Histsex archives April 2001

HISTSEX ARCHIVES: April 2001

From: L.J.Brewer@City.ac.uk

Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2001 14:55:13 +0100

Subject: [histsex] Quick hello

Hi to all

I've just joined the list, my name is Laurence Brewer, based in

London, UK. I'm not an academic as such, but am involved with a

number of projects and initiatives associated with the UK Bisexual

community. I'm interested in the History of Bisexuality, from a

number of different academic disciplines, but more importantly I'm

interested in the History of the the Bisexual communities, their

political and social development.

Laurence

___________________________________________________________________From: Mal123nash@aol.com

Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2001 10:26:33 EDT

Subject: Re: [histsex] Quick hello [Bisexuality]

Hello Laurence,

According to Magnus Hirschfeld, about four percent of the population

is bisexual. He maintained that two percent of the population was homosexual.

I should think that these numbers would be encouraging to anyone interested

in building a bisexual community.

With best wishes,

Michael (Lombardi-Nash)

http://www.angelfire.com/fl3/celebration2000

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs: First Gay Activist

http://www.angelfire.com/fl3/celebration2000/memory.html

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs: Memory Book 2000: A Festschrift

___________________________________________________________________

Date: Mon, 02 Apr 2001 11:16:00 -0400

From: Harold Averill <harold.averill@utoronto.ca>

Subject: Re: [histsex] Quick hello

Hi, Lawrence,

I do not know if you will ever make it to Canada, but if you do and are in Toronto, drop in

to the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives. We have a considerable amount of information on

bisexuality in addition to our holdings on gay, lesbian and transgendered issues. You might

care to visit our website.

Harold Averill

Operations Committee

CLGA

___________________________________________________________________From: L.J.Brewer@City.ac.uk

Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2001 16:39:24 +0100

Subject: Re: [histsex] Quick hello

Hi Harold

I might not be able to make it to Toronto, but The North American

Conference on Bisexuality, Gender, and Sexual Diversity will be

taking place during August 9th-12th, 2001 at the University of

British Columbia Conference Centre, Vancouver, British Columbia,

Canada. It is predominently a north American Bisexual Conference,

and I am contemplating going is finances will permit. I would

expect that the organisers would be very interested in any offers for

workshops or even a possibility of a guest speaker to talk about

the collection, but more importantly a selection of specific Bisexual

primary resources for researchers of Bisexual Canadian History.

One of the main problems associated with developing a Bisexual

history is that many researchers and historians associate certain

individuals with Gay History etc. But some of the political history of

the 70's and 80's of Lesbian and Gay activists groups specifically

excluded Bisexuals from their ranks. This is potentially quite

significant in explaining the development of self organised Bisexual

communities, papers, books, conferences, as well as some of the

work related to Bisexual activism and the politics of inclusion in L

& G organisations to become LGBT. A lot of this history is quite

recent, and is still ongoing, as such there is some work but a lot of

it lies within community newsletters as source material. As for

Bisexuality in Canada, I'm aware that the current groups and

resources are relatively recent late 80's and 90's and was

wondering if there were groups which looked at Bisexual organising

and community building in the early 70's around the time of GLF

style liberatory politics ?

Oh by the way, the web site for the conference including details for

registration and submission for presentations can be found at the

web site below.

http://bi.org/~binetbc/2001/

Laurence

___________________________________________________________________

Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2001 10:51:51 -0500

From: Bob <suannschafer@earthlink.net>

Subject: Re: [histsex] Quick hello

What IS the URL for the website? With thanks, Bob

>I do not know if you will ever make it to Canada, but if you do and

>are in Toronto, drop in

>to the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives. We have a considerable

>amount of information on

>bisexuality in addition to our holdings on gay, lesbian and

>transgendered issues. You might

>care to visit our website.

>>Harold Averill

>Operations Committee

>CLGA

___________________________________________________________________

From: "Leanne McCormick" <leannemccormick@hotmail.com>

Subject: [histsex] Introduction

Date: Mon, 02 Apr 2001 17:35:35 +0100

Dear All

I am a PhD student at University of Ulster researching into prostitution in Ireland 1900-1945. I'm looking at refuge/rescue homes in Belfast in this period; moral preservation organisations and attempts to control sexuality; venereal disease especially reactions/legislation during the World Wars. </P>

I am also doing some preliminary research into pornography in Ireland 1921-1970's and wonder if anyone on the list has any ideas about whether there is anything written on this topic or any possible sources of information on it? Whether there were any specifically Irish publications?

Any help would be gratefully received!</P>

Thanks

Leanne McCormick

___________________________________________________________________

From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>

Subject: [histsex] Fw: 'Beat Back "Wife-Beaters"'

Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2001 18:58:17 +0100

With reference to the recent discussion on the list (forwarded from another

list I'm on):

>>Beat Back "Wife-Beaters"

>>>>Dads and Daughters is joining other groups to condemn a website selling

>>tank-top undershirts embroidered with the words "Wife Beater." They sell

>>infant shirts reading "Little Wife Beater" and give this special offer

>>(we're not making this up): "I am a convicted wife beater. Please send me

>>a second beater [shirt] at half price. *Note: You must enclose proof of

>>conviction, court records, restraining order, probation officer's

>>phone#,... photos are NOT acceptable."

>>>>The rest of this site is just as bad, with the theme song "Smack My Bitch

>>Up" and an abusers hall of "fame." The shirts are sold in retail stores,

>>as well. At first we thought this must be a feeble attempt at humor, but

>>the seller indicates there is no irony at work.

>>>>Please call this business at 800-886-2653, email bruised@wife-beaters.com

>>or write 3619 Merrell Rd., Dallas, TX 75229 to demand a stop. Besides

>>trivializing and minimizing the horrible impact of domestic violence

>>(especially on children), this business insults every man who wears

>>tank-top undershirts. Thanks to the Feminist Faxnet for bringing this to

>>our attention.

>>>>See DADs' letter at

http://www.dadsanddaughters.org/Actions/wife%20beater.htm

>>>>---------------------------------------------------------------

>>>>Dads and Daughters, the national membership nonprofit, provides tools to

>>strengthen father-daughter relationships and to transform pervasive

>>messages that value girls more for how they look than who they are. To get

>>this Update or to stop getting it, email info@dadsanddaughters.org

>>>>DADs: PO Box 3458, Duluth, MN 55803. 888-824-3237. DADs is a registered

>>reprint, but always acknowledge the source and list website:

>>www.dadsanddaughters.org. Thanks. This is Child Abuse Prevention Month!

>>Lesley Hall

lesleyah@primex.co.uk

website http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah

___________________________________________________________________Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 15:24:21 -0700 (PDT)

From: Mireille Miller-Young <mireille_creates@yahoo.com>

Subject: Re:[histsex] funding for sex(!!)

Me Too!

I need funding ASAP for study/research (not a

conference) on sexuality for THIS SUMMER. I'm the

person studying black women in porn. Please send any

leads my way too!

Thanks,

Mireille Miller-Young

___________________________________________________________________

Date: Mon, 02 Apr 2001 14:25:10 -0400

From: Cristina Nelson <crn@alum.mit.edu>

Subject: [histsex] wifebeaters

Lesley

what is the URL for the wifebeaters website? I think my undergrads would

be very interested to see misogyny and capitalism at work in one fell

swoop. Thanks

CRN

___________________________________________________________________From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>

Subject: Re: [histsex] wifebeaters

Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2001 19:45:20 +0100

>what is the URL for the wifebeaters website?

As I said in my own message, I was posting this on from another list - so I

don't have the URL but I could make a reasonable guess on the basis of the

email contact given in the text that it's something like www.wifebeaters.com

Fuller details may be available via the site that's actually expressing

their concern about this enterprise (www.dadsanddaughters.org)

Lesley Hall

lesleyah@primex.co.uk

website http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah

___________________________________________________________________Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2001 12:31:48 -0700 (PDT)

From: Lois Patterson <****@****>

Subject: Re: [histsex] wifebeaters - Precise URL for site

The precise URL is

http://www.wife-beaters.com

Their theme song is 'Smack the Bitch'.

You can also locate the form with the offer of the

second shirt 1/2 price with proof of one's criminal

wife-beating status.

I'm a little reluctant to post this, because it gives

them more attention.

Lois Patterson

___________________________________________________________________

Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2001 14:19:39 +0930

Subject: [histsex] Introduction

From: "Liz Williamson" <geneste@webone.com.au>

Hi all

I've just joined the list at the suggestion of a lecturer. I'm an

undergraduate (soon to be Honours) student at the Australian National

University. My interests are currently focussed on anti-masturbation

literature (specifically, female masturbation), particularly in nineteenth

century Britain and North America.

Cheers, Liz

___________________________________________________________________From: MillerJimE@aol.com

Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2001 00:36:15 EDT

Subject: Re: [histsex] Introduction

geneste@webone.com.au writes:

<< My interests are currently focussed on anti-masturbation

literature (specifically, female masturbation), particularly in nineteenth

century Britain and North America.

Cheers, Liz >>

Ron Numbers, Prophetess of Health, has a section on this literature in

19th century North America. Of course, he tends to overstate some things for

its sensationalism, but there are some good references there.

Jim Miller

___________________________________________________________________Date: Mon, 02 Apr 2001 23:56:28 -0500

From: Christina Matta <cmatta@students.wisc.edu>

Subject: Re: [histsex] Introduction

At 12:36 AM 4/3/01 -0400, you wrote:

>geneste@webone.com.au writes:

><< My interests are currently focussed on anti-masturbation

> literature (specifically, female masturbation), particularly in nineteenth

> century Britain and North America.

> Cheers, Liz >>

>> Ron Numbers, Prophetess of Health, has a section on this literature in

>19th century North America. Of course, he tends to overstate some things for

>its sensationalism, but there are some good references there.

>Jim Miller

When I see Ron on campus, I shall tease him about being Prophetess of

Health. Heh, heh!

As long as I'm posting, I'll introduce myself. I'm Christina Matta, and I'm

a graduate student in the history of science department at

Wisconsin. While right now I'm off working on botany-related projects, I

just finished a MA thesis on 19th-c American physicians' responses to

hermaphroditism, and thanks to some other coursework, I've earned myself

the reputation of being the resident expert on Weird Sex. Never mind that

I'm currently working on a paper in the history of plant pathology...

Christina Matta

c/o History of Science

University of Wisconsin-Madison

cmatta@students.wisc.edu

___________________________________________________________________From: Lesley Hall <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>

Subject: Re: [histsex] Introduction

Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2001 08:44:44 GMT

> My interests are currently focussed on

anti-masturbation

> literature (specifically, female masturbation),

particularly in nineteenth

> century Britain and North America.

My own impression, for what it's worth, is that you

will have a hard time finding very much British

material on this topic - compared to the torrent of

material on male self-abuse there seems to be very

little, possibly because there was not, or very

much less of, a commercial angle (i.e. by the 1880s

doctors were fulminating more about Evil

Money-Grubbing Quacks terrorising boys and young men

_more_ than about the actual dangers of onanism).

