I love stumbling across alternative-sexuality history lessons. I love it because we're absent from most history accounts, due both to censorship and to our predecessors' desire for their own privacy. And then sexually liberated people and conservative reactionaries end up with the same misguided belief that rampant, shameless sexuality is something Westerners invented in the 1960's.So I highly recommend Tony Perrottet's recent article for Slate.com, "Hellfire Holidays," about the sex clubs of 18th-century Britain. As Perrottet reports, "Sadly, during the prudish Victorian era, most references to these naughty clubs were scotched from the historical record. Horrified relatives burned embarrassing documents and club regalia. But their subversive antics survived in pornographic novels, travel guides to risqué tourist sites, and, of course, popular memory."
When most people first fall into an alternate-sex community, it does feel exotic and revolutionary. But seriously, the novelty and "naughtiness" wear off after a couple years. Despite getting off on exoticism, and despite mainstream shock, we the currently living haven't invented anything new. We have antecedents' example to follow and adapt; we simply have to study history that didn't make it to our textbooks.
If you like that, I have something else to recommend to you. A few weeks ago, I discovered a 50-page long chapter in The Guide to Getting It On called "Sex in the 1800s." It covers all aspects of the sex/relationship lives of 19th century Americans and basically concludes that, although we think of that time as more repressed/repressive than today it really wasn't (although at the same time it was certainly different). I think you would find it very interesting.
ReplyDeleteI think I would. (And I'm annoyed that Blogger didn't tell me I had any comments waiting here.) I should find a copy of that sometime...
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