Regency Sex Ed
70 comments
·January 17, 2025miniwark
shellback3
As for books in the 1700's over 60% of women were not literate so if one happened on one of the books it couldn't be read - but the illustrations would have been interesting to them.
I think that many of the poor lived in habitations where they all slept in one, unlit, room where they would get hints about sex from childhood.
Amezarak
Yeah. If anything, the 20th century was sort of a nadir for this sort of thing, as increasingly large portions of the population became more alienated from the natural world. That made it possible for young kids and teenagers to have no clear idea.
Sex and reproduction was no mystery to almost anyone historically. No doubt people, then as now, maintained various superstitions that coincidentally involved rationalizations for what they wanted to do anyway, but that's not really a matter of ignorance, so to speak. ("Come on, it's your first time, it will be OK, nothing will happen...whoops!" is not a matter of ignorance generally, but willful ignorance.)
btilly
It also covers a long time period. The period of extreme prudishness was fairly short, and happened during the Victorian era.
I have a book from the 1850s that was meant to (mis)inform on this topic. The whole masturbation makes people go blind nonsense. For people raised on this kind of book, I can believe that they would not understand sex. For people a few decades earlier, it would be a different story.
null
tgv
The article is --per usual-- not warranting the scope of the title. A more accurate title would be: Some literature possibly used in educating aristocratic English women about sex. The subtitle then would be: while simultaneously plugging my own book.
janalsncm
A lot of nonfiction writers only do interviews/podcasts when they have a book to plug. I don’t mind it, even though it’s kind of an ad, because the content is still interesting. I think the authors want to sell their books, but they’re typically very interested in the topics and like talking about them for the sake of conversation.
ggm
Absolutely fascinating. The deep history of obvious knowledge of reproduction side by side with astounding ignorance is palpable. Joseph Heller wrote about it in catch-22 and a parade of modern day unexpected pregnancy stories are testament to it's continuance.
What's equally fascinating is the equally dichotomous side by side knowledge of STDs and their effect on pregnancy. You get a lot of it in "who do you think you are" ancestry type shows, when there is the massive family lots of children dead quickly story.
I do love a good bodice ripper. Dorothy Dunnett was my stand out historian author, maybe I have a (-substantially more fruity) alternative to explore.
(Bridgerton was fun but I find Georgette Heyer just as fun, and you can't beat her on the peninsular wars or Waterloo alongside the heaving bosoms)
velcrovan
For any society where breeding domesticated animals is a familiar aspect of life for most people, I would guess this isn’t obscure knowledge.
xattt
The subtleties of human courtship that enable bilateral pleasure and the principles of animal husbandry are quite orthogonal.
UniverseHacker
I think that is false, but struggle to explain my point without being excessively graphic. People get a lot of bad advice, that results in people being anxiously stuck in their head during sex, trying to "do a good job" and "pleasure their partner."
The reality is mammals have instincts that make sex pleasurable both both parties, and it is usually shockingly aggressive, even violent seeming. If people could get out of their head and into their body and primal desires- and quite literally act more like an animal, they'd have much better sex.
Earw0rm
Given that most animals get it done in under a minute for fear of predation or other violence, I'm guessing the author is male.
Chimps and bonobos, our nearest cousins, do have a pretty spectacular sexual toolbox of course that acts as a kind of social lubricant. But it's not all about reproduction, or even pleasure, and quite a lot of what they get up to will get you jailed in most countries.
gjsman-1000
You're assuming that if it's natural, it's good.
One glance at the animal kingdom - there are plenty of natural practices that will put you in prison for life.
bckr
Yes, but TFA starts with questioning whether women knew about insertion.
francisofascii
Funny how the animals having no problems figuring it out.
telesilla
Anyone who has adopted a kitten too young to spay will know very well she knows what to do once her body develops. It's interesting humans know how to eat, drink and ablute but need to be taught in the most essential:reproduce.
Note: true, teenagers! I completely forgot =/
beAbU
Have you met/seen teenagers?
ziotom78
This reminds me of the difficulties Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette had in conceiving an heir:
> In a letter to his brother Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, Joseph II described them as "a couple of complete blunderers."[50] He disclosed to Leopold that the inexperienced—then still only 22-year-old—Louis XVI had confided in him the course of action he had been undertaking in their marital bed; saying Louis XVI "introduces the member," but then "stays there without moving for about two minutes," withdraws without having completed the act and "bids goodnight."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Antoinette#Motherhood,_c...
Mistletoe
This is such a bizarre thing to do from a young man/evolutionary instinct standpoint. I wonder if his hormones were awry. I see speculation that he had hypogonadism or phimosis.
pavlov
The crown prince of France spent his entire life surrounded by courtiers who would fulfill his every whim. He barely needed to lift a fork to his mouth himself.
Maybe he had depression from this kind of passive lifestyle.
Symbiote
Reading this, it might be as likely that they didn't sufficiently like each other.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_XVI#Marriage_and_family_...
sdwr
"Important" people get trained into helplessness very quickly. They are the symbol that validates power, but any real action they take is a risk to the movers and shakers surrounding them.
dfxm12
I think it follows that people who have everything given to them would turn out to be ungiving lovers, either out of ignorance or expectation.
ANewFormation
It could also simply have been impotence that he did not want to acknowledge.
Made perhaps even more likely with Antoinette's alleged proclivities, her children's questionable paternity, and so on.
