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Loading... The Worm in the Bud: The World of Victorian Sexuality (1969)by Ronald Pearsall
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"This classic book on Victorian hypocrisy reveals the other side of Victoria's Britain, and what really went on behind the lace curtains and aspidistras. Ronald Pearsall exposes, with thorough documentation, the bald facts of sex-life (approved and illicit) among the aristocracy, the middle class and poor in the nineteenth century. His curious record is honest, entertaining, and very humorous. It also reflects the conflicting values of the Victorian double standard - one is the very image of respectability, the other is an underground world in which repressions sought their outlet in depravity and licentiousness. In this book Ronald Pearsall introduces the reader to Ruskin and his unconsummated marriage, Swinburne and his predilection for flagellation, the cult of the corset, the flourishing trade in pornography and obscene photographs and orgies that took place under cover at sedate country houses."--BOOK JACKET. No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)301.41Social sciences Social Sciences; Sociology and anthropology Sociology and anthropology Formerly: Social structureLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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Then there is the author's reliance on Kinsey's reports on human sexuality. Now I realize those reports were the only information available at the time, but the author uses them unquestioningly. And even if those reports were totally correct that is no reason to believe that Victorian statistics would have been just the same. To say that if Kinsey says sexuality now is so-and-so then Victorian sexuality was also so-and-so is very shaky reasoning.
If you read the book keep in mind that most of the source material was written by men and for men. The book made it plain that it was not a good time to be a woman. Women were caught in the constrictions of middle-class morality. For a woman to live her own life meant she was cast out by a society that had brainwashed her into a certain mode of conduct all her life. Even though some did it it was hard to do.
Finally, there is no bibliography in the book. The books he used for research are mentioned in the Notes and References but I think the lack of a separate bibliography is sheer laziness.
The book is worth reading and worth using as a reference but its faults must be kept in mind specially when considering statistics. But read it and decide for yourself. I think it will repay your time.