There is of course Baker Brown, but it's very dubious

whether BB can be taken as a typical figure. There are

occasional mentions (I think) in some social purity

tracts, but it would be interesting to see if these

originated from, or were influenced by, the N American

literature.

Lesley Hall

lesleyah@primex.co.uk

___________________________________________________________________From: "Pablo Ben" <benpablo@hotmail.com>

Subject: Re: [histsex] Introduction

Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2001 15:35:13 -0000

Dear Christina Matta.

I am interested in reading your work on hermaphroditism and the medical profession in nineteenth century North America. I wrote an article on this question in the same period, but in Argentina. I considered European and North American influences. If you are interested we could change our writings mutually.

___________________________________________________________________Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2001 18:16:25 +0100 (GMT Daylight Time)

Subject: Re: [histsex] Quick hello

From: E.Saxey@sussex.ac.uk (Esther Saxey)

Afternoon,

I wasn't sure if this was an "introduce yourself" list or a "lurk until inspired" one, but will

follow the example of Lawrence. I'm doing a PhD at Sussex, UK, on Coming Out novels and stories.

Have recently been looking into Buffy the Vampire Slayer and homoerotic fanfiction on the net,

which was infinite fun.

(Also, I'm helping with the organisation of the upcoming Sussex conference (see below - should be

excellent, still seeking papers).)

Looking forward to continuing on the list,

Esther Saxey

www.geocities.com/dangerousrepresentations

___________________________________________________________________

From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>

Subject: Re: [histsex] Introduction

Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2001 19:59:12 +0100

Clare Scrine wrote:

>There is a little in the British gynaecological material - often in =

relation to >the pros and cons of clitoridectomy, discussion of which =

continues long >after Baker Brown. For other possible references there =

is of course 'that >vibrator book' =20

Yes probably there would be _some_ discussion in gynae lit but v little =

compared to the medical discourse on male masturbation. And I suspect =

that it was fairly rare in social purity and similar literature on the =

grounds of not putting ideas into girls' heads, whereas the assumption =

with boys seems to be that they will come across it - via 'evil older =

men', 'corrupt companions' or even the quack lit - even if they don't =

discover it themselves. (The 'possible' references in 'that vibrator =

book' may be false leads, on the basis of one or two I followed up a =

while ago).

Lesley Hall

lesleyah@primex.co.uk

website http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah

___________________________________________________________________Tue, 03 Apr 2001 17:11:26 GMT

From: "clair scrine" <cscrine@hotmail.com>

Subject: Re: [histsex] Introduction

I too am interested in female masturbation as it relates to nymphomania - the primary subject matter of my doctoral thesis. There is a little in the British gynaecological material - often in relation to the pros and cons of clitoridectomy, discussion of which continues long after Baker Brown. For other possible references there is of course 'that vibrator book'

<DIV>Clair Scrine (Macquarie University, Sydney Australia)

___________________________________________________________________

From: "Pat Hawkins" <pat.hawkins@virgin.net>

Subject: Re: [histsex] Welcome to new members, etc

Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2001 15:45:25 +0100

Hello All,

I feel a bit of a fraud at joining this group as I am not researching the

history of sex in any formal way. However I am very interested in it as a

background to my teaching. I am Senior Lecturer for Sexual Health at Luton

University (UK) and I am the developer and course manager for our BA/BSC

programmes in Sexual Health. This is concerned with sexuality and disease

in contemporary society and the issues they raise for carers/managers and

educators.

The course is imultidisciplinary but at the moment I seem to have a mix of

nurses midwives and prison officers! Part of my remit is to challenge

existing attitudes towards sexuality so of course it is useful to know where

they came from!

Pat Hawkins

----- Original Message -----

From: "Histsex:For historians of sexuality" <histsex-owner@listbot.com>

To: "Histsex:For historians of sexuality" <histsex@listbot.com>

Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2001 10:31 PM

Subject: [histsex] Welcome to new members, etc

> Histsex:For historians of sexuality -

http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah/listinf.htm

>> --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor --------------------------

> Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb

> ----------------------------------------------------------------------

>> Welcome to the recent influx of new subscribers to the list. Some of you

> have already introduced yourselves, but I do invite those who have not to

> do so (and this includes list-members of longer standing who have not yet

> formally introduced themselves) by saying a little about themselves and

> their interests in the history of sexuality.

> Please could list-members, when responding to a previous posting, try to

> snip it? (This is something that comes up for me every time I start

> editing another archive file to go on the website.) And also, when

> changing the subject of discussion, change the subject-line? (we are all

> sinners on this one...)

> I also draw list-members' attention to the history of sexuality research

> register on my website

> http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah/hofsresr.htm - if you are

> interested in adding your name and information please contact me at

> lesleyah@primex.co.uk

>> Lesley

> histsex-owner@listbot.com

>>> ______________________________________________________________________

> To unsubscribe, write to histsex-unsubscribe@listbot.com

___________________________________________________________________Date: Thu, 05 Apr 2001 10:17:07 +0000

From: Dr Crozier <ucgacro@ucl.ac.uk>

Subject: Re: [histsex] Count Cajus

Dear All,

Another obscure question which I hope someone out there can answer.

Does anyone out there have any details of the trial of the homosexual man,

Count Cajus, described--in perhaps too much detail--by Johann Casper in his

_Handbook for the Practice of Forensic Medicine, Based Upon personal

Experience_ vol 3, English trans., c.1864? If so, please tell me more!

And for those who are not familiar with the case, check this out:

Case LXXXIII

This investigation which brought seven companions before me to be examined

for pµderastia, was novel and unheard-of in the annals of psychology and

criminal law. It concerned a whole company of men, from an old Count Cajus

at the top, down to the very lowest classes. Unheard-of, I may well say,

for who ever heard of a written diary containing a daily record of the

adventures, amours, and sensations of a Pµderastus, such as was seized when

Count Cajus was arrested.

Casper, vol 3, p. 337.

Cheerio, Ivan

Ivan Crozier,

i.crozier@ucl.ac.uk

'ignorance is the first requisite of the

historian--ignorance, which simplifies

and clarifies, which selects and omits,

with a placid perfection unobtainable by

the highest art.'

--Lytton Strachey

___________________________________________________________________From: Mal123nash@aol.com

Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 07:17:45 EDT

Subject: [histsex] Count Cajus

Hi,

Count Cajus is referred to in the major works by M. Hirschfeld and K.

Ulrichs; however, their source is J. Casper.

Michael (Lombardi-Nash)

http://www.angelfire.com/fl3/celebration2000

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs: First Gay Activist

http://www.angelfire.com/fl3/celebration2000/memory.html

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs: Memory Book 2000: A Festschrift

>>details of the trial of the homosexual man, Count Cajus, described by

Johann Casper<<

___________________________________________________________________

Date: Thu, 05 Apr 2001 15:08:11 +0100

From: Diane Mason <d.mason@bathspa.ac.uk>

Subject: Re: [histsex] Introduction

Liz,

I have written an essay on masturbation in fin de siecle popular medical advice books for

women which you might find interesting. The piece is called something like 'Un-like a

Virgin: Virginity and Masturbation in Fin de Siecle Medical Advice Literature for Women',

published in Nickianne Moody and Julia Hallam (eds), Medical Fictions (Liverpool: MCCA,

1998). The ISBN escapes me right now. If you have problems accessing the piece, if you let

me have your address I will send you a photocopy.

All the best with your research.

With best wishes,

Diane Mason

___________________________________________________________________

From: Mal123nash@aol.com

Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 10:46:56 EDT

Subject: [histsex] Hirschfeld & Ulrichs on Count Cajus

Hi Ivan,

In his "Homosexuality of Men and Women" (my trans.), Hirschfeld (taking

from Casper) mentions Cajus three times; (p. 530) : that Count Cajus assumed

that there was only one homosexual in 10,000; (p. 728): where C says he's an

aristocrat but sees his "brother" in the lowest class. "I have seen craftsmen

move freely in the homes of princes;" (p. 1063): C...was a high-ranking

aristocrat who captured much of Casper's interest. The detailed diaries of

this Urning, which named names along with all his experiences, had fallen

into the hands of the police. Even Friedrich Wilhelm IV had them placed

before him. The result of this was a lengthy criminal investigation, which

implicated many soldiers who long before had been discharged to their

families. The final outcome was a trial against Baron von Malzahn (Cajus) and

others, into which Casper was drawn as an authority.

In his "The Riddle of 'Man-Manly' Love" (my trans.), Ulrichs (taking

from Casper) also gives three references: (p. 76), that the threat of

imprisonment never deterred an Urning ("the same prison in which the

unfortunate Urning v. Malzahn [Cajus] wasted away and died a decade ago,

because he was condemned for Uranian love"); (p. 146): Casper's impressions

of the Cajus' diaries is given: "benumbing"; Ulrichs remarks that "all of

this may truly be 'numbing' to a Dioning"; (p. 150): Casper calling Cajus'

behavior "silly and feminine."

If you've read the English translation of Casper, I don't think any of

this will be news to you.

With best wishes,

Michael

http://www.angelfire.com/fl3/celebration2000

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs: First Gay Activist

http://www.angelfire.com/fl3/celebration2000/memory.html

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs: Memory Book 2000: A Festschrift

___________________________________________________________________Date: Thu, 05 Apr 2001 16:22:31 +0000

From: Dr Crozier <ucgacro@ucl.ac.uk>

Subject: Re: [histsex] Hirschfeld & Ulrichs on Count Cajus

Thanks Michael,

I wonder if there is any further knowledge about the case of Cajus out

there? It would certainly make for an interesting topic for a student, or

a paper.

As you saw, I got my knowledge of the case form the English trans. My

German is not too hot--it took me ages to read the 1852 paper which Casper

wrote--although it was very much worth it.

What are you planning to translate next now that MH is done? Something

whihc I think would sell would be a number of important early German

articles--Westphal, 1870; K-E, 1877; etc. I have further ideas on tis if

you are interested. But it would be like the English trans of Der

unterdrueke Sexus, from 1977. You know the collection?

I hope all is well.

Cheerio, Ivan

Ivan Crozier,

i.crozier@ucl.ac.uk

'ignorance is the first requisite of the

historian--ignorance, which simplifies

and clarifies, which selects and omits,

with a placid perfection unobtainable by

the highest art.'

--Lytton Strachey

___________________________________________________________________Date: Thu, 05 Apr 2001 16:27:59 +0000

From: Dr Crozier <ucgacro@ucl.ac.uk>

Subject: Re: [histsex] Hirschfeld & Ulrichs on Count Cajus

Sorry list: a personal email....

But, Cajus is nevertheless an interesting topic for a student essay!

ijc

Ivan Crozier,

i.crozier@ucl.ac.uk

'ignorance is the first requisite of the

historian--ignorance, which simplifies

and clarifies, which selects and omits,

with a placid perfection unobtainable by

the highest art.'

