Unfortunately, these progressive views did not prevail. The Victorian era, which took its name from the queen who ascended the British throne in 1837 and ruled for over 60 years, brought a sharp turnaround. The sexes had highly defined roles. Women’s sexuality was polarized between the images of Madonna and Eve (which evolved in the vernacular into the "Madonna-whore" dichotomy). Upper — and middle-class Victorian women in Europe and the United States were valued for their delicacy and ladylike manners—and consequently were constrained by such restrictive devices as corsets, hoops, and bustles. The idealization of their presumed fragility put them on a pedestal that limited women’s roles both at home and in the outside world (Glick & Fiske, 2001; Real, 2002). Popular opinion of female sexuality was reflected by the widely quoted physician William Acton, who wrote, "The majority of women are not very much troubled with sexual feelings of any kind" (Degler, 1980, p. 250). Women’s duties centered on fulfilling their families’ spiritual needs and providing a comfortable home for their husbands to retreat to after working all day. The world of women was clearly separated from that of men. Consequently, intensely passionate friendships sometimes developed between women, providing the support and comfort that were often absent in marriage.
In general, Victorians encouraged self-restraint in all aspects of their lives, and Victorian men were expected to conform to the strict propriety of the age. However, prostitution flourished during this period because Victorian men often set morality aside in the pursuit of sexual companionship. The gender-role separation between the worlds of hus bands and wives created a sexual and emotional distance in many Victorian marriages. Victorian men could smoke, drink, joke, and find sexual companionship with the women who had turned to prostitution out of economic necessity, whereas their wives were caught in the constraints of propriety and sexual repression.
Despite the prevailing notions about the asexual Victorian woman, Celia Mosher, a physician born in 1863, conducted the only known research about the sexuality of women of that era. Over a span of 30 years, 47 married women completed her questionnaire. The information gathered from the research revealed a picture of female sexuality different from the one commonly described (perhaps even prescribed) by "experts" of the time. Mosher found that most of the women experienced sexual desire, enjoyed intercourse, and experienced orgasm (Ellison, 2000).
Nineteenth-century U. S. culture was full of sexual contradictions. Women’s sexuality was polarized between the opposing images of Madonna and whore, and men were trapped between the ideal of purity and the frank pleasures of sexual expression. Gender-role beliefs about sexuality were taken to even greater extremes in the cases of African American men and women under slavery. Furthermore, the oppressive myths about African American men and women were used to justify slavery, as examined in the following Sexuality and Diversity discussion. Unfortunately, shades of these myths have persisted and play a role in contemporary racial tensions.