Sex wasn't invented in the sixties at all. A new book suggests
there was a lot of it about as far back as the eighteenth century.
Sinead
Morrissey
Lascivious
Bodies: A Sexual History of the Eighteenth Century
By Julie Peakman
Atlantic Books
ISBN: I843541564
Lascivious
Bodies
investigates “all sorts of sex, in all sorts of places, with
all sorts of people”, sometime during the long eighteenth century,
between 1680 and 1830. The range of sexual activities proffered
to the reader is extensive: prostitution; adultery; sodomy; bestiality;
masturbation; lesbianism; cross-dressing (both male and female);
necrophilia; paedophilia; foot fetishism; flagellation and strangulation
all feature as the result of Peakman’s exhaustive drive to
document the sexual proclivities of her chosen age. And her attitude
to the ever-increasing commercialisation of sex and the body during
this period is straightforward: people had sex more often, in more
diverse ways than before, and were liberated by experimentation.
"The book celebrates those "lascivious bodies" which
continued to "have their way" in the face of -- often
terrifying -- social control."
The
cover note for Lascivious Bodies claims that it examines the “birth
of sexuality as we know it today.” And there is a great deal
that is recognisable here: from business deals cemented by visits
to brothels, to paedophile teachers, to secret sex societies mimicking
the rituals of established religion, (Stanley Kubrick’s last
film, Eyes Wide Shut, turns out to be heavily indebted to
the activities of the Monks of Medenham during the 1750s.)
Differed
What
is not clear is how such activities differed from what went on before,
and what it was precisely about the eighteenth century which enabled
them. The philanderings of Boswell, Casanova and Wilkes are described
in detail, as if they were somehow typical of this new sexual age,
but I’m still not sure how their libertinism differs from,
say, Lord Rochester’s during the 1660s. And whilst we are told,
for instance, that attitudes towards sodomy and masturbation for
women changed dramatically in this period, becoming strictly taboo,
we are not told why. Other coterminous developments which may have
had a bearing on these, such as the rise of the domestic, middle-class
woman and the affective family unit, or population concerns due
to the demands of early industrialisation, are not mentioned.
In
her extensive citation of memoirs, letters, periodicals, adverts,
pornographic novels, and newspapers, Peakman makes extensive use
of something which was unique to the eighteenth-century:
the explosion of print culture. Disappointingly, the links between
this newly literate public sphere and the blossoming of public sexuality
are not examined. A naivety about sources—if someone writes
something as true, Peakman generally takes it to be true—is
mirrored by her lack of interest in the formation of sexuality itself,
particularly in and through texts. In the dawning age of printed
erotica, how did this material affect people’s sexual consciousnesses?
Failure to interrelate the two more closely is the most glaring
omission of the book.
Tale
Peakman
knows she has a fascinating tale to tell. Quite apart from the bizarre
titillation of this material, eighteenth-century writing was also
incredibly witty, rendering many of the thousands of obscenities
which she quotes exhaustively doubly memorable. The gentleman who
advised his fellow prostitute users who “love juice” to
repair to “Miss Jo—, for I am certain a loose embrace
of hers, is greasier than the carcass of a sheep, that has hung
four hours in the sun in the middle of the Dog-days” is certainly
a recommendation I cannot forget, (no matter how hard I try). However,
love of the salacious, and even an over-dependence on it, are ultimately
the downfalls of Lascivious Bodies. The sex of the subtitle
is there in abundance, whilst the ‘history’ of this sexuality—what
was new about these practices during this time, what socio-historical
developments made them possible, what other eighteenth-century phenomena
sexuality impacted on—is almost entirely absent. What we are
left with is historical pornography, in two senses of the term:
lots of details of eighteenth-century erotica itself, and a history
of a subject which is, by and large, a history of surfaces.
Sinead Morrissey is writer in residence at Queens University Belfast.
Her third collection of poetry is imminent.
P
r e v i e w
Issue 429
Crucifying
Harry: On Victims and Scapegoats In 2002, Harry McCartan, aged twenty-three,
was apprehended in the hardline loyalist Seymour Hill area of Dunmurry.
Harry came from the nationalist Poleglass estate, and was a notorious
joyrider. One report claims that he had stolen more than two-hundred
cars, and for his trouble he spent time in jail.
by Patrick Grant
Our
Kinky Forbears Lascivious Bodies investigates “all
sorts of sex, in all sorts of places, with all sorts of people”,
sometime during the long eighteenth century, between 1680 and 1830.
The range of sexual activities proffered to the reader is extensive:
prostitution; adultery; sodomy; bestiality; masturbation; lesbianism;
cross-dressing (both male and female); necrophilia; paedophilia;
foot fetishism; flagellation and strangulation all feature as the
result of Peakman’s exhaustive drive to document the sexual
proclivities of her chosen age. And her attitude to the ever-increasing
commercialisation of sex and the body during this period is straightforward:
people had sex more often, in more diverse ways than before, and
were liberated by experimentation. "The book celebrates those
"lascivious bodies" which continued to "have their
way" in the face of -- often terrifying -- social control."
by Sinead Morrissey
John
Stephenson, founder of the Provisional IRA, was English. Nothing
Strange About That. There are millions of people of Irish descent
all over the world, and quite a number of them have been involved
in Republican politics. Though they left a major imprint on history,
second generation Irish Republicans have largely been neglected
by historians. Brian Dooley’s book is “a modest attempt
to help fill some of the gaps in knowledge about the contribution
of second/third generation Irish people to the fight for Irish independence,
and how some people responded to growing up second generation Irish
in Britain during the Troubles.”
by Liam O Ruairc
S
u b s c r i b e (11 issues)
UK: £28;
Republic & Europe:
€53.50 or £33;
US & overseas: £47;
institutions £10 extra; unwaged/students/prisoners
£23 (UK), €40
(Republic);
life subscription: £300, €483 (Europe),
£500 (elsewhere)
