4 ms·

I'm curious about generalizations like "Victorians didn't think women had a sex drive." I could understand how mass-audience public discourse might not admit s

I'm curious about generalizations like "Victorians didn't think women had a sex drive." I could understand how mass-audience public discourse might not admit such a thing. But I'd assume there were enough people in sexual relationships that, at least in private or cras venues, reality would prevail.

hoseja 4y ago
It's entirely possible (or used to be more, before mass communication) to never realize how common a taboo really is, if suppressed enough.
stuartjohnson12 4y ago
I'm no historian, but I think we do something similar (although probably not to the same extent) in the status quo regarding the sexuality of the elderly. Of course we know some old people have a sexuality, and we implicitly know that grandma must have been doing something back in the day, but we don't discuss it.
- Comevius 4y ago
  Older people are horndogs, they just have many age-related issues, and not everyone is able to overcome them or the stigma, since we tend to idealize the elderly, like they are supposed to be pristine and wise, when the evidence is to the contrary on both counts.
  - jlkuester7 4y ago
    > they are supposed to be pristine and wise, when the evidence is to the contrary on both counts. The brain elasticity of an 80yo might not always be up to learning the JS framework of the week (though perhaps that is a wisdom in itself...), but I find, when talking to older folks, that their years of experience offer an irreplaceable perspective. That I would consider to be a form of wisdom. Its not that they know everything about everything or that being old makes them automatically smart, but experiencing the world through a much longer lens of time (then my lens) can change how they see things and in particular can allow them to recognize patterns that younger folks would miss... (None of this should be construed as me advocating for a geritocrasy, but just as a reminder to take the time to listen to the older folks around you. You do not (and probably should not) take what they say at face value as given facts, but listen, consider, and test their perspective as you form your own opinions of the world...
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
Cthulhu_ 4y ago
I'm not a historian, so this is just guessing, but I can imagine it's survivorship bias, as in, surviving history. What are the sources that historians use to base these things on? It's going to be things like newspapers, personal correspondence, books, and other such publications. I do vaguely recall there was a lot of "medical" science about sex at the time, it might be it's from that one; see also hysteria, the treatment of which was a vibrator, but the remaining publications are clinical at best - denying that women have a sex drive, basically.
- saalweachter 4y ago
  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/opinion/vibrator-invention-myth.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/opinion/vibrator-inventio...
  - oxfeed65261 4y ago
    Also at https://archive.ph/A0aog https://archive.ph/A0aog: > The true story is that the use of vibrators became widespread only when they were marketed to the general public, both men and women, as domestic and medical appliances in the early 1900s. Ads featuring men and women, babies and older people, promised vibrators could do everything from eliminating wrinkles to curing tuberculosis. When doctors did use vibrators on women, they assiduously avoided touching their clitorises. “The greatest objection to vibration thus applied is that in overly sensitive patients it is liable to cause sexual excitement,” the gynecologist James Craven Wood wrote in 1917. If, however, he continued, “the vibratode is kept well back from the clitoris, there is but little danger of causing such excitement.”
eouwt 4y ago
Perhaps that's true of some portion of Victorian society, but one sentence can't capture a whole society's understanding. I can think of contradicting evidence, e.g., the novel Fanny Hill (pre Victorian but still English)
derangedHorse 4y ago
It’s not too crazy to believe. I’ve seen multiple studies say the sex drives of males are higher and more consistent than that of females on average. If men were always initiating in a world where female voices were being repressed, it probably didn’t leave room for men to know or care whether their partners actually enjoyed intercourse as well. The narrative might’ve also been more convenient to believe since it would mean one less motivator for infidelity.
- GuB-42 4y ago
  I suspect the women themselves were complicit. If having no sex drive was seen as attractive back in the day, it is very possible that women played that role to get the attention (and sex!) from the man they wanted. I am convinced most of the Victorian behavior is an act. It is the classical game of seduction, up to 11.
rich_sasha 4y ago
Victorian society was borderline schizofrenic. There was a "public" view of what is right, and private behaviour. For example, indeed sex itself was frowned upon from many angles, but prostitution was rampant in London. Same for drugs. And indeed it was often the same people holding the same views at the same time. I think there are similar themes in other historical settings. I remember reading that many of key drivers of US prohibitions were themselves major alcohol abusers. I think the hypocrisy itself isn't that unusual, but the scale of it (how widely the "public" beliefs were held and how large the gap between private and public was) was quite extreme, compared to similar cases. Not a historian, no sources.
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  "Victorian society was borderline schizofrenic." And ours isn't? Societies tend to have serious taboos that are nevertheless transgressed in private all the time. Muslims drink. Chinese people curse the CCP. Western companies avoid hiring members of certain ethnic groups if possible.
astura 4y ago
Its very much self fulfilling. If your partner is not at all concerned with your pleasure/enjoyment/feelings during a sexual encounter, it's probably not going to be particularly enjoyable for you. It's not surprising people don't enjoy being treated like a Fleshlight. I STILL hear modern day men saying (or implying) that women don't really like sex or care about it very much. It's not a cultural view, but sexually active individuals absolutely still hold that belief to an extent.
norwalkbear 4y ago
Well marriage bed death is a thing for straight men, and surprisingly lesbians experience it too. So there might be some truth to the trope.
tsol 4y ago
People like to generalize the past. Sometimes in the future, they'll say we were obsessed with sex but not having it.
jnsie 4y ago
By dint of a misleading history textbook I grew up thinking that it was standard practice for romans to stick feathers down their throats to clear their stomachs for more feasting. Such generalizations are treacherous ground...
pessimizer 4y ago
> But I'd assume there were enough people in sexual relationships that, at least in private or cras venues, reality would prevail. I think there's a bad assumption here that women felt safe to express or acknowledge a sex drive, even in private, even to their husbands. Then, just as now, the main danger to a woman was her husband. If only whores or women who are insane have a sex drive, that's a backwards way of saying that you will be judged for having a sex drive, and if you're found guilty, you will be punished as a whore, and if you are found innocent, you will be medicalized as a crazy person. Taboos are restrictions.

