Trumbach (History/CUNY Graduate Center) ventures to scrutinize the
sexual practices of 18th-century Londoners, drawing provocative
conclusions from statistical analysis of hundreds of documents,
from divorce proceedings to newspaper articles. Trumbach regards
the early 1700s as the beginning of a dramatic revolution in
sexuality that would affect the distribution of gender roles
throughout the modern period. Advancing a controversial but
well-substantiated view that heterosexuality and homosexuality are
to a large extent social constructs, he traces opposing sexual
identities to common origins in the Hellenic world and medieval
Europe. Until the 18th century, Trumbach maintains, sodomy was a
common part of sexual experience, especially in adolescence, and
coming of age meant also a boy's transition to sex primarily with
women. At the turn of the 18th century, however, sodomites emerged
as a third gender outside the accepted norm. With homosexuals an
ostracized minority, additional pressure mounted for men to
aggressively assert their heterosexuality, which they did in part
through prostitutes, illicit relationships with unmarried girls,
and domestic violence. Trumbach pictures women as direct victims of
this new male heterosexuality. Among the most outrageous examples
of such abuse, he cites cases of men who contracted venereal
disease in a whorehouse, infected their wives, and then sought to
overcome the disease by raping a prepubescent girl (sex with a
virgin was a widespread folk cure for such ailments). Young women
who became pregnant out of wedlock found themselves disgraced and
relegated to the fringes of society. By the end of the century,
however, more and more women began to imitate the male sexual
libertinism around them, as demonstrated by an increase in the
number of divorces arising after adultery on the part of the wife.
A study full of insights that will nevertheless likely remain a
reference tool for social and cultural scholars, as it contains
more detail about the residents of 18th-century London than the
average reader would care to absorb. (Kirkus Reviews)
A revolution in gender relations occurred in London around 1700,
resulting in a sexual system that endured in many aspects until the
sexual revolution of the 1960s. For the first time in European
history, there emerged three genders: men, women, and a third
gender of adult effeminate sodomites, or homosexuals. This third
gender had radical consequences for the sexual lives of most men
and women since it promoted an opposing ideal of exclusive
heterosexuality.
In "Sex and the Gender Revolution," Randolph Trumbach reconstructs
the worlds of eighteenth-century prostitution, illegitimacy, sexual
violence, and adultery. In those worlds the majority of men became
heterosexuals by avoiding sodomy and sodomite behavior.
As men defined themselves more and more as heterosexuals, women
generally experienced the new male heterosexuality as its victims.
But women--as prostitutes, seduced servants, remarrying widows, and
adulterous wives-- also pursued passion. The seamy sexual
underworld of extramarital behavior was central not only to the
sexual lives of men and women, but to the very existence of
marriage, the family, domesticity, and romantic love. London
emerges as not only a geographical site but as an actor in its own
right, mapping out domains where patriarchy, heterosexuality,
domesticity, and female resistance take vivid form in our
imaginations and senses.
As comprehensive and authoritative as it is eloquent and
provocative, this book will become an indispensable study for
social and cultural historians and delightful reading for anyone
interested in taking a close look at sex and gender in
eighteenth-century London.
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