Attitudes to sexuality and prostitution
Sexuality characterised by private reticence and public sensationalism?
Complex issues – considerable problems with sources and their interpretation
Sexuality – per Jeffreys (in Purvis) in late 20c, continuing controversy about how to interpret the history of sexuality in the later19c and early 20c:
• either a period when the reconstruction of male and female sexuality took place
or one of greater sexual freedom
• a very complex picture emerging
result of studies of 19c. prostitution, pornography, illegitimacy, drunkenness, incest, homosexuality, lesbianism
• older, unitary model of a single repressive standard has been, and continues to be, questioned
• lots of problems and contradictions with this topic
• decline in the authority of the church over the disciplining of sexuality,
e.g. cases of marriage breakdown no longer heard in church courts
legal divorce now available in secular courts
• by the late 19c, development of a science of sex – sexology – Henry Havelock Ellis
an alternative ideology for the disciplining of sexuality
based on scientific ‘truth’
based on male dominance and female submission (Jeffreys in Purvis)
• yet moral standards for many still largely based on Judeo-Christian ones
residual religious values in increasingly secular society
continuing orthodoxy of heterosexual sex within marriage for women
sexual double standard for men
gay or lesbian relationships were increasingly marginalised and stigmatised
unmarried women seen negatively, particularly after WWI
Marital Fertility
• Childbirth – ambivalent experience for women; own health endangered, health of baby v. important, extra mouths to feed
• Marital fertility
England 1750 - estimated population 5.75 m
1800 - estimated population 9-10 m
1851 (census) population 16.7 m
labouring poor
early modern period/18c pre-industrial society
betrothal was precursor to marriage - permitted physical contact -pre-marital sex countenanced
rural customs transported to industrialising areas
severing of ink with subsistence agriculture encouraged early marriages and age at first pregnancy
massive, sustained population increase for a century from mid-18c. onwards
19 century
S. Jeffreys (in Purvis): different context for family limitation – issues of responsibility and power
widespread hostility to artificial methods of birth control, seen as immoral or irreligious
but evidence of intentional family limitation from 1830s onwards, starting with the elite, who seem to have used both natural and artificial methods of contraception (male), and self-induced miscarriage (female)
McLaren: birth control practice not based on social emulation - evidence of considerable working-class culture of fertility limitation
• Family limitation
early decades of 20c, census returns suggest class-based responses to family limitation
birth rates for upper and middle-class men 119 births per 1000
skilled working men 153 births per 1000
unskilled working men 213 births per 1000
working-class methods of birth control
absistence, women’s ‘evasionary tactics’, self-induced miscarriages, back-street abortions, infanticide
abortion – (Jeffreys, in Purvis) working class method – a woman’s decision
challenged 19c belief in private nature of fertility decisions because it involved others outside the family
middle-class methods of birth control
barrier preventive methods – believed to have been a man’s decision but possible negotiations between partners?
Prostitution
• Who was a prostitute?
Perceived as a female occupation [but there were also male prostitutes]
Definitions in early Victorian period along class lines
• Middle-class charity workers and religious organisations used category of the ‘fallen woman’
• Fallen woman lived in sin
included all those who did not conform to middle-class ideas of regulated sex, i.e. within marriage
could include victims of rape, deserted unmarried mothers, women in consensual unions, prostitutes
• working class women did not see themselves as prostitutes
many, especially those in consensual unions saw themselves as respectable - not exchanging sex for money whereas
prostitution was exchanging sex for money
• care with stereotypes
prostitution for many women = seasonal occupation for working-class women
depended on their economic circumstances
others: temporary economic activity for young working-class women
a way of earning sufficient money to marry or set up a small business
• different from full-time prostitutes
full-time prostitutes – lives brief, miserable
subject to police harassment, violence from their customers, disease
different prostitutes participated in different arenas
some in brothels
others used lodging houses when dealing with clients
• pimps rare in GB until late 19c
some husbands pimped for their wives – husbands had legal right to wives’ earnings before 1870s and 1880s
• alternative view of full-time prostitutes
fallen woman – cf Hogarth’s Harlot’s Progress
innocent girl (often from countryside), seduced, then abandoned, by an aristocratic protector
passed on to other wealthy men
final descent into poverty, disease, street prostitution, death
• majority of customers of prostitutes were working men, rather than aristocrats looking for adventure in working-class urban areas
• Numbers of prostitutes – quantification v. difficult
clandestine unions (i.e. non-legal) makes it difficult – bachelors setting up a young woman in a house; also consensual unions – working-class unmarried couples
• Nos. fluctuated according to economic conditions
• Seasonal variations
• Statistics based largely on London
1797 estimated 50,000 in London of whom 20,000 were ‘common prostitutes’
1830s estimated about 80,000
1858 est. about 83,000
1860s est. about 220,000
• police estimates were more conservative
1839-1868 London, 5-6,000
suggest prostitution stable in 19c. England, even falling
for E&W, about 27,000 in 1858 to 24,000 a decade later
• Attitudes to Prostitution
social issue that had
medical, military, moral aspects
moral debates on prostitution – combination of religious attitudes and fears for public health
