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We tend to think of the Victorians as the personification of prudery and puritanism, a people whose sexual attitudes, practices, and knowledge differed greatly from our own, to their detriment. Indeed, even in the midst of the AIDS crisis and our growing concern about safe sex, the Victorians hardly seem an appealing role model of sexual behavior. But is this image really very accurate? What did the Victorians really think about sex? What were their sex lives like?

THE MAKING OF VICTORIAN SEXUALITY by Michael Mason | Kirkus Reviews

And what wider concepts--biological, political, religious--shaped their sexuality? The Making of Victorian Sexuality directly confronts one of the most persistent cliches of modern times. Drawing on a wealth of sources from medical and scientific texts, to popular fiction, evangelical writing, and the work of radicals such as Godwin and Mill, Michael Mason shows how much of our perception of nineteenth-century sexual culture is simply wrong. Covering such topics as premarital sex, marriage, prostitution, women's sexuality, and male masturbation, Mason shows that, far from being a license for prudery and hypocrisy, Victorian sexuality was guided by a humane and progressive vision of society's future.

Mason reveals that the average Victorian man was not necessarily the church-going, tyrannical, secretly lecherous, bourgeois pater familias of modern-day legend, but often an agnostic, radical-minded, sexually continent citizen, with a deliberately restricted number of children. So much for 'lie back and think of England', then.

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He comes up with a good many quotes from perfectly non-seedy sources which indicate that not only was sex a popular topic of discussion, but it was considered a good activity to partake in, if only for married couples. Apparently, even at the height of Victorian prudishness sex between married partners was advocated as something healthy and pleasurable, something in which all couples should indulge frequently, and not just to produce offspring, either.

There was much concern over the fate of those who never had sex, such as old spinsters. Allegedly, one of the reasons why Victorian girls were so often married off at a young age was because it was believed that suppression of their sex drives would lead to all sorts of physical maladies, neurosis, hysteria, etc.

It was also believed even by some eminent doctors that semen had a positive effect on women's health, so to rob women of this powerful medicine would be an act of cruelty or so many doctors said. Apparently, the healing properties of semen were a hotly debated topic in the Victorian era. Who would have thought? Mason also has some interesting things to say about illegitimacy, birth control, the differences between the classes, male masturbation and the way it was dealt with by both legitimate doctors and quacks, but they are few and far between and hidden so expertly among page upon page of theoretical discourse and arguments which don't really seem to go anywhere that I really can't recommend the book to anyone except die-hard historians, sociologists and anthropologists, or people who are thinking of writing a novel set in the Victorian era and need some historical background.

Pity -- an awful lot of research clearly went into the book, and it had the potential to be good.

The Making of Victorian Sexuality

This book was the second volume in Mason's look at Victorian sexuality. The first volume I read in November of last year and enjoyed a great deal. I finally managed to get around to reading the second volume. The first volume looked at what the Victorians did and this looked more about what they thought about it. Unfortunately the people who wrote about it were much smaller than the people who actually did it, so it was harder to get a prevailing look at attitudes but Mason did an excellent job This book was the second volume in Mason's look at Victorian sexuality.

Unfortunately the people who wrote about it were much smaller than the people who actually did it, so it was harder to get a prevailing look at attitudes but Mason did an excellent job at looking at the most important influences on people's attitudes towards sex.


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One of his leading arguments was that people took up the anti-sensual attitudes of the Evangelicals without taking up their religious beliefs. He started by looking at "The Theological View" towards sexuality and the spread of anti-sensualist, he then traced these beliefs to the Evangelical views towards sex, both marital and extra-marital.

Top OMG Facts About Prostitution in the Victorian Era

From there he looked at different attitudes towards prostitution and focused a great deal on the different attitudes towards prostitution and the varying attempts of prostitute reformation. He ended the book by looking at the different views towards birth control. Like in his first book he focused exclusively on heterosexual sex and ignored fetishes.

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Though he does trace some interesting ideas towards marriage such as the Swedenborgian idea of sex in heaven, and the different arguments for free love and equitable marriage and divorce. My only criticism of the book would be that time was often confusing, Mason appeared to draw many of his sources from the early 20s and 30s and then later from the 80s but it was hard for me, albeit as a non-specialist, to put together the link between these views.

It would have been clearer if he looked at them in order and traced the impact of these views over time even if it was just in each chapter or each particular trend rather than repeatedly going back and forth over the whole Victorian period. But apart from that it was a very interesting and insightful look at Victorian sexual attitudes. The last chapter looked at the sexual attitudes of women, and modern historians who were studying these attitudes.

I felt that this was a particularly interesting topic, especially as the Victorian women themselves had such a limited view of their own sexuality, and wish that Mason had spent more time examining these views. But at least he mentioned several other studies which would also be interesting to read. All in all a very interesting and useful book. The second volume in a two-part study, the first being The Making of Victorian Sexuality. The first volume deals with what the Victorians actually did; the second deals with how they thought about sex.

Mason is interested in the evolution of the anti-sensual attitude that is so often thought of as being the distinguishing characteristic of the Victorian view of sex, and the conflicts between this attitude and the surprisingly vigorous competing Victorian pre-sensual position.

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Mason sees the anti- The second volume in a two-part study, the first being The Making of Victorian Sexuality. Mason sees the anti-sensual view as being linked most strongly with politically progressive and secular thought, including to a very considerable degree feminist thought, rather than, as you might expect, with religious convictions such as Evangelicalism. And he shows that the religious point of view was often associated with an unexpectedly pro-sensual position. Mason tries to deal sympathetically with Victorian anti-sensualism, which can be a little disconcerting at times, especially in the bizarre final chapter.

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An excellent resource for the curiously wayward or the causal Victorian era enthusiast. I've not only used it as a resource to support essays on Victorian literature and life, but as a resource for my own creative "period" pieces. Wonderfully full of factoids and interesting parallels to our own time of "sexual repression" and "sexual exhaustion".

Oct 08, Stacy rated it really liked it Shelves: Dry in places, but some excellent insight and surprising information about the range of sexual attitudes and behaviours in Victorian England. Audrey rated it really liked it Dec 18, Max rated it liked it Jul 01, Michael Warford rated it it was ok Feb 20, Natasha Borton rated it really liked it Feb 01, Kyra Van Rijzingen rated it it was amazing Sep 28, Anthony rated it really liked it Mar 28, Soapy rated it really liked it Feb 27, Naiomi rated it really liked it Aug 16, Genoux rated it really liked it May 31, Lauriann rated it liked it Mar 16, Amanda Bostock rated it liked it Jan 02, Kate rated it really liked it May 06, Kathy rated it liked it Jan 20, Jude rated it it was ok Mar 25, Amanda Bostock rated it really liked it Dec 20, Mel rated it it was amazing Sep 10, Jamie Rabic rated it liked it Jun 09, Camilla rated it really liked it Nov 13, Brian Watson rated it it was amazing Jan 01, Ariel marked it as to-read May 24, Marielle added it May 03, Sherah marked it as to-read Sep 15, Oriana added it Sep 29, Jennifer Payne added it Dec 30, Anna added it Jan 06, Zetta marked it as to-read Nov 10, Fresh Fiction added it Jan 02, Emily marked it as to-read Jan 04, Kayla Mckinney marked it as to-read Oct 01, Julian Sharpe added it Jul 25, Nicole marked it as to-read May 08, Steelwhisper marked it as to-read May 20,