Thus it was seriously held, for example, that sexual appetite was incompatible with mental distinction and that procreation impaired artistic genius. Men were vigorously counseled to conserve vital health by avoiding fornication, masturbation and nocturnal emissions (for which a variety of devices were invented) and by rationing sex within marriage. * Some doctors erased sexual pleasure through barbaric practices such as penile cauterization and clitorodectomy. * * Male anti-masturbation device, 1880-1920 * As daughters, employees or servants, young women were subject to male authority; as whores they enjoyed economic and personal independence. The response was a sustained cultural campaign, in sermons, newspapers, literary and visual art, to intimidate, shame and eventually drive 'fallen women' from the streets by representing them as a depraved and dangerous element in society, doomed to disease and death. * There are many hints that 'considerate' husbands, who did not insist on intercourse, were admired, not least because of the high maternal mortality rate. But there is plain evidence that the early Victorian family of six to eight or more children was on its way out by
Thus it was seriously held, for example, that sexual appetite was incompatible with mental distinction and that procreation impaired artistic genius. Men were vigorously counseled to conserve vital health by avoiding fornication, masturbation and nocturnal emissions (for which a variety of devices were invented) and by rationing sex within marriage. * Some doctors erased sexual pleasure through barbaric practices such as penile cauterization and clitorodectomy. * * Male anti-masturbation device, 1880-1920 * As daughters, employees or servants, young women were subject to male authority; as whores they enjoyed economic and personal independence. The response was a sustained cultural campaign, in sermons, newspapers, literary and visual art, to intimidate, shame and eventually drive 'fallen women' from the streets by representing them as a depraved and dangerous element in society, doomed to disease and death. * There are many hints that 'considerate' husbands, who did not insist on intercourse, were admired, not least because of the high maternal mortality rate. But there is plain evidence that the early Victorian family of six to eight or more children was on its way out by