prostitute as temptress – sin + temptation
prostitute as victim of poverty and male lust + sin
social science – prostitution = a necessity but had to regulated for public health reasons
• 19c public perceptions of prostitution
• issues of class and gender and tensions these generated
working-class women objectified
female sexuality constructed as ‘dangerous’ if exercised outside heterosexual marriage
prostitutes
victims of male lust
victims of poverty and ignorance
always represented as vulnerable
silent in face of sexual exploitation
in need of salvation and reform by middle-class philanthropic and social investigators
• 1830s and 1840s – renewed public sympathy for prostitutes
seen as victims of economic conditions – sweatshops, etc
• 1840s and 1850s social investigations of prostitution influenced by
new statistical techniques and religious imperatives
these investigations stressed
economic problems but also girls’ low moral character
male need for prostitutes
demonstrated of sexual double standard and selective thinking
• sexual double standard
19c Britain chastity = part of a Christian life
extra-marital sex = a sin
but widely believed that it was ‘unhealthy’ for a mature man to be celibate (Hall)
however, prostitution should be regulated for medical and moral reasons
• Regulation of prostitution
• Mid/late 19c moral panic about sexually-transmitted diseases
poor health of nation’s military revealed by Crimean War and subsequent investigations
Contagious Diseases Acts 1864, 1866
• Intended to reduce sexually-transmitted diseases in army and navy by
Compulsory medical examination of any woman
thought to be a ‘common prostitute’
in a naval port or garrison town
• Sexual double standard embodied in legislation
assumed soldiers and sailors needed prostitutes to service their natural sexual impulses
Government had responsibility to provide healthy women do so
• women in these towns denied basic civil rights
prostitution was not a crime but
Acts allowed
arrest of women on suspicion of being a prostitute
enforced examination by male doctors
women incarcerated in ‘lock’ hospitals until recovered if found to be suffering from an STD
• little evidence that CD Acts controlled sexually-transmitted diseases
incidence declining before Acts were passed and continued to do so after they were repealed, suggesting other factors were more effective
• Acts suspended in 1883, repealed 1886, except in colonies
• Responses to CD Acts
• Prostitution as public order issue
CD Acts may be seen as part of the legislation to control working people, including Poor Law Amendment Act, Police Act
• Public Health issues
CD Acts – polarised response to them
seen as both positive and negative by medical profession
both responses depended on seeing women as objects and stigmatising them
CD Acts oppressive on all working-class women in garrison towns and ports, not just prostitutes: threat that examination would jeopardise their reputations
Campaign to repeal CD Acts
• 1869 Ladies National Association (LNA)
• leader Josephine Butler
led double-pronged attack on the Acts
demanded their repeal
demanded ending of sexual double standard
• Butler stressed
importance of female solidarity in the campaign
identification with those who were being oppressed
women should take the principal role in ending their oppression
• LNA had national executive, female national leaders, a journal The Shield, and local branches
local branches = a way of politicising supportive female sub-cultures (Walkowitz)
• commitment of Quakers and Unitarians, experience of previous campaigns
• some feminists supported it tacitly but not overtly, e.g. Mrs Fawcett
fear that open support of repeal could damage suffrage cause
• public speeches by women on sexual matters – v. new to middle-class women – much hostility to them
• campaign eventually successful - suspended in 1883, repealed 1886
• LNA had considerable support from working-class men, non-conformists and evangelical churches, and liberal politicians.
• LNA had limited support from working-class women but did attend meetings and appear to have influenced their husbands’ views.
• gender conflicts within the campaign (Walkowitz)
women had a double battle
public fight to obtain rights of women over their own bodies
private fight to control their own movement
female solidarity against CD Acts challenged by men who were
men doubted suitability of women public speakers and
women’s participation in campaign’s policy decisions
• after repeal
• overseas
LNA continued to campaign against regulated prostitution on Continent and against prostitution elsewhere in Br Empire, especially India.
Butler emphasised
powerlessness of Indian women and
‘mission’ of those who campaigned to help them
• in UK
prostitutes largely unaffected, except in garrison and port towns
however, moral reformers campaigned for different ways of regulating sexual offences of young women
• moral regulation of working-class female sexuality
moral reformers encouraged voluntary entrance by young prostitutes into female penitentiaries (magdelene homes) run by voluntary organisations
these offered moral education and industrial training
• 1870s social purity leagues being formed
regulation of male, as well as female, sexuality
• child prostitution
v. few child prostitutes (Walkowitz)
1885 campaign – sensationalist journalism rather than social fact; most prostitutes over 16; most 16-19 age group; older prostitutes = deserted wives or widows
• WT Stead (Pall Mall Gazette, 1885) – expose of traffic in child prostitution from England to continent (1885)
• 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act
age of consent for girls raised from 13 to 16
Conclusions
Efforts to regulated prostitution had largely failed
Local authorities however able to
isolate prostitutes from working-class communities
stigmatise them as moral outcasts, rather than casual workers
encourage them to seek protection of pimps as protection against the police
issues of male violence towards women largely unresolved