--Lytton Strachey

___________________________________________________________________Date: Thu, 05 Apr 2001 17:27:19 +0000

From: Dr Crozier <ucgacro@ucl.ac.uk>

Subject: Re: [histsex] Hermaphrodites

Another question, this time from a student.

Does anyone know of any easily accessible--published or on

line--autiobiographical writings frm hermaphrodites BETWEEN Herculine

Barbin and the post-1970s Intersex community? This is a big gap, but I am

finding it hard to find material for a student of mine, as she is looking

at hermaphrodite responses to the medicalisatin of intersex.

I hope that soemone has a site of interest, or a published account.

Cheerio, Ivan

Ivan Crozier,

i.crozier@ucl.ac.uk

'ignorance is the first requisite of the

historian--ignorance, which simplifies

and clarifies, which selects and omits,

with a placid perfection unobtainable by

the highest art.'

--Lytton Strachey

___________________________________________________________________From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>

Subject: [histsex] Fw: Victorian Male Friendship, American Style

Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 18:29:51 +0100

Of possible interest to list-members.

Lesley Hall

lesleyah@primex.co.uk

website http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah

-----Original Message-----

From: K. K. Collins <kkcoll@SIU.EDU>

To: VICTORIA@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU <VICTORIA@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU>

Date: 05 April 2001 15:00

Subject: Victorian Male Friendship, American Style

>List members may be interested in a current exhibition at New York's

>International Center of Photography entitled "Dear Friends: American

>Photographs of Men Together, 1840-1918." The web address is

> http://www.icp.org

>and a brief description of the exhibition, including one photograph from

>it, may be found by clicking on "Exhibitions." A book of the exhibition is

>also on sale; for details, click on "Museum Store."

>>Ken Collins

>Southern Illinois University Carbondale

>kkcoll@siu.edu

___________________________________________________________________From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>

Subject: [histsex] Fw: RVW: Grasso on Herbert, _Camouflage Isn't Only for Combat_

Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 23:17:12 +0100

Review which may be of interest

Lesley Hall

lesleyah@primex.co.uk

website http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah

>H-NET BOOK REVIEW

>Published by H-Minerva@h-net.msu.edu (April, 2001)

>>Melissa S. Herbert. _Camouflage Isn't Only for Combat: Gender,

>Sexuality, and Women in the Military_. New York and London: New York

>University Press, 1998. ix + 205 pp. Appendix, notes, bibliography,

>and index. $50.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-8147-3547-9; $19.00 (paper), ISBN

>0-8147-3548-7.

>>Reviewed for H-Minerva by Gioia Grasso

><gioiac@crl102.crrel.usace.army.mil>, Independent scholar

>>Military Women Battle Gender Bias

>>In her book, _Camouflage Isn't Only for Combat: Gender, Sexuality,

>and Women in the Military_, Melissa S. Herbert provides an excellent

>overview and analysis of a problem encountered by many (if not most)

>women serving in the military today. Herbert, who served in the

>military and who now is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Hamline

>University in Minnesota, presents a carefully considered examination

>of the oftimes burdensome role of gender in society, specifically in

>the military society.

>>Herbert begins her book with a concise history of how women in the

>military have been perceived from the 1940s until the present. She

>poses the question, "Can one truly be a soldier and a woman and not

>be viewed as deviating either from what it means to be a soldier or

>from what it means to be a women?" (p. 10). The question is

>pertinent, because as Herbert exemplifies, "The military continues

>to see femininity as something to be denied or, at the very least,

>controlled." (p. 45) Herbert acknowledges that "thousands of

>women...have served admirably and have won the respect of their male

>coworkers, peers and supervisors...," but maintains that "women as a

>group are viewed as second class and are subordinated by the men of

>the military" (p. 122).

>>Herbert based her research on personal observation and a

>comprehensive survey of nearly three hundred female military members

>and veterans. Throughout her book, she cites the difficulty of women

>attempting to maintain femininity while simultaneously being

>perceived as competent. "[Women] must strike a balance between

>femininity and masculinity in which they are feminine enough to be

>perceived as women, specifically heterosexual women, yet masculine

>enough to be perceived as capable of soldiering" (p. 82). Herbert

>quotes a former Navy lieutenant: "One of the hardest parts of being

>a military woman is just the constant scrutiny and criticism. Act

>"too masculine" and you're accused of being a dyke; act "too

>feminine" and you're either accused of sleeping around, or you're

>not serious..." (p. 112).

>>Herbert describes the behaviors that military women frequently adopt

>to improve their chances for acceptance within the system. Gender,

>she posits, is "something that we do, rather than simply something

>that we may be." (p. 102) "Many of the women in this study

>indicated that they felt pressure to act more feminine or more

>masculine than they would have otherwise. Even more women noted

>that there were penalties for women who were perceived as too

>feminine or too masculine. Regardless of whether women are feminine

>or masculine, the potential penalty is discharge. If women are

>aggressive, they are [assumed to be] lesbians; if women are not

>aggressive enough, they may be viewed as incapable of leading troops

>and may receive poor evaluation reviews. In either case, the

>ultimate penalty can be discharge" (p. 120).

>>Professor Herbert's book is the most articulate analysis of gender

>and sexuality in the military that I have read. I find it

>interesting that her observations have proven to be most timely.

>During the week that I wrote this review, the _Detroit News_ (March

>26, 2001) ran an article titled "Will Rumsfeld Defend Gays in the

>Military?" The article cited this information from a

>Servicemember's Legal Defense Network report: "Lesbian-baiting:

>Women continue to be accused of being gay at a disproportionately

>high rate. They were 24 percent of SLDN's cases, but are only 14

>percent of the active forces."

>>This book is well written and, for the most part, well edited. (I

>did find several minor typos and an incorrectly cited reference).

>The book is nicely designed, with an easy-on-the-eyes typeface. The

>author's research is impressive; there is an extensive bibliography.

>A sample survey and a detailed description of the author's

>methodology are included.

>>This book, I believe, would be of especial interest to any woman who

>has served in the military since the abolishment of the draft in

>1973. (Before that, as the author notes, "women served in a more

>auxiliary fashion" and were not as likely to have had the same types

>of military experiences as women who have served since that time). I

>served in the military from 1973 through 1983, and there was nothing

>in Herbert's book that I didn't observe or experience firsthand.

> may be copied for non-profit educational use if proper credit

> is given to the author and the list. For other permission,

> please contact H-Net@H-Net.MSU.EDU.

___________________________________________________________________Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 10:21:29 +0200 (MET DST)

From: <a2534304@Smail.Uni-Koeln.de>

Subject: [histsex] Fw: CFP: Shaw and Sex (12/?/01; journal)

The following CFP is perhaps of interest to the list members.

Stefan Blaschke.

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Date: Sat, 7 Apr 2001 13:27:31 -0400

From: Colleen Franklin <cmfrank@uottawa.ca>

To: cfp@dept.english.upenn.edu

Subject: CFP: Shaw and Sex (12/?/01; journal)

The editorial board seeks article-length manuscripts for future volumes of

SHAW. SHAW 21 and 22 will be general volumes open to articles on any subject

related to the life, times, and works of G. Bernard Shaw. SHAW 23,

guest-edited by Michel W. Pharand, will have as its theme, "Shaw and Sex,"

broadly interpreted. The volume will include aspects of Shaw's writings as

they relate to sexuality, desire, love, marriage, and the nature of passion,

exploding the cliche of an asexual Shaw whose works are devoid of passion.

Contributors may wish to focus on such themes as Shaw's handling of

prostitution (of mind, body, and soul), sexual celibates as confirmed

bachelors and asexual women, predators and libertines, the relationship

between marriage and money, etc. Aspects of "sex" might include but need not

be limited to homosexual or lesbian desire, love triangles, adultery,

seduction, romance, and the language of lust and passion, in puns, double

entendres, allusions, and metaphors, in Shaw's works.

Contributors should submit manuscripts in three copies by December 2001 to

Gale K. Larson, SHAW Editor, Department of English, California State

University, Northridge, CA 91330. Contributors should follow the MLA Style

Sheet format (referring to recent SHAW volumes is advisable), indicate the

format and program used on the disk copy, and include postage for return of

material. Inquiries should be directed to galelarson@prodigy.net.

===============================================

From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List

CFP@english.upenn.edu

Full Information at

http://www.english.upenn.edu/CFP/

or write Erika Lin: elin@english.upenn.edu

===============================================

___________________________________________________________________From: "Quoth the Bug" <bug@interact.net.au>

Subject: Re: [histsex] Introducing myself. Eep!

Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 10:32:09 +1000

The verification e-mail thing said I should say something about myself =

and why I subscribed.

The list was suggested to me by someone already subscribed because she =

thought it might be useful for my English Honours thesis. In theory, =

I'm going to look at early Gothic literature (Radcliffe's Mysteries of =

Udolpho, Lewis' The Monk, etc) as constructed SM fantasies. Nothing =

very new. But I was trying to avoid the judgemental Freudian analyses =

I've read and look at them in regards to experiences of practitioners =

today - Gothic sentiments seemed to echo very nicely comments in works =

such as Moser and Madeson's Bound to be Free and Brame, Brame and =

Jacobs' Different Loving, etc.

Basically I just want to see Gothic heroines as people playing and =

shaping their game rather than passive victims or subversive survivors =

who rebelled against their male oppressors through their only available =

weapon of submission.

So that's me.

___________________________________________________________________

From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>

Subject: [histsex] CFP conference 'The Feminist 70s'

Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 19:05:03 +0100

If you are interested, please contact the organisers, NOT me!

The Centre for WomenÆs Studies (University of York) invites you to a one

day interdisciplinary conference

The

Remembered Lived Mythic Politicised Forgotten

Nostalgic

Desired Ironic Gendered Rewritten Imagined

Seventies

27 April 2002

We seek papers, workshops and other presentations that address questions

about æthe seventiesÆ, that long decade around the 1970s. While the

conference will focus particularly on UK and wider European experiences, we

also welcome contributions from further afield. What were the feminist

seventies? What happened? What was achieved? What was the spirit of the

WomenÆs Liberation Movement? How did class, sexuality, race and dis/ability

mediate womenÆs relationship to ideas of liberation? Was there a provincial,

as distinct from a metropolitan, experience? How did the WLM touch womenÆs

lives? What did it mean to be a woman living at the time but not involved?

What impact did notions of empowerment and consciousness-raising have on

womenÆs lives? How were television, film and fiction negotiating with WLM

ideas? What was the political environment? How did social trends change?

What kind of pressures did different women have to face? What sorts of

popular culture sum up the seventies zeitgeist?

