WOW!!!   Sounds like a best seller to me.  I can hardly wait for the movie. 
I think it interesting that 'civilized' societies did not have a monopoly on 
sex in the village.  I believe it was standard practice for a tribe to 
present a nubile maiden to an honored guest for whatever his pleasure. 
Samuel Eliot Morrison reports several instances in the late 15th century 
where explorers were thought to be weird by the natives for refusing the 
services.  I believe that it is he who also reports an entire tribe of 
homosexual Natives in South America.  Also, I think I recall that the men of 
the Corps of Discovery took advantage of the offers along the way, Lewis and 
Clark excepted.

Interesting.

Randy Cabell
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jurretta Heckscher" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2007 1:14 AM
Subject: [VA-HIST] Sex in the 18th century


> (Well, actually, that should be "the print culture of sex in 18th-century 
> England," but that would have been too long for the subject line, now, 
> wouldn't it?)
>
> I refer to a newly completed study of the erotic literature of 
> eighteenth-century England, by a doctoral student at the University of 
> Leeds, that is already creating a bit of a stir in historical circles 
> concerned with society in early modern Britain.
>
> Whether or not it should also be taken to shed any light--however 
> obliquely or speculatively--on eighteenth-century Anglo-Virginian culture 
> is the reason I am posting this message to the list.
>
> Obviously eighteenth-century Virginia had a drastically narrower print 
> culture than the mother country, even relative to the size of its white 
> population.  And the challenges of importation gave Virginia only a highly 
> selective and attenuated connection to British literary culture. Except 
> (significantly) among immigrants and those such as gentry sons educated in 
> England, therefore, I would guess that there was almost no direct contact 
> with this literature (and I assume that if there were any sort of 
> indigenous analogue, however limited and ephemeral, we'd have some 
> evidence of it).
>
> Nevertheless, the attitudes that British erotic literature both shaped and 
> reflected are another matter: surely it's likely that there were 
> transatlantic continuities on that level that make this new work worth the 
> attention of Virginia's historians, assuming it appears in due course in 
> article and/or book form.
>
> An online report on the study is at 
> http://www.scientificblogging.com/news/sex_in_the_1700s.  I've excerpted 
> highlights below.
>
> --Jurretta Heckscher
>
>
> . . . Jenny Skipp’s three-year PhD study examined, catalogued and 
> categorised every known erotic text published in eighteenth-century 
> Britain: "I tried to get a grip on just how many were published, detail 
> the various types of sexual behaviour portrayed and find out who was doing 
> what – and to whom. . . .  [She discovered that] there was a huge amount 
> of erotic literature published in the 18th century."
>
> And despite earlier work suggesting that these texts were only for 
> solitary consumption – at home, alone, and behind closed doors – Skipp’s 
> work throws up a surprising image of how these works were used. "They 
> would be read in public – everywhere from London's rough-and-ready 
> alehouses to the city’s thriving coffee houses. . . .  Some texts even 
> came as questions and answers and were clearly intended for groups of men 
> to read together, with one asking the questions and the others answering 
> them."
>
> Much of the work is derogatory in its references to women. They are 
> subordinates, courtesans, prostitutes, carriers of venereal disease and 
> bearers of deformed children. "When men write this way, or read these 
> texts, it gives them a context for asserting their authority over women," 
> Skipp added.  Yet some texts portray women altogether differently, 
> discussing the nature of female sexuality or describing lascivious 
> aristocratic females. . . .
>
> . . .  Skipp's analysis of the pricing of these works revises earlier 
> studies to show that rather than being solely targeted at the gentry, much 
> of this work was cheap and widely available. Though many from the poorer 
> sections of society are considered illiterate because they were unable to 
> sign their name, they may still have been able to read: "Many more people 
> could read than write," she said. "In London, for example, we believe 
> about 70 per cent of men could read."
>
> The works range from books, down to single-sheet pamphlets. "The price and 
> content of this material suggests it was available to merchants, traders, 
> skilled and semi-skilled men and even labourers," Skipp went on. Its 
> accessibility allowed sexual attitudes to percolate down the social 
> strata.
>
> And Skipp describes a literary quality to the writing which you might 
> struggle to find in modern erotic fiction or top-shelf pornography. "It is 
> very different to today's erotica," she said. "It is more humorous, more 
> literary and more engaged with the wider issues of the life and politics 
> of the times." . . .
>
> By the 1770s, the transcripts of adultery trials became a new source of 
> titillation. . . .
>
> "The production of erotica was frequently stimulated by intrigues in the 
> lives of well-known public figures – the aristocracy, politicians, 
> writers, playwrights and actresses and occasionally the monarchy. The 
> wives and mistresses were both celebrated and derided in erotic texts. . . 
> ."
>
>