[ 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. 
. . ."