One strong theme will be a concern with the legacies of æthe seventiesÆ. How

can the seventies be re-read? What role does æthe seventiesÆ play in

contemporary feminist identities? Who has access to the feminist seventies

myth? Is experience privileged? How do older feminists engage with æthe

seventiesÆ? How do women who identified as feminists later in life relate to

æthe seventiesÆ? How do younger feminists relate to æthe seventiesÆ? What

does æthe seventiesÆ mean in the context of third wave feminism? What does

æthe seventiesÆ mean to WomenÆs Studies? Can æthe seventiesÆ offer any way

forward for the future of feminism?

Send abstracts of 300 words by 30 October 2001 to:

Seventies Conference (abstracts), Centre for WomenÆs Studies, University of

York, YORK, YO10 5DD

email: hcg101@york.ac.uk.

Contributions welcome from everyone who would like an opportunity for their

work

on æthe seventiesÆ to be opened up, challenged and developed. If you would

like to discuss an idea for a presentation before submitting an abstract,

please contact us at the above address.

Lesley Hall

lesleyah@primex.co.uk

website http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah

___________________________________________________________________From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>

Subject: [histsex] Fw: Permissive Society Conference

Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 19:07:04 +0100

Probably already known to a number of list members...

Lesley Hall

lesleyah@primex.co.uk

website http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah

>The Permissive Society and Its Enemies

>>Full Conference Programme Out, On-Line Registration Now Available -

><<http://www.icbh.ac.uk/icbh>>

>>This conference will bring together contemporary historians and researchers

>in

>related fields to consider the impact of the 1960s on British society,

>culture,

>politics and intellectual debate.

>>Organised by the Institute of Contemporary British History (a research

>department of the University of London's Institute of Historical Research),

>we

>will meet in the School of Advanced Study at Senate House. The main

sessions

>>will be from 9-11th July and on the 12th we will host a witness seminar on

>the

>1967 Abortion Act.

>>You can find the conference programme, a complete set of abstracts and an

>on-line registration from <<http://www.icbh.ac.uk/icbh>>.

>>More information is available from achishol@icbh.ac.uk

>>Lecture and paper givers include: Virginia Berridge, David Cannadine, Colin

>Campbell, Hera Cook, Brian Girvin, Lesley Hall, Arthur Marwick, Frank Mort,

>Alison Oram, Gail Savage, and Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska.

___________________________________________________________________Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 15:39:51 -0700 (PDT)

From: "A. G. McLaren" <amclaren@UVic.CA>

Subject: Re: [histsex] Abortion and 'The Feminist 70s'

Dear List Members,

In 1971 Nouvel Observateur published the names of prominent French women

who had had abortions; in 1972 the first issue of Ms. Magazine had a

similar list of American women. Does anyone know if there was

a similar "coming out" of British women in any publication around the

same time?

Angus McLaren

___________________________________________________________________

Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 15:02:38 +0100 (GMT)

From: "Marcus. Collins" <Marcus.Collins@newcastle.ac.uk>

Subject: Re: [histsex] Abortion and 'The Feminist 70s'

Dear Professor McLaren,

I'm afraid this doesn't answer your question, but may in any case be of

interest. I've come across a couple of public admissions of abortions

prior to 1967. The first is by Ann Quin in Nell Dunn's Talking to Women

(1965). The second is by Diana Dors in her autobiography Swingin' Dors

(1960), where she attributes her two abortions to having been 'weak and

under [her] husband's influence' (p. 139).

Hope this helps.

Best,

Marcus Collins

marcus.collins@ncl.ac.uk

___________________________________________________________________From: Lesley Hall <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>

Subject: Re: [histsex] Abortion and 'The Feminist 70s'

Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 15:32:45 GMT

Dear Angus

It's rather a long time since I was cataloguing the

ALRA archives, but I don't recall any public statement

in the UK of an equivalent kind. The two public

statements in France and the USA were both, of course,

several years later than the 1967 David Steel Abortion

Act. When that was actually going through parliament

there was not the same resurgence of feminism taking

place, though I would not be surprised to see some

personal testimonies appearing in press articles

around that time. Many women journalists were strongly

in favour, and there may even have been letters to the

press. But I think what women would have been writing

about was having semi-legal but expensive

'Harley-Street' abortions - i.e. to an extent exposing

the inequity and anomalies of the law as it stood,

rather than confessing to a criminal act - in fact the

actual aborting woman was not considered an offender

under the Offences Against the Person Act of 1861 in

UK law, as I understand it. Social stigma would have

been something else again, however.

An early semi-public revelation of having had an

abortion was Stella Browne's testimony to the Birkett

Committee in 1937 that she had 'the knowledge in my

own person' that abortion was not necessarily lethal

or even deleterious. But you probably know about this

already!

Lesley Hall

lesleyah@primex.co.uk

___________________________________________________________________Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 19:27:10 +0100

From: Hera Cook <hera.cook@btinternet.com>

Subject: Re: [histsex] Abortion and 'The Feminist 70s'

As far as I am aware there was no declaration of that kind in this country until the early

1990s when there was an advertisement signed by a group of well-known women in response to

yet another attempt to limit the law. Perhaps another list member may remember exactly when

this was published.

Regards,

Hera

___________________________________________________________________Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 21:14:22 +1000

From: Geoff Coxon <Paginus@alphalink.com.au>

Subject: [histsex] Help with st georges poorhouse and Caoline baum

Can any lister shed some light on the St. George's Poorhouse that was

situated where hanover square is situated until 1871 and a woman called

caroline baum who was a well known brothel keeper in Australia from at

least 1876 to her death in 1908 she was known as madame brussels and

operated a brothel in Lonsdale Street melbourne under that name.

I believe that she was born Caroline Baum in Potsdam Germany in 1857 and

married a Studholme George Hodgson at St. George's Hanover square in

March 1871 and left for Melbourne Australia not long afterwards. Are

there any accessible records for this poor house or records of

immigrants from Prussia to England in the 1870's.

I know there was a large trade in young girls to and from the continent

in this period ( an d there probably still is) are there any records of

this movement as i wish to ascertain how caroline Baum came to be in

England in 1871 and was she a part of this trade?

Geoff Coxon

Victoria University of Technology

Footscray park campus

Paginus@alphalink.com.au

___________________________________________________________________From: Lesley Hall <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>

Subject: Re: [histsex] Help with st georges poorhouse and Caoline baum

Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 11:43:28 GMT

> > Can any lister shed some light on the St. George's Poorhouse that was

> situated where hanover square is situated until 1871 and a woman called

> caroline baum who was a well known brothel keeper in Australia from at

> least 1876 to her death in 1908 she was known as madame brussels and

> operated a brothel in Lonsdale Street melbourne under that name.

Can't help specifically with Caroline Baum, but the records of St George's Hanover Square

poor law

administration can be found at Westminster City Archives (I discovered this by a quick

search on

the relevant entry in the Wellcome Library Medical Archives and Manuscripts Survey,

www.wellcome.ac.uk/mams, which I take this opportunity to announce to the list). Up to

date contact details for this repository, which I do not have immediately to hand, can be

found via

ARCHON at the Historical Manuscripts Commission, www.hmc.gov.uk

Lesley Hall

lesleyah@primex.co.uk

___________________________________________________________________From: "Philip Stokes" <philip.stokes@btinternet.com>

Subject: Re: [histsex] Introducing myself. Eep!

Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 15:03:29 +0100

Maybe you know Marie Mulvey-Roberts of Bristol? She's done a lot on the =

Gothic in general, and has researched and written on Lady Lytton [of =

Knebworth]; also editing The Handbook to Gothic Literature.

Regards,

Philip Stokes

philip.stokes@btinternet.com

___________________________________________________________________Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 10:40:03 -0400

From: Harold Averill <harold.averill@utoronto.ca>

Subject: [histsex] Introduction

In response to the request that newcomers to the website introduce

themselves, here goes:

I am an archivist by profession, and have been a long-time volunteer

with the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives in Toronto. I am

particularly interested in the acquisition of personal and

organizational records relating to gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and

transgenders and in making them available to the public according to

standard archival procedures. I do this both at the University of

Toronto Archives, where I work, and at the CLGA. I am also interested

in basic information about such individuals, which I regularly dowload

from this website and place in the vertical files at the CLGA.

Harold Averill

___________________________________________________________________

From: "Rictor Norton" <norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk>

Subject: Re: [histsex] Introducing myself. Eep!

Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 16:04:16 +0100

A major purpose of my biography of Anne Radcliffe (Mistress of Udolpho) =

was to situate her firmly in the Wollstonecraft school of radical =

dissent. There is a detailed synopsis of the biography at my website:

http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/radcliff.htm

The Mysteries of Udolpho has many elements of paranoia, but for =

sadomastochistic themes I'd also look specifically at her other fine =

novel, The Italian. The male protagonist of each novel is more or less =

castrated by the heroine. For example, in The Mysteries of Udolpho =

Emily's gardener accidentlaly shoots her lover Valancourt, who reappears =

with his arm in a sling, having been punished for his infidelity to =

Emily by symbolic castration. And in The Italian, Vivaldi spends much of =

his time in the chambers of the Inquisition with his head covered by a =

hood, a classic symbol of castration. There are also many suggestions of =

torture in the novel. Several readers of Radcliffe have noticed that her =

heroines finally marry the heroes only after the latter have been =

stripped of their masculinity. This might suggest an underlying lesbian =

impulse, and I believe that sadomasochism is usually treated by =

psychoanalysts as a consequence of displaced/suppressed homosexuality =

(which in this case would be female homosexuality). The sadomasochistic =

themes of Lewis's The Monk are of course more obviously connected to the =

author's homosexuality.

Rictor Norton, London

mailto:norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk

___________________________________________________________________From: "Donna Larsen" <ladydonna85@hotmail.com>

Subject: Re: [histsex] Introduction

Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 17:46:55

What is the education requirements to be an archivist. I find the idea of

such a profession interesting.

To all on this list;

I am personally interested in someday employed doing education and research

of Human Sexuality as a behavior. I am an idealist who is interested in

teaching people how to be tolerant and celebrate our idividual differences

in how we express ourselves sexually. One of my problems is that I have not

figured out which social science I want to approach this from. I like them

all, though I have not yet had experience with Anthropology. Can anyone

here give me pros and cons into the different social sciences in connection

to what I want to do. If anyone needs me to be anymore specific, feel free

to answer questions that will help in this exploration.

___________________________________________________________________From: "Dannielle Orr" <dorr@central.murdoch.edu.au>

Subject: re: [histsex] new subscriber

Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 17:03:22 +0800

My name is Dannielle Orr. I am a PhD student in Women's Studies at =

Murdoch University in Australia. My topic is Anne Lister, an early =

nineteenth century Englishwoman who wrote voluminous journals about her =

life and radically different sexuality. I have been working on this =

topic for several years now, having done my Honour's thesis on her as =

well. I am still fascinated by her and her life, and am interested in =

analysing her documents within a lesbian history project. I am very keen =

to hear from anyone with similar enthusiasms!

