Sex, Politics and Society: The Regulation of Sexuality since 1800

Abstract

This work is, in essence, a discussion of the forces that have organised and regulated sexuality within a particular historical period (roughly the period of industrial capitalism) in a particular geographical and political area (Great Britain, and chiefly that part south of Scotland) Its working premise, set out in some detail in Chapter 1, is that 'sexuality' is not an unproblematic natural given, which the 'social' works upon to control, but is, on the contrary, an historical unity which has been shaped and determined by a multiplicity of forces, and which has undergone complex historical transformations. The argument revolves around three broad issues: the meaning given to sexuality in Victorian society; the construction of sexuality as an area of social concern, scientific investigation and reforming endeavour in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; and the place of sexuality in twentieth-century consciousness and social policy. In tackling these questions I am aware that I have ignored other domains of interest, and have bypassed other questions that might fruitfully have been discussed. My excuse is that my aim has been a modest, but I believe vitally important, one: to delineate the forces, ideas and social practices that have elevated sexuality into a prime focus of social concern over the past two hundred years.