The Making of Victorian Sexual Attitudes, Volume 2Victorian sexual moralism was real enough, but what was its nature? The Victorians are often called 'puritanical', with the implication that their sexual moralism was religiously based. It was opposed, we like to think, by freethinkers and progressives, and perhaps also by the working class. Michael Mason has already pointed to the fallacy of such views in his previous volume, The Making of Victorian Sexuality. Here he develops his revisionist account of Victorian sexual ideology and shows that to be 'Victorian' about sex was actually, in its day, to be progressive, optimistic, and modern-minded. Religious beliefs, even in militant form, were only a support for an essentially secular ideal. The Victorian anti-sensual coalition did break down at the end of the century, but the liberationists were old-fashioned reformers, who were often bitterly resisted by, for example, socialists and feminists. This novel and provocative analysis is developed in a series of detailed portraits of crucial movements, episodes, and individuals: the Swedenborgians, Henry James Prince, 'Baron' Renton Nicholson, the 'Vice Society', prostitute rescue, Owenism, neo-Malthusianism, and many more. A formidable array of evidence is assembled for views which strike at the root of conventional wisdom about the English nineteenth century. |
Contents
EVANGELICALS AND SEX | 63 |
VOLUNTARY RESTRAINT | 117 |
FREETHOUGHT VERSUS FREE LOVE | 167 |
Copyright | |
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Agapemone Anglican Annie Besant anti-sensualism attacks attitudes belief Besant birth control Bradlaugh Brindley celibacy century Charles Charles Bradlaugh Chartist Christian Church classic moralism concubinage Conjugial Love contraception creed dissenting divorce doctrines Drysdale's early Elements of Social England English Evangelical fact Female Mission feminist Francis Place George Drysdale girls Harrison Henry Holyoake human intercourse J. S. Mill James John Stuart Mill later lectures libertarian London Female Magdalen's Friend magdalenism magdalenist Malthusian Manchester marriage married Medical Midnight Meetings Mill missionary Moral World movement National Reformer nature neo-Malthusian nineteenth nineteenth-century Nonconformist numbers Owen's Owenite Owenite sexual passim Penitentiary period political Prince Princeite pro-sensual prostitute prostitute rescue radical religion religious Robert Owen Saturday Review sect sectarian secular secularist seems sense sensual sexual codes sexual drives sexual morality sexual policy Smith Social Science socialist spirit Swedenborgian Taylor teetotal Thomas tion transgressive Unitarian Vice Society Victorian views Wilberforce William woman women working-class