Regards,

Dannielle Orr

-------------------------------------------------------------------------=

-------------------

Dannielle Orr

Women's Studies

Murdoch University

Perth, Western Australia

___________________________________________________________________Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2001 19:46:58 +0100

From: Hera Cook <hera.cook@btinternet.com>

Subject: Re: [histsex] the legality of Abortion in Britain

Hi,

The legal position on abortion in Britain before 1967 was that the aborting woman was

definitely legally culpable. Here is a description of the law as it stood in 1940, followed

by some comments from a medico-legal text book published in 1966 just before the Abortion Act

of 1967.

"The penalities prescribed in the 1861 Act were modified by the Statute Law Revision Act of

1893 and the Penal Servitude Act of 1891, and at present they are: Penal Servitude for life

or not less than 3 years, or imprisonment with or without hard labour for not more than 2

[p.427] years for any woman attempting to procure her own abortion or for anyone attempting

an abortion on a woman; penal servitude for not more than 2 years for any one unlawfully

supplying any commodity, &c., which he knows will be used for attempting to procure an

abortion. The 1861 Act made it - for the first time - a statutory offence for a woman to

attempt to procure her own abortion, but according to this Act the attempt is punishable only

if the woman is pregnant. However it has been decided that if she is not pregnant, the woman

can be prosecuted for attempting to procure abortion." 427-8;

>From David Victor Glass. Population policies and movements in Europe, Oxford:Oxford

University Press, 1940. (he also summarises arguments about the prevalence of abortion during

the interwar period earlier in the book)

In 1966, Bernard Dickinson devoted 5 pages to the "considerable confusion of legal and

medico-legal textbooks on the law" pp.96-100. He is clear that many doctors did not consider

abortion legal and would not undertake them.

Bernard M. Dickens. Abortion and the law, London:MacGibbon & Kee, 1966.

Some quotes follow which indicate why this was the case in relation to 'therapeutic

abortion', ie wher the mother's life was not in danger.

Take for example, "a woman of slightly below average health, when the danger to her

well-being arises from having to nurse and rear a child. Even where she already has a large

family and has perhaps been advised by her doctor to avoid another pregnancy, should she

conceive again she would probably fall outside the scope of the Bourne case which is limited

to pathological indications, and would regard social indications as too remote...."p.46.

The "threat of suicide may provide indication " (note only may), serious deformity or other

threat to child not grounds e.g. thalidomide pp48-49.

The case of R. v. Bergmann and Ferguson established that - "the criterion of legality and

illegality is not the mother's state per se, but the doctor's genuine belief as to her

condition and the consequences of the continuation of the pregnancy upon the mother, as

interpreted by the doctor in good faith." p.50 and see also 95.

Abortion was also always illegal if it was not undertaken by a doctor. I'd greatly appreciate

any comments from anyone who feels I have misread these texts as I know Lesley feels that

abortion was semi-legal whereas I think that overstates the degree of leniency.

regards,

Hera

___________________________________________________________________From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>

Subject: Re: [histsex] the legality of Abortion in Britain

Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2001 21:26:42 +0100

Hi Hera:

I'm looking for my copy of Brookes on _Abortion in England_, which I can't

immediately locate, which is where I got the information that the aborting

woman was not, or at least very seldom (possibly after a short period in the

mid-C19th), prosecuted under British law. There is/was a difference between

the laws on the books and what was actually prosecuted (and the ways crimes

were actually presented in court, of which infanticide in the C19th is a

particularly good example). As with infanticide, i.e. very difficult to

prove deliberate intent rather than something 'naturally' going wrong, if a

woman procured her own abortion and presented at a hospital miscarrying it

would very infrequently have been possible to determine whether she had

induced it or whether it was natural. Even with intervention from an

abortionist, if she _subsequently_ was taken to hospital and claimed it was

a natural miscarriage, hard to prove to the contrary.

What's needed is perhaps more studies of actual cases in the courts and

what was the process by which abortionists were brought into the

judicial process - e.g. were police provocateurs involved or maybe obtaining

statements from women in extremis? Were there particular individuals whom

the police had an eye on?

I suspect that one of the major disadvantages of abortions in this legal

situation was that the woman would often be hustled out and made to go home

before she started miscarrying on the premises, rather than being under

observation for the duration.

Re doctors - I can well believe that there was enormous confusion as to

what might be legal (some doctors even after 1930 were claiming that it was

illegal to give birth control advice!), or might get the individual dr in

dodgy territory vis a vis the General Medical Council if not the Law.

However, literary and autobiographical anecdotal type evidence suggests that

throughout the interwar period and after (i.e. even pre-Bourne), _some_

doctors were routinely performing abortions for private patients. Under

antiseptic conditions and providing the practitioner had a reasonable degree

of skill, this would have been a relatively safe operation.

And Bourne, modified by the Bergmann/Ferguson judgement, did provide for

the doctor's 'good faith' medical opinion that a pregnancy should be

terminated. I have spoken to doctors who believed that the 1967 Act was

unnecessary because doctors had this clinical discretion (similar arguments

are sometimes made re euthanasia - that drs would 'ease the passing').

However, I'll try and check this all in medical forensic textbooks when

I get back to the Wellcome on Tues. (and see if I can locate Brookes)

Lesley Hall

lesleyah@primex.co.uk

website http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah

___________________________________________________________________From: "Brian Dempsey" <editor@scolag.org.uk>

Subject: RE: [histsex] the legality of Abortion in Britain

Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2001 20:52:34 +0100

Is it really the case that abortion law was and is uniform throughout

Britain (Hera Cook) or the UK (Lesley Hall)? Is this not a case of the

English assuming that their law applies regardless of the facts? England is

not the UK, despite what English nationalists would have us believe, just as

America is not the world as American nationalists "think". Seems you can't

always believe what you read.

Brian

___________________________________________________________________From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>

Subject: Re: [histsex] the legality of Abortion in Britain

Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2001 22:18:31 +0100

Re Brian's point about 'Britain' in this formulation:

You are quite correct. Abortion law is not uniform throughout the UK. Hera

and I are, I suppose, actually discussing England and Wales - the situation

in Scotland was different. Dugald Baird was doing legal social abortions in

Aberdeen in the 1930s, for example, but how far that would generalise to

anywhere else in Scotland, even in view of its different legal system, I'm

not sure. I also have a feeling that it's only recently that the '67 act was

extended to Northern Ireland. I'd also add that the actual implementation of

the 1967 Act is by no means uniform even _within_ England as of now (e.g. to

what extent 'social clause' operations are done within different Health

Authorities). Besides regional differences I suspect that there may have

been variations over time in the intensity of policing of illegal abortion.

I'm also - and I think this is where my difference with Hera arise -

inclined to think that private nursing homes where there were patients

paying ú100+ were not subject to very close scrutiny by the police, or

indeed anyone else (e.g. during the 1930s they actually had a worse record

on maternal mortality than home deliveries by midwives among the working

classes).

Lesley Hall

lesleyah@primex.co.uk

website http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah

___________________________________________________________________Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 09:45:49 -0700 (PDT)

From: "A. G. McLaren" <amclaren@UVic.CA>

Subject: [histsex] abortion

Thanks to Lesley, Hera and Marcus for the information on abortion in the

U.K.

Angus McLaren

___________________________________________________________________From: Mal123nash@aol.com

Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 09:39:38 EDT

Subject: [histsex] Munich: K.H.Ulrichs Plaza Third Anniversary

April 18 marks the third anniversary of Karl-Heinrich-Ulrichs-Platz in

Munich, Germany. Ulrichs is the first known Gay rights activist.

If anyone will be in Munich, take time to visit the square that honors

Ulrichs. Order a delicious original Bavarian brew (there's a bar in the

square) and toast the man who began it all by being the first to publicly

demand Gay rights -- in 1867.

Michael in Jacksonville

http://www.angelfire.com/fl3/celebration2000

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs: First Gay Activist

http://www.angelfire.com/fl3/celebration2000/memory.html

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs: Memory Book 2000: A Festschrift

http://www.angelfire.com/fl3/uraniamanuscripts

Urania Manuscripts: Gay History in Translation

___________________________________________________________________From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>

Subject: Re: [histsex] the legality of Abortion in England

Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 21:45:56 +0100

Well, I've done a bit of research and frankly the whole topic seems as

debatable as ever. Hordern, in _Legal abortion : the English experience_

1971 describes the pre 67 situation as there being 4 types of abortion (he

doesn't seem to count self-induced): 'back street', 'illegal' (qualified

doctors who did not go through all the hoops of second opinions), 'legal'

(and I wouldn't go this far with him) by which he means abortions done

privately in nursing homes with the second opinion that it was necessary for

the woman's physical/mental health, for money, and finally NHS abortions

(there were some being done pre the Steel Act on therapeutic grounds, though

I bet this varied widely by region).

Forensic medical textbooks seem to be concerned largely with doctors

covering their own backs - making sure they have a second opinion (even

pre-Bourne) before undertaking a therapeutic abortion, getting someone to

consult (even in a pinch a respectable nurse or midwife) if they find

themselves dealing with a woman who has procured an abortion elsewhere (in

case they themselves get accused) - but also indicate that doctors were not

obliged to reveal anything they had discovered in the context of a

confidential clinical encounter (i.e. they could refuse to talk to the

police). Also comments that natural miscarriages frequent enough that it

could be hard to say whether an abortion is spontaneous or induced.

I wouldn't entirely concur with Hordern's statement that all 'Harley St'

type abortions were strictly legal - I would guess that in many cases

corners were cut and there was not the lack of connection between the

certifying psychiatrist and the gynaecologist performing the actual

abortions which was supposed to exist. I suspect that the situation was

ambivalent enough that even doctors who conscientiously adhered to the

letter of the law might feel the odd nervous qualm. A similar situation to

censorship perhaps - sudden crackdowns and inconsistencies in the

application of the law.

Brookes's chapter on abortion and the law in _Abortion in England

1900-1967_ is very useful and gives a reasonable number of sample cases,

including doctors. However she also indicates that given the no of illegal

abortions taking place relatively speaking only a handful of abortionists

ever got prosecuted. Further research might indicate what were the

situations in which medically-qualified abortionists came to the attention

of the law, and if they were in some way marginal figures (women,

immigrants, etc) who were outside the mainstream of the profession and also,

perhaps, subject to more temptation (because of difficulties in establishing

themselves professionally, gender sympathy, or whatever). Was it only when a

patient died or was rushed to hospital with serious haemorrhaging? Or was

there more pro-active policing?

An interesting dissertation topic for someone.

Lesley Hall

lesleyah@primex.co.uk

website http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah

___________________________________________________________________From: "Pablo Ben" <benpablo@hotmail.com>

Subject: Re: [histsex] the legality of Abortion in England

Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 06:15:59 -0000

I am really surprised at the discussions about abortion. I live in Argentina and here it is forbidden by law. The situation is quite terrible and the mail I am sending now is an ilegal act as having an opinion positive to the legality of abortion is also ilegal. Some people has been publicly acused for defending the possibility of abortion in the media. In fact all the texts with massive circulation are against abortion, it is ilegal to write a book on abortion defending it.It would be called "Apology of Crime". So I am a criminal apologist.

