For my March blog, the topic that I’ve chosen is how
sex is different in the Victorian era compared to sex now. After reading a few
articles I’ve been able to distinguish multiple differences between then and now.
During the Victorian period sex was a subject that wasn’t spoken very publicly.
In today’s time sex is regarded as a more open topic to talk about, and isn’t
as frowned upon if you have pre-marital sex. If you had pre-marital sex in the
Victorian era you were looked down upon, especially if you had a child before
marriage. If you get married before the child is born, you wouldn’t face too
many problems. Another difference I found is the level of skin exposure of
today, compared to back then. In that time both sexes didn’t show much skin
when they went out in public, as compared to modern time where it’s acceptable
for both women and men to show more skin in society. But when the Victorians
weren’t in public they made up for it by making extraordinary amounts of
pornography. Masturbation was also taboo in the Victorian society. This wasn’t
due to the religious community, but it was actually the medical community that
discouraged masturbation. They believed that whenever a man masturbates, it’s
the same as losing large amounts of blood. In a woman’s case they believed that
masturbation was insanity-provoking. This topic was taken very seriously and
they went as far as to develop anti-masturbation devices to prevent it from
ever happening. But in today’s society masturbation is regarded as beneficial
to your health because of a lot of reasons such as it lowers blood pressure,
and raises testosterone in men. Homosexuality was also a frowned upon topic
back in this period, more for men than women.[1]
Women were assumed to be more non-sexual, so two women living together wasn’t
seen as odd or in bad taste. It’s safe to say that these relationships weren’t
always platonic. There have been records of women who did have lesbian
relations with other women in private. Throughout this era until 1861,
homosexual acts between men were considered a capital offense. In today’s world
homosexuality is still on a fine line in some places, but overall it has been
accepted in society as a normal thing. Some states in the US still have banned
gay marriage, but this law has been removed from more and more states in the
past decade.[2]
After looking over the critical information about distinguish how sex is
different in Victorian period to present, we can clearly see that people had
dissimilar ideas and theories between time periods.
[1] "Sex
and Sexuality in the 19th Century." Victoria and Albert Museum , 2014. http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/s/sex-and-sexuality-19th-century/
(accessed March 31, 2014).
[2] Belleau,
Jennifer. "Five Crazy Facts about Sex in Victorian Times." Socyberty,
10 27, 2010. http://socyberty.com/sexuality/five-crazy-facts-about-sex-in-victorian-times/
(accessed March 31, 2014).
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