Boogie_Man
Always leave them wanting more
whycome
I believe that’s called “soaking”
d1sxeyes
Someone decided that that article needed an illustration. Astounding the breadth and depth of things you can find on the internet.
justsomehnguy
Oh, Wikipedia is in the constant change of what do need an illustration and what does not or what type it should be. Back in 2009 the most pics in the sex and genital articles had a self-made pics, which even prompted this:
Internet access - $25
A digital camera - $250
Making the whole world see your vagina - priceless
For everything else there is MasterCard
eadmund
Basing one’s knowledge of history on Bridgerton is much like basing one’s knowledge of New York City on Metropolis in Superman comics. Bridgerton is completely and totally ahistorical. It’s cosplay.
littlestymaar
Aicha Limbada in La nuit de noces. Une histoire de l'intimité conjugale (in French only) talks about the fact that this “education” was sometime done during the night after the wedding, when the bride was raped by her new husband.
kridsdale1
Well that’s one step less bad than the German city states with Prima Nocte with the mayor.
littlestymaar
Isn't that an urban legend? (We have the same kind of stories with lords and peasants in France, and here it's definitely an urban legend).
hoseja
When you mistake Bridgerton for anything but a funny dress-up for unrooted americans and attempt to legitimize printed porn addictions at the same time.
jhanschoo
I think the article fails to wonder sufficiently about gender differences in sexual education. In the milieu where my parents were brought up in, as well as presently in traditionally patriarchal cultures, a good deal of women weren't educated about periods and sex, not even by relatives. The men, on the other hand, received more "education"
dvh
A mother of a teenage son is talking to her husband about introducing an important topic to their son. To make it less shocking, she suggests using an analogy like butterflies. So, the father goes to the son's room.
- "Son, do you remember last year when we went camping?"
- "Yeah, I remember that."
- "And do you remember when we set up the tent by the river?"
- "Yeah, I remember."
- "And do you remember when those two women set up their tent next to ours?"
- "Yeah, I remember."
- "And do you remember that one night when they visited our tent and what we were doing with them?"
- "Yeah, I remember."
- "Well, you see, butterflies do it in a very similar way."
technothrasher
"It's actually not that similar, since butterflies are oviparous, and have ZW sexual determination" - my nerdy high school self completely missing the joke.
tialaramex
I assume it's a relief for parents when their offspring realise a few sentences in that this is The Conversation and they cut to the chase. "Yes mother/ father, I do understand roughly how human sexual reproduction works, and I have been taught about consent, so we're all good right?"
technothrasher
When my son was in preschool, I went to pick him up one day and the teacher took me aside and said, "we were reading a story about a mom and how she had a baby in her tummy, and your son raised his hand and said, 'That's not true. It's in her uterus!'"
I've never had "the talk" with him, I talked to him continuously through his childhood. As he asked questions, I gave him answers.
dfxm12
Kids sometimes think they know something, but really don't. You get different stories from a friend's older brother, a coming of age movie, porn, etc. You can't make any assumptions or leave room for interpretation here, so you should still have "The Talk™".
dvh
The best I've seen is "Son, do not create future obligations!"
amelius
How do they learn it today? Hopefully not from the internet ...
sombragris
The writing was somewhat interesting until this:
> I found myself confronting the rise of bans on books that discuss gender identity and sexuality. Today, sexual education in public schools grows increasingly under threat in places like Florida
Please. There are no bans on books discussing such matters. You can purchase them from Amazon and other booksellers, while in 19th century England there were civil and criminal penalties for book publishers for the mere act of publishing. That's quite different. Public schools may ban books only for their own institutions, never for the general public. Any "school ban" does not prevent any parent righteously concerned with censorship to provide their child a copy of such banned book.
gsk22
I don't follow your objection. Banning books on sexuality from public schools threatens sexual education in those same schools. That is true even if individual parents can purchase such books for their children on the open market.
The point of universal education is to provide for all students, _especially_ those whose parents are unwilling or unable to provide a quality education independently.
sombragris
The point is that decisions made by schools about which books they use or not are not equal to legally enforceable book bans for the general public. The article commingles these two ideas. That is the objection.
gsk22
The snippet you quoted does not support that objection, though. It is clear from context that the "book bans" referred to are in the realm of public education.
bobxmax
There are large groups of Americans who believe The Handmaidens Tale is a real potential future. The lack of perspective and melodramatic discord in political theater is exhausting.
01HNNWZ0MV43FF
Did you see that absurd display yesterday?
wnoise
See, the thing about Arsenal is they always try to walk it in.
333c
> There are no bans on books discussing such matters.
contradicts
> Public schools may ban books
SoftTalker
Not the same. Public schools (and private schools, and any library) choose which books are on their library shelves. They have no control over what is published elsewhere.
sombragris
You are right. Edited in order to better express myself. Apologies; English is not my first language...
This is a nice text, but it's heavenly oriented to the very upper class society. The author talk a lot about "sexual books" of the times, but you will certainly not find the "Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure" (Fanny Hill) in the hand of a proper young woman. (this stuff where costly rarities for men too).
It was far more simpler than this, no need for books.
Every rural girls and boys, and women and men living in a city did know, without any books, what there is to know simply by looking at the animals in the farms or the horses and dogs in the streets.
There was also the "education" at the wash-houses... The hubs to know everything there is to now at the time.