The Enlightenment, an intellectual movement of the 18 th century, prized rational thought over traditional authority and suggested that human nature was to be understood through a study of human psychology. Enlightenment writers argued that human drives and instincts are part of nature’s design, so one must realize the basic wisdom of human urges and not fight them (Porter, 1982). Sexual pleasure was therefore considered natural and desirable. In fact, of all the earthly pleasures, enlightenment thinkers praised sexuality as supreme. Sexuality had become so free that there was an unprecedented rise in premarital pregnancy and illegitimate births; up to one-fifth of all brides in the late 17th century were pregnant when they got married (Trumbach, 1990).
The Enlightenment
As liberal as the Enlightenment was, many sexual activities, such as homosexuality, were condemned and persecuted. For example, starting in 1730, there was a 2-year “sodomite panic” in the Netherlands, and hundreds of men accused of homosexual acts were executed while hundreds more fled the country. France burned homosexuals long after it stopped burning witches. Yet there were also times of relative tolerance. Napoleon so eased laws against homosexuality that by 1860 homosexuality was tolerated, and male prostitutes were very common in France (Tannahill, 1980).
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In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many doctors taught that masturbation was harmful, and so devices, such as the two barbed rings and the shock box shown here, were created to keep children—especially boys—from achieving unwanted erections.
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In the 1800s, Sylvester Graham (a Presbyterian minister and vegetarian) recommended that in order to be healthy a person needed loose clothing, vigorous exercise, a hard mattress, cold night air, chastity, and cold showers. In 1829 he invented the graham cracker, which he believed could reduce sexual desire and increase physical health.
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The Colonies: The Puritan Ethic
The Puritans were a religious group that fled England and tried to set up a biblically based society in the New World. They had severe sanctions for sexual transgressions: in New England, for example, the death penalty was applied for sodomy, bestiality, adultery, and rape. In Puritan ideology, the entire community was responsible for upholding morality (D’Emilio & Freedman, 1988). However, the Puritans were not as close-minded about sex as their reputation suggests, and they believed that sexuality was good and proper within marriage. In fact, men were obligated to have intercourse with their wives. The Puritans also tolerated most mild sexual transgressions as long as people accepted their punishments and repented.
As the New World began to grow, it suffered from a lack of women, and the speculation in Europe was that any woman seeking a man should come to America, which offered women greater independence than Europe. On the island of Nantucket, for exam-
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Puritan
Refers to a 16th — and 17th-century Protestant group from England that wanted to purge the church of elaborate ceremonies and simplify worship; has come to mean any person or group that is excessively strict in regard to sexual matters.
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