[ Dear colleagues:
Early this morning I posted a message to the list with the somewhat
frivolous title "Sex in the 18th century." It has belatedly occurred
to me, as it ought to have done before I hit the "send" button, that
many on the VA-HIST list will never receive the message: the word sex
in the subject line guarantees that it will be snagged and blocked by
"spam" filters, parental filters, library filters, and so forth.
I apologize. Here is the message again, with a title designed to lull
the most delicate and vigilant maiden aunt--electronic or otherwise.
--Jurretta ]
Subject: "Sex in the 18th century" [re-posted to evade filters]
(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.
. . ."
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