hoseja 4y ago

It's entirely possible (or used to be more, before mass communication) to never realize how common a taboo really is, if suppressed enough.

stuartjohnson12 4y ago

I'm no historian, but I think we do something similar (although probably not to the same extent) in the status quo regarding the sexuality of the elderly. Of course we know some old people have a sexuality, and we implicitly know that grandma must have been doing something back in the day, but we don't discuss it.

Comevius 4y ago
Older people are horndogs, they just have many age-related issues, and not everyone is able to overcome them or the stigma, since we tend to idealize the elderly, like they are supposed to be pristine and wise, when the evidence is to the contrary on both counts.
- jlkuester7 4y ago
  > they are supposed to be pristine and wise, when the evidence is to the contrary on both counts. The brain elasticity of an 80yo might not always be up to learning the JS framework of the week (though perhaps that is a wisdom in itself...), but I find, when talking to older folks, that their years of experience offer an irreplaceable perspective. That I would consider to be a form of wisdom. Its not that they know everything about everything or that being old makes them automatically smart, but experiencing the world through a much longer lens of time (then my lens) can change how they see things and in particular can allow them to recognize patterns that younger folks would miss... (None of this should be construed as me advocating for a geritocrasy, but just as a reminder to take the time to listen to the older folks around you. You do not (and probably should not) take what they say at face value as given facts, but listen, consider, and test their perspective as you form your own opinions of the world...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

Cthulhu_ 4y ago

I'm not a historian, so this is just guessing, but I can imagine it's survivorship bias, as in, surviving history. What are the sources that historians use to base these things on? It's going to be things like newspapers, personal correspondence, books, and other such publications. I do vaguely recall there was a lot of "medical" science about sex at the time, it might be it's from that one; see also hysteria, the treatment of which was a vibrator, but the remaining publications are clinical at best - denying that women have a sex drive, basically.