To my knowledge there hasnt been never an important group in politics defending legal abortion. There has no been much fight about this subject, in my opinion. The actual activist on the subject nowadays in Buenos Aires, a city with 13 million, people is not more than forty, to be exagerated.

The thing that impacts me more is that Lesley Hall talks about certain flexibility in the law, or attempts to go beyond prohibition, and this is before 1967. I dont see this tendency not even now in Buenos Aires. There are plenty of abortions here, there are statistics and recently a woman physician wrote a master thesis in public health in which she investigates the amount of abortions. But they are all ilegal and there is a considerable number of women dying every year for risky and selfpracticed abortions. This is a result of a combination between the incredible cost of an abortion and the growing marginality and poorness.

An abortion (illegal) can cost from U$ 300 to U$ 1000, depending on the place it is done. The one at 300 is not very convenient except that you know it is a place in which other people had a good treatment. The ones at 1000 are the better ones, and women who are scarce of money but can pay for it making a strong effort preffer the ones with higher prices.

To give you an idea of the cost of this in relation to salaries, I will say that an average teacher in a primary school earns U$ 400 monthly for twenty ours of work at a week. The person who charges you the money of the products you buy in a supermarket earns no more than U$ 300 monthly for working between eight and twelve hours a day. A bank cleark earns around U$ 800 monthly. A driver working 8 hours a day in a bus earns around U$ 900 monthly.

The vast majority of the population does not have the money for an abortion and they have to ask for money to a lot of people stablishing a compromise to give it back later. Some of the people you ask for money you can tell them the reason, others you dont even imagine to do it.

Some years ago I saw an advertisment at the University, it was not very common to see that kind of things as social sciences in the University of Buenos Aires is a place more open to accept legal abortion. But it wouldnt be strange to see it in the rest of the city. The advertissement was done by the Catholic Church and it said somewhat like: "They are allways desappeared persons". The message of the advertissement was very easy to understand for any person living in Buenos Aires: They were comparing aborted fetuses with the 30.000 people killed by the last dictatorship to stop radical and leftist activism in the thirties. So it meant than a woman aborting had the same place than a militar man killing a left wing unionist or activist.

During the last militar government, between 1976 and 1983 a law was stablished that not only penalized abortion but also any kind of information on contraception could not be offered in public institutions, though private institutions were not forbidden to distribute information on contraception. This meant a double standard depending on the class in which the woman is situated.

In the last three years a number of laws have been passed at some provinces that accept as legal the information and some prevention in public hospitals. This meant a situation a little better from the one the dictatorship has stablished and the democratic governments had tolerated till 1999.

Two years ago there were elections to governor to the province of Buenos Aires. There were two main candidates, a woman called Fernandez Meijide who was in the opposition to the oficial peronist party and the oficial candidate by that party. Fernandez Meijide had defended and contributed to pass the laws I told in the other paragraph, and was acussed by that publicly three days before the elections. Fernandez Meijide who has very reformist conceptions in this and other points felt compelled to say publicly she was against abortion. Anyway she lost the elections.

Probably her position on abortion was not the key to understand her impossibility to be elected, but it is quite significant that the vast majority of the population voted against her although many of the women who took this decision comited abortion, and the same could be said about men whose women couple, friends, or relatives, had abortions.

I dont think people is not massively against abortion, and in fact there is probably a wide popular feeling positive to legalization. Anyway the question is silenced and people does not consider this a political thing important to be fought for. I dont think people in the elections I comented voted against abortion, what happened is that they didnt pay many attention to this feature in the political agenda. They were thinking in the way to go out of the economical crisis, or about other things considered relevant

Pablo Ben

___________________________________________________________________Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 10:01:41 +0100

From: Hera Cook <hera.cook@btinternet.com>

Subject: Re: [histsex] the legality of Abortion in Britain

Hi,

First there are two perspectives - that of women and that of doctors. If you recall what I

posted about the law - the woman was liable to prosecution and this most definitely included

self-induced abortion. It was just hard to get evidence and doctors who attended a woman when

things went wrong usually did not wish to add to her problems by informing the police. But

the testimony by women is unequivocal - they take it for granted they were doing something

illegal and they had to behave in a clandestine manner. This meant they had little control

over the service they received.

They were often, though certainly not always, scared.

(This has a good account of a terrified girl - Clive James. Falling towards England:

Unreliable memoirs II, London:Jonathon Cape, 1985).

I don't know what the legal situation in Scotland was but it cannot have been very different

or women would have been going to Gretna Green for abortions.

(for non-English historians and those who never read historical romances - the Scottish law

regarding marriage was different for minors and young women, often heiresses, would elope to

Gretna Green, which was just inside the Scottish border to get married).

The difference in practice in Aberdeen (a city in Scotland) can be explained differently.

Dugald Baird pushed the regulations allowing for local authorities to provide contraceptive

advice (in his instance through hospitals) to the limit in a period when most local

authorities were very timid. He was doing the same with abortion. In other areas many women

who could have been granted abortions on medical grounds could not find doctors willing to

perform the operation - especially, of course, working class women who could not pay. In

Aberdeen those women all got abortions because the policy was to provide them. This was a

strongly eugenic policy by the way. Aside from my comment on sterlisations below I have seen

nothing that indicates it was pushed onto women - but further investigation is needed

(definitely a dissertation or even thesis topic here because it covers a longish period and

the evolution of eugenic ideas would be revealed).

There were clinics elsewhere in Britain which did some abortions on medical indications as

was allowed by the law prior to the Bourne case, which was about therapeutic indications not

medical ones.

The following information is from Geoffrey Chamberlain and A. Susan Williams. Antenatal care

in South Wales 1934-1962. Social History of Medicine 8.3, 1995. This article is based on

sampling medical records from an ante-natal clinic in South Wales from 1934 to 1962.

Ten women in the sample were recommended to have a termination of pregnancy, all before the

Abortion Act of 1968.The recommendation for four of the women also predated the test case in

1938 of Dr Aleck Bourne. The authors say:

'By todays standards, the indications for these women to have an abortion seems outstanding.

One woman was in her:

"Thirteenth pregnancy. Hypertension and suicidal depression. Hysterotomy and sterilisation as

soon as possible." '

All four case notes given include hysterectomy and sterilisation.

According to my notes from medical journal articles - all of Dugald Baird's abortions in

Scotland would have included sterlisations. These were working class women.

However in Penelope Mortimer's novel 'The Pumpkin Eater' (1962) a middle class mother who has

a legal abortion has been seeing a psychiatrist for depression for some time when she becomes

pregnant. She also has a sterilisation - probably a hysterectomy as well (A hysterectomy is

a major operation which for many women seriously diminishes their sexual responsiveness). In

all cases I am aware of, women who were offered legal abortions prior to 1967 had to accept

sterilisation.

This was a huge imposition of medical power - imagine if every women who has an abortion

today could never have another child. How many women would struggle on with unwanted

pregnancies? In the early period the women offered abortions were usually at a stage where

they wanted no further children but in the 1960s as the law was stretched and abortion became

more easily available this ceased to be the case. There is little research into unmarried

mothers but it would interesting to see if those unmarried mothers who were given therapeutic

abortions in the postwar period were also forced to accept sterlisations. This occurred in

the USA but medical policy there was more interventionist. (Those women who wanted

sterilisation alone were usually refused it by the way. See Aleck Bourne, 1955, for the

medico/legal position on this also).

On the subject of the police, otherwise known as the honest British bobby -

In the 1955 edition of Aleck Bourne's British Obstetric and Gynaecological Practice, a

standard text, he is very conservative about therapeutic abortions. He also comments

' b) however honest a doctor's intentions might be he would find it difficult to convince a

jury of his integrity if it were shown that his fee for the operation was excessive.'

So re the expensive nursing homes I think we should look in a different direction to see why

they were allowed to continue practicing. There was a massive police corruption scandal about

accepting bribes for pornography in Soho from the 1950s through to the 1970s - I have read of

no investigation about prostitution and police corruption but prostitutes' autobiographies

talk about corruption - either bribes or favours in return for being ignored. My assumption

would be that money changed hands regularly in relation to abortion. Paul Ferris certainly

did not think he was investigating legal operations when he wrote 'The Nameless' on abortion

in the mid-60s.There is also the issue of police resources - once illegal activities reach a

certain level of frequency they are impossible to police. The chance of being caught (as

Lesley suggested) falls simply as a matter of odds. And the impression given by the accounts

of abortion is that nursing homes tried very hard to make sure that they could not be blamed

if things went wrong - mainly by getting women off the premises.

Regards,

Hera

___________________________________________________________________Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 02:04:50 -0700

From: sklausen@islandnet.com

Subject: Re: [histsex] the legality of Abortion in England

Hello everyone,

The discussion about abortion has been so interesting that I feel impelled, after months of hovering on the sidelines, to finally introduce myself.

I've long had a scholarly and political interest in abortion, as practiced in the past and present. Currently I am conducting research on the politics of birth control in the British Colonial Empire from about 1900 to 1945.

With regards to Lesley's comments, I agree there is an interesting doctoral dissertation to be written on the policing of abortion pre-1967. I've done a little bit of research on this topic in 1930s Canada and found that illegal abortion, and abortionists themselves, became the focus of police investigation and prosecution only after women with botched abortions arrived at hospital emergency rooms in desperate condition. I don't recall finding evidence of anything more "pro-active" with regards to regulating the practice of illegal abortion and would be very interested to know of such cases if they did exist in England or elsewhere.

I'd also like to thank Pablo for his description of the situation in Argentina today. It really does boggle the mind that women seeking abortions are being compared to the killers under the extreme-right military regime. Clearly there is a huge struggle ahead in your country for those who believe that abortion should be safe and accessible. I am fortunate to live in Canada which is one of the few if not the only country in the world where abortion is nowhere to be found in the criminal code. In other words, there is no law regulating the practice of abortion in my country; it is deemed strictly a medical procedure and not a question for the courts at all. This is no accident, of course, but the result of organized lobbying and protest by reproductive rights activists. As you no doubt know, Argentina is not the only country where women face drastic choices re: abortion. While surfing the net a while back - not necessarily a safe source one must remember - I read that in the Phillipines there was legislation being proposed to turn the performance and acquisition of abortion into a capital offence. There are non-governmental organizations that track the status of abortion at an international level, and that try to work in solidarity with the courageous people in such countries as yours who are trying to challenge the status quo. If you are interested to learn more about such groups, please contact me privately and we can talk about this.

Best regards,

Susanne Klausen

___________________________________________________________________

Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 10:34:47 +0100

From: Hera Cook <hera.cook@btinternet.com>

Subject: Re: [histsex]abortion in Argentina

Dear Pablo,

Thank you for this description of the situation in Argentina. I think

the experience of British women was actually much like this prior to

1967. The disucssion about doctors and the law bypasses women - but that

is partly what we are discussing. It is easy to forget how much people

suffer.

