' peroration p.
But as a whole this chapter does a fine job of demonstrating the complexity of the nature of legal regulation and the need for contextualisation when using the materials it generated. George Robb provides an overview of marriage and reproduction that possibly focuses a little too narrowly on Anglo-American debates and concerns. His account of feminist critiques of marriage and their intersections with anxiety over breeding the healthy race, the arguments advanced for free love, and moves to revitalise marriage following two world wars is excellent as far as it goes.
Nonetheless, it would have been useful to look at the somewhat different slants on marriage, women's role within it, and reproduction emerging in continental Europe, especially given his emphasis on eugenics and pronatalist agendas, and the status of women. A brief mention of the shift from the sexual radicalism of the early days of the Soviet regime in Russia to Stalinist pronatalism and a sentence alluding to the excesses of the Nazis' eugenic programme in Germany do not really provide a nuanced analysis of the different ways in which these concerns played out in different national contexts, such as Scandinavia, France, with its constant panic over depopulation, Italy, and Spain, where a deeply conservative traditional Catholic morality was contested by anarchists advocating both free love and eugenics.
The important questions of race and empire are tackled by Ross Forman. He analyses the debated issue of 'empire as space of sexual liberation', complicating assertions such as those made by Hyam in Empire and Sexuality The question of sources is discussed, and the bias that can be introduced by the sites at which and the reasons for which records were produced, but Forman fruitfully suggests the variety of resources that can be investigated as well as the various methodological strategies that can be deployed to identify 'important details about sexual and racial histories' in apparently neutral and unpromising official documentation.
An important point is made about the process of circulation between empire and metropole, and the constant renegotiation of boundaries. There is an excellent account of the contingent and contextual significance of 'miscegenation' in diverse historical and geographical contexts.
The overview of the relationship between scientific racism and questions of sexuality is very useful, though possibly the picture was perhaps not entirely one of evolution from primitive to civilised. Was there not, particularly with the late nineteenth century rise of degeneration theory and eugenic anxieties, a positioning of certain 'races' as effete and decadent and given to elaborate and sophisticate 'perversions' rather than savage and primitive?
This would place 'Western civilisation' at a precarious midway balance point needing constant readjustment.
The city and urban spaces have become, Matt Houlbrook suggests, 'an increasingly hot academic issue'. This is a sophisticated thematic essay, as one would expect from the author of Queer London. Houlbrook asks why a generation of historians have been 'so obsessed with the city'; how urban culture has shaped and been shaped by experiences and understanding of sexual behaviour; and what is problematic in the ways historians have addressed these themes.
Partly this is an artefact of the richness of the urban archival record, but that itself arose from anxieties engendering practices of surveillance over the populations of cities.
This is a well-analysed and thought provoking chapter, but again, exposes a gap in the existing historiography: There is an intriguing meditation about cyberspace and whether this fills the role cities formerly did as sites of identity creation, pleasure, and danger: Harry Cocks posits the continuing relevance of considering religion and spirituality as important elements in sexual attitudes and behaviour.
While I have argued that it is possible that Foucault's concept of the centrality of the confessional is too universalising a model, eroding significant differences of national culture and sectarian affiliation, 4 it is undoubtedly the case that spiritual beliefs continued to play a significant role for much longer than simplistic stories of modernity and secularisation might suggest. It was a shift in ideology: If this was oppression, it followed that doing the reverse — that is to say, having lots of sex, in lots of different ways, with whomever you liked — would be freedom.
They also have a different take on what constitutes sexual freedom; one that reflects the new social rules and regulations that their parents and grandparents unintentionally helped to shape. Millennials are mad about slut-shaming, homophobia and rape culture, yes.
But they are also critical of the notion that being sexually liberated means having a certain type — and amount — of sex. Rachel Hills is a New York-based journalist who writes on gender, culture, and the politics of everyday life. Her first book, The Sex Myth: How I Learned About Sex. Young Mods kissing in the street in London, By Rachel Hills December 2, Parents Newsletter Sign up to receive the smartest parenting tips, news and tools. Be the first to discover new talent! Each week, our editors select the one author and one book they believe to be most worthy of your attention and highlight them in our Pro Connect email alert.
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But in Christian civilization sexual acts and related areas were considered immoral, debasing, dirty and abhoring. Sex portal Biology portal. Cocks's claim that religion 'had fallen into decay' as a 'location for sexual expression' by the s is contestable: The Marriage Guidance Council evolved during the late s out of the efforts of organisations and individuals with strong religious affiliations. Focusing on Sacramento, California, at the dawn of the twentieth century, Sharon Ullman juxtaposes early cinema, vaudeville performances, and popular newspapers and magazines with insights drawn from close interpretations of transcripts from Sacramento court cases. Alison Oram's concluding chapter discusses the questions raised by cross-dressing and transgender.