saalweachter 4y ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/opinion/vibrator-invention-myth.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/opinion/vibrator-inventio...
- oxfeed65261 4y ago
  Also at https://archive.ph/A0aog https://archive.ph/A0aog: > The true story is that the use of vibrators became widespread only when they were marketed to the general public, both men and women, as domestic and medical appliances in the early 1900s. Ads featuring men and women, babies and older people, promised vibrators could do everything from eliminating wrinkles to curing tuberculosis. When doctors did use vibrators on women, they assiduously avoided touching their clitorises. “The greatest objection to vibration thus applied is that in overly sensitive patients it is liable to cause sexual excitement,” the gynecologist James Craven Wood wrote in 1917. If, however, he continued, “the vibratode is kept well back from the clitoris, there is but little danger of causing such excitement.”

eouwt 4y ago

Perhaps that's true of some portion of Victorian society, but one sentence can't capture a whole society's understanding. I can think of contradicting evidence, e.g., the novel Fanny Hill (pre Victorian but still English)

derangedHorse 4y ago

It’s not too crazy to believe. I’ve seen multiple studies say the sex drives of males are higher and more consistent than that of females on average. If men were always initiating in a world where female voices were being repressed, it probably didn’t leave room for men to know or care whether their partners actually enjoyed intercourse as well. The narrative might’ve also been more convenient to believe since it would mean one less motivator for infidelity.

GuB-42 4y ago
I suspect the women themselves were complicit. If having no sex drive was seen as attractive back in the day, it is very possible that women played that role to get the attention (and sex!) from the man they wanted. I am convinced most of the Victorian behavior is an act. It is the classical game of seduction, up to 11.

rich_sasha 4y ago

Victorian society was borderline schizofrenic. There was a "public" view of what is right, and private behaviour. For example, indeed sex itself was frowned upon from many angles, but prostitution was rampant in London. Same for drugs. And indeed it was often the same people holding the same views at the same time. I think there are similar themes in other historical settings. I remember reading that many of key drivers of US prohibitions were themselves major alcohol abusers. I think the hypocrisy itself isn't that unusual, but the scale of it (how widely the "public" beliefs were held and how large the gap between private and public was) was quite extreme, compared to similar cases. Not a historian, no sources.

inglor_cz 4y ago
"Victorian society was borderline schizofrenic." And ours isn't? Societies tend to have serious taboos that are nevertheless transgressed in private all the time. Muslims drink. Chinese people curse the CCP. Western companies avoid hiring members of certain ethnic groups if possible.

astura 4y ago

Its very much self fulfilling. If your partner is not at all concerned with your pleasure/enjoyment/feelings during a sexual encounter, it's probably not going to be particularly enjoyable for you. It's not surprising people don't enjoy being treated like a Fleshlight. I STILL hear modern day men saying (or implying) that women don't really like sex or care about it very much. It's not a cultural view, but sexually active individuals absolutely still hold that belief to an extent.

norwalkbear 4y ago

Well marriage bed death is a thing for straight men, and surprisingly lesbians experience it too. So there might be some truth to the trope.

tsol 4y ago

People like to generalize the past. Sometimes in the future, they'll say we were obsessed with sex but not having it.

jnsie 4y ago

By dint of a misleading history textbook I grew up thinking that it was standard practice for romans to stick feathers down their throats to clear their stomachs for more feasting. Such generalizations are treacherous ground...

pessimizer 4y ago

> But I'd assume there were enough people in sexual relationships that, at least in private or cras venues, reality would prevail. I think there's a bad assumption here that women felt safe to express or acknowledge a sex drive, even in private, even to their husbands. Then, just as now, the main danger to a woman was her husband. If only whores or women who are insane have a sex drive, that's a backwards way of saying that you will be judged for having a sex drive, and if you're found guilty, you will be punished as a whore, and if you are found innocent, you will be medicalized as a crazy person. Taboos are restrictions.