Even in the postwar period many women died each year from bungled

illegal abortions - 108 such deaths were recorded in 1952-54 and 78 even

in 1967-69. Public institutions could provide only very limited

contraceptive advice until after 1966 and abortion was not legal until

1967.

However it was never illegal to defend abortion or to argue about it

here. The Catholics were not so important and the police were not so

very corrupt. This country has not experienced the terror of the

disappeared and nor was poverty so extreme.

Hera

___________________________________________________________________

From: Lesley Hall <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>

Subject: Re: [histsex]abortion in Argentina

Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 10:28:46 GMT

Dear Pablo

This is a very distressing account. Even in the USA

where there is such a strong anti-abortion lobby, at

least the topic can be discussed, though as a recent

edited volume _Abortion Wars_ indicated their agenda

has strongly inflected the parameters within which

'choice' can be posited and argued for.

On the difference between official/public perceptions

and attitudes, it was commented in the UK pre 67 that

it was frequently difficult to obtain convictions of

illegal abortionists since juries tended to

be sympathetic to their intention of helping out

distressed women, even when something went

disastrously wrong. (But there is a whole story about

juries being more 'liberal' or at least less concerned

over a range of sex-'crime' issues including

homosexuality and censorship than magistrates)

Lesley Hall

lesleyah@primex.co.uk

___________________________________________________________________

From: "Quoth the Bug" <bug@interact.net.au>

Subject: Re: [histsex] Introducing myself. Eep!

Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2001 23:17:00 +1000

Thanks Rictor for your help. Your website was really useful and your =

comments about castration and homosexuality as stems for considering SM =

have certainly given me something to think about.

Ta muchly!

Christy

___________________________________________________________________

From: "Pablo Ben" <benpablo@hotmail.com>

Subject: Re: [histsex]abortion in Argentina

Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 00:58:08 -0000

I forgott to say something.

If we follow the idea of understanding the prohibition of abortion in the web of criminalization build by the state for social control purposes, we should consider not only how some social forces for the legalization exist prior to it, but also how the legalization meant a changing in a social regime on sexuality and gender. In this sense the legalizing of homosexuality in the same moment in England is quite significant, and I make a relation between this and what I wrote in the last mail about my talk with my mother.

Anything else.

___________________________________________________________________

From: "Pablo Ben" <benpablo@hotmail.com>

Subject: Re: [histsex]abortion in Argentina

Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 00:54:21 -0000

Thanks for all the comments. Id like to make some point about the discussion though I know little about Englands history, so my words should not be taken very seriously.

In Argentina it is not very common to have trials against abortionist women. In a recent investigation on abortion written by Laura Bengochea the woman physician I mentioned in my last email, she proves how many physicians in public hospitals (state institutions with freee or very cheap attendance where women and men from the popular sectors go) practice some kind of abortion. Normally the woman is registered as having had an spontaneous abortion that was completed at hospitals. This is not so easy to get for poor women, normally you have to go to the hospital after having damaged yourself in an irreversible way for the fetus. But sometimes it can be done without such a dangerous threat to your own body.

It is very rare to have a physician denouncing a woman for doing this kind of things, but sometimes it happens.

The ways in which this kind of abortions are practised and the amount of physical suffering depends on the specifical relation between women and doctors. Some women take the risk of go to the hospital without damaging their own body, others dont. Some doctors can accept a woman asking to have an abortion, others dont.

I think in Argentina prohibition cannot be thought as an impossibility of abortion, but as a very opresive way to do it. The antiabortion law is a social norm and social norms face what Lacan would call "the real", i.e., the emergence of things out of their prescribed features.

I think Heras perspective is a little problematic as in her discourse there is little possibility to see how the law came to exist in 1967. I really cannot say anything respecting to "historical facts" in England, but it has little verosimilitude for me that a society where the antiabortion front is so strong can pass a law making it legal.

I think abortion, as many other things, in terms of the political field where the legalization is the result of a historical construction of a hegemony. In Heras perspective 1967 seems to be a dividing line coming from where?. Which social processes permited the passing of a legalizing law?

Prohibition, I think, has always an amount of violations to it, not only practised by women. It is a little maquiavelic to opposse doctors and women in a so dichotomical way. To say this is to recognize resistance in social processes and not to say that the norm wasnt that oppresive and consequently make our political questioning lighter. I dont think Lesleys idea is to build a tale in which women were able to scape suffering as Hera suposses if I did not make a wrong interpretation of what she said.

I feel Heras intention to build a strong differentiation between pre and post 1967 expresses a political perspective I apreciate from a country in which prohibition is quite devasting. But I dont think Lesley pretends to build a much more complex history where resistance can be taken as a political way of learning how to eliminate prohibition. Reading Lesleys writing I could imagine a way of building a resistance by convincing physicians to violate the law in a country where public debate is quite difficult. Reading Heras perspective I can just feel the impossibility to make any political move and then it seems we should wait to a legalizing law to come from I dont know where.

We are three brothers and my mother had an abortion to not to have a fourth kid. She did not tell us that for years as she felt shame for that. But though she felt that she always considered she had done right. I knew about my mothers abortion because my aunt told it to me. An year ago my mother was able to talk it to me, and I think she felt very good by doing so. I could connect to her a little more as gay, as I explained her that the prohibition of sexuality out of reproduction was the same big idea working against abortion and stigmatizing homosexuality as an illness.

I think this shows that prohibition is not able to eliminate afective links bearing a capacity to resist and this is an important thing to analyze.

The last thing I would like to say is that the penalizing consequences of prohibition should be explored in another way. I work in the history of sexuality in turn of the nineteenth century and beggining of the twentieth in Argentina, and I am exploring the legal condition of women in this moment. I found that in the penal code almost all the crimes had a much more big penalty for men than for women as the latter were considered incapable of comiting them. But in contradiction with this abortion is defined as a woman crime par excellance. In fact, doctors faced a much lighter penalty in comparison to women.

I think this has a relation with the division between the public and the private spheres. That is to say, if women are part of the private, they are not associated with crimes typical of the public, and the way to criminalize them is inextricably linked to the control of their bodies, which is a private entity. In this logic there is anyway an impossibility to observe how the public gets in the private itself when the state controls womens bodies. Here we can note an ideologically sustained contradiction.

The important thing, I think, is to see the way in which prohibition is situated in a web of criminalization practised by the state to make social control possible. Then the discussion should be how abortion criminalizes women in relation to the place they have in society, and not to see only the impossibilities of practizing abortion but the resistance to it and to its criminalizing effects on women.

I repeat. Mine is not an authorized voice to speak about Britain, but I thought it could be usefull to make this points as I consider a history of pre 1967 England should be usefull to think the way to get a 1967 in countries like Argentina.

Pablo Ben

___________________________________________________________________

Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 10:44:45 -0500

From: Gail Bederman <Gail.Bederman.1@nd.edu>

Subject: Re: [histsex]abortion in Argentina

I've been following this thread on illegal abortion in England and

Argentina with great interest--thank you all.

But I want to make sure that everybody interested in the question

knows Leslie J. Reagan's recent book on the U.S. case, _When Abortion

Was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and the Law in the United States

1867-1973_. Reagan does a tremendous job showing the *changing*

patterns of prosecution of abortion during these years, in the United

States. Prosecution patterns, and access to abortion varied over the

years, even though the laws on abortion did not. (She looks

extensively at court records and corner's records in Chicago, thought

she looks nationally at medical ideas and trends).

For example, prior to the 1940s, abortionists tended to be prosecuted

only when the woman died; but during the 1940s, abortionists were

prosecuted most vigorously, even though mortality from abortions was

generally decreasing. (The one exception: because good abortionists

were driven underground, bad abortionists got more clients, and they

killed and maimed a lot of folks.)

Best,

Gail

___________________________________________________________________

From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>

Subject: Re: [histsex] the legality of Abortion in Britain

Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 19:39:31 +0100

Hi Hera:

You wrote

>In all cases I am aware of, women who were offered legal abortions >prior

to 1967 had to accept sterilisation.

Presumably this was under the NHS (i.e. not private 'Harley St' abortions as

a rule)? It occurs to me that when abortions _were_ done under the NHS

pre-1967, in most areas this would almost certainly only have been when

there were MAJOR indications that continuing pregnancy would pose a threat.

I.e. health problems which were likely either to be chronic (heart or kidney

disease e.g.) or recurrent (bouts of puerperal psychosis) - not just a

one-off situation. I remember the issue of abortion-and-sterilisation being

a major issue in the 70s, since this was often applied routinely to ethnic

minority women - lots of debates in e.g. _Spare Rib_ around issues of

reproductive choice not just being about abortion & contraception. But

before the Act probably it would have tended always to fall into a category

of desperate remedy cases.

I am sure also that there were vast differences between health

authorities and even individual hospitals between Bourne and the Act, since

after 1967 the failure of certain areas (notoriously Birmingham) to

effectively implement the terms of the Act led to the setting up of various

Pregnancy Advisory Services which did low-cost (?sliding scale) legal

abortions. Of course, you then also got straight commercial-type operations

opening up with similar names...

I'm not entirely persuaded that women knew that inducing abortion was

wrong in a legal sense. There are enough letters in the Stopes collection

that assume that women are allowed to 'do something' at least up to

quickening (from both women and men), that I'm not convinced that 'everyone

knew' that it was illegal. Maybe they wouldn't have asked doctors -

especially pre-NHS - but I think that has to do with attitudes towards

doctors similar to those which made people reluctant to ask them for birth

control or sexual advice generally. I also think that one of the reasons for

the resurgence of abortion reform activism in the 1960s was the discovery by

articulate middle-class women who had taken thalidomide (or even those who

had conscientiously been using birth control and fallen pregnant after

completing their families, or less than a year since their last pregnancy or

whatever) that they were not entitled to terminations (except by doing the

Harley St tango - there is testimony about this in the ALRA archives by

Diane Munday).

Lesley Hall

lesleyah@primex.co.uk

website http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah

___________________________________________________________________

Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2001 23:13:30 -0700 (PDT)

From: Lisa Diguardi <diguardi@yahoo.com>

Subject: [histsex] English law-1817

The Knitting Circle's website mentions oral-genital contact

being removed from the legal definition of buggery in 1817 but

no mention of the source. Does anyone know of any references for

this?

-Lisa Diguardi

On Tue, 6 Mar 2001 12:14:55 -0500 (EST), Histsex:For historians of sexuality

wrote:

Histsex:For historians of sexuality -

http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah/listinf.htm

--------------------------- ListBot Sponsor --------------------------

Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb

----------------------------------------------------------------------

___________________________________________________________________

Date: 22 Apr 2001 12:16:47 -0000

From: "Histsex:For historians of sexuality" <histsex-owner@listbot.com>

Subject: [histsex] Article on abortion in the UK

Coincidentally, there is an article on this by Nicci Gerrard in today's

_Observer_ (review section), at

http://www.observer.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,476313,00.html

Also of possible interest, there is a piece on Eve Ensler's _The Vagina

Monologues_

http://www.observer.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,476319,00.html

Lesley

lesleyah@primex.co.uk

(I tried to send this from home, but keep getting it returned as

'Permanent fatal errors' in the address. Could anyone who has had similar

problems posting to histsex let me know please? I've already contacted

their helpdesk)

___________________________________________________________________

From: "Peter Boston" <peterboston@paradise.net.nz>

Subject: Re: [histsex] English law-1817

Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 09:50:56 +1200

I think that this is a misquote from Weeks's 'Coming Out', where he states

'As late as 1817 a man was sentenced to death under the buggery laws for

oral sex...' I'm not aware that the legal definition ever changed just its

interpretation by the Courts.

___________________________________________________________________From: Lesley Hall <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>

Subject: Re: [histsex] English law-1817

Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 08:56:13 GMT

> I think that this is a misquote from Weeks's 'Coming

Out', where he states

> 'As late as 1817 a man was sentenced to death under

the buggery laws for

> oral sex...' I'm not aware that the legal definition

ever changed just its

> interpretation by the Courts.

This would have been my assumption - a change in case

law rather than actual legislation - but I am sure

that there are people on this list who are better

informed about both the history of homosexuality and

legal history than I am. Forensic medical textbooks of

a slightly later period were very coy about actually

defining 'buggery', as opposed to describing it as

horrible and against nature.

Lesley Hall

lesleyah@primex.co.uk

___________________________________________________________________

From: "Hall ,Dr Lesley" <l.hall@wellcome.ac.uk>

Subject: [histsex] English law-1817 (Fwd from Peter Bartlett)

Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 15:43:05 +0100

Sorry - I'm on sabbatical away from my usual office and thus don't have my

case notes in front of me, nor do I have a convenient copy of Weeks; but as

far as I recall, the 1817 event was a court case which decided that oral sex

did NOT constitute sodomy within the terms of the law (as such the accused

was surely not hanged, since he was acquitted). This should further not be

read as suggesting that oral sex was a hanging offence prior to that time -

I have read through all the sodomy cases from the eighteenth-century Old

Bailey (Central Criminal Court in London, for our foreign readers!), and

none deal with fellatio. From what I can figure out about pardoning policy,

I SUSPECT that any conviction of sodomy when the act involved oral sex only

would have resulted in a pardon, since convictions based on anal

penetration, where the evidence was that emission did not occur inside the

body, resulted in pardons.

At least in theory, I think fellatio MIGHT have constituted attempt sodomy

(which seems to have been used in the eighteenth century as a catch-all to

include a considerable variety of sex between men, not merely what we would

now consider an attempt, viz an unsuccessful act of sodomy specifically);

but even the eighteenth century attempt cases in the Old Bailey make no

mention of oral sex.

peter

___________________________________________________________________Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 16:00:01 +0000

From: Dr Crozier <ucgacro@ucl.ac.uk>

Subject: Re: [histsex] English law-1817 (Fwd from Peter Bartlett)

Dear Peter,

Couldn't cases of fellatio be considered to be conspiracy to commit sodomy?

There is a suggestion in the 1871 trial of Boulton and Park that they were

charged with conspiracy to commit sodomy (because of their dress

habit--i.e., dresses). But when they were acquitted of the other charges

of actually commission of sodomy (based on some great legal and medical

reasoning), they had the lesser charge quashed as well.

Is this right, legally? I realise I should just come down the stairs and

ask you this, but it is just after lunch....

Cheerio, Ivan

Ivan Crozier,

i.crozier@ucl.ac.uk

'ignorance is the first requisite of the

historian--ignorance, which simplifies

and clarifies, which selects and omits,

with a placid perfection unobtainable by

the highest art.'

--Lytton Strachey

___________________________________________________________________From: "Rictor Norton" <norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk>

Subject: Re: [histsex] English law-1817

Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 16:47:28 +0100

Peter Bartlett writes:

"I have read through all the sodomy cases from the eighteenth-century =

Old=20

Bailey (Central Criminal Court in London, for our foreign readers!), and

none deal with fellatio. ... even the eighteenth century attempt cases=20

in the Old Bailey make no mention of oral sex."

It is quite true that fellatio is very rare in trial records, but there =

were a few cases.

In 1735 Henry Wolf met John Holloway on an errand for his master a =

brandy merchant, took him to several pubs where he fondled him, and then =

to Bishop's Gate Church Yard where he bought him a nosegay and a penny =

custard. Eventually he approached Bethelehem Hospital, which ran along =

the south side of Moorfields. "Coming to Bedlam, he perfectly pull'd =

and haul'd me in to see the Mad-folks. There he took me into the House =

of Office, and pull'd down his own Breeches and mine, and ---- in his =

Mouth: Then he carried me into the Booth, to see the Wild Beasts. When =

we came out, he said, he hop'd he should see me often." Wolf was =

apprehended at their next meeting, but no one appeared to support the =

errand boy's story, so he was acquitted. Source: Proceedings ... in the =

Old Bailey, Sessions 5, 22-24 May 1735, case no. 50, p. 82. The =

unprinted sources in the London Record Office almost certainly say =

explicitly that "he took my yard in his mouth" or something like it.

The MS trial reports in the London Record Office, though not the printed =

Sessions Papers, reveal that in 1704 John Norton [no relation] took hold =

of the privates of John Coyney, "putting them into his mouth and sucking =

them". This is cited in an article by Randolph Trumbach.

=20

There is an interesting case in Bath in 1802 when the young James Reader =

applied for a job to Rev George Donnisthorpe, who offered him liquor and =

money and said "if he [Donnisthorpe] were a Lady and had ten thousand a =

year he would bestow it all on him [Reader]". Donnisthorpe took Reader's =

"private Member in his hand, knelt down on one knee and put it into his =

Mouth", and then tried to lay him upon a sofa. Reader revealed his =

experience to a friend or guardian the following Sunday, but =

nevertheless saw Donnisthorpe four more times before warning him off. =

Donnisthorpe was indicted, but he claimed he had not received justice =

and the case was removed from the Quarter Sessions by a writ of =

certiorari, though he was not retried in a higher court. This is cited =

by Polly Morris, `Sodomy and Male Honor: The Case of Somerset, =

1740-1850', in The Pursuit of Sodomy: Male Homosexuality in Renaissance =

and Enlightenment Europe, ed. Kent Gerard and Gert Hekma (New York and =

London: Harrington Park

Press, 1989), pp. 395-397.

Peter is quite right that oral intercourse -- and much else besides -- =

would be regarded as "attempted sodomy" (which is the 18th cent. =

equivalent of "gross indecency"). But probably such incidents wouldn't =

get to the courts without being supported by more "sodomitical" =

evidence, and if anal evidence was found, the prosecutor wouldn't bother =

with the oral evidence (as it were).

We need to be careful not to draw too wide conclusions from the scarcity =

of oral intercourse in the legal records, especially those filtered =

records that reach the printed Sessions Papers.

=20

I can't track down the source for the statement about the year 1817.

=20

Rictor Norton, London

mailto:norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk

___________________________________________________________________

From: David Greenberg <david.greenberg@nyu.edu>

Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 13:11:20 -0400

Subject: Re: [histsex] English law-1817 (Fwd from Peter Bartlett)

Some years ago, a student of mine, Antony Simpson, did a Ph.D.

dissertation on the prosecution of sex-related offenses in the

18th-century criminal English courts. He found, as is suggested by Peter

Barlettin the message below, that accusations of oral sex (which was

excluded from the legal definition of buggery) were prosecuted as

attempted sodomy. - David Greenberg, Sociology Department, New York

University.

___________________________________________________________________From: "Brian Dempsey" <editor@scolag.org.uk>

Subject: RE: [histsex] English law-1817 (Fwd from Peter Bartlett)

Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 18:35:34 +0100

Peter is correct. There is a reference to the 1817 case in A Alison (1832)

The Principles of the Criminal Law of Scotland, Vol 1, 566 (though how

people confuse him with Weeks I know not).

The case in question appears to be Rex v Samuel Jacobs, Russ & Ry 332

The head note reads -

"The prisoner forced open a child's mouth and put in his private parts, and

proceeded to a completion of his lust. Held, that this did not constitute

the offence of sodomy."

If I recall correctly, the court, hearing to case on appeal from his

conviction, stated that a pardon should be applied for. Not sure why they

didn't simply quash the conviction. The report doesn't say what the penalty

was.

Brian

___________________________________________________________________

From: "Brian Dempsey" <editor@scolag.org.uk>

Subject: RE: [histsex] English law-1817 (Fwd from Peter Bartlett)

Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 18:37:30 +0100

I should have added that the C19th Scottish sodomy cases did not, as far as

I can recall, mention oral sex.

Brian

___________________________________________________________________

From: "Brian Dempsey" <editor@scolag.org.uk>

Subject: [histsex] C19th Scots oral

Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 22:58:40 +0100

Having had a look at my notes -

Of the 20 allegations of sodomy reported to the prosecuting authorities in

Scotland in the C19th only one seems to have concerned oral sex. Of course,

this could reflect the fact that non-anal penetrative sex was being

prosecuted (or perhaps more likely not prosecuted) in lower courts and, most

importantly, the need to prove penetration (or the attempt) to show sodomy

(or the attempt).

The case which features oral sex was that of HMA v Bursey 1858 Unreported

AD14/58/106. He was charged with sodomy and the attempt and using lewd,

indecent and libidinous practices. These involved picking up (roughly

speaking) 16-18 year old boys working at the docks and seeking to penetrate

them, have them penetrate him or, in at least one charge, Bursey "working"

the youth's member with his mouth. Bursey was admitted two counts of

attempted sodomy and one that he "did wickedly and feloniously administer to

Colin MacTaggart a quantity of whisky, or other spiritous liquor and did ...

induce the said Colin MacTaggart to attempt to penetrate the hinder parts of

you the said GB, with his private parts" and was sentenced to life

imprisonment.

In HMA v Whitelaw, 1824 Unreported (Currently wrongly filed in bundle of HMA

v Lockie AD14/28/317) Whitelaw was said to have threatened to put his penis

in his victim's mouth.

Otherwise the focus is on anal penetration, intercurial (sp?) and

masturbatory sex.

Brian

___________________________________________________________________

Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 18:38:31 -0500

From: Bob <suannschafer@earthlink.net>

Subject: Re: [histsex] English law-1817

Rictor, thank you for your scholarly thoroughness. I'm bemused by

the courting rituals? of the nosegay & penny custard :)

>In 1735 Henry Wolf met John Holloway on an errand for his master a

>brandy merchant, took him to several pubs where he fondled him, and

>then to Bishop's Gate Church Yard where he bought him a nosegay and

>a penny custard.

___________________________________________________________________Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 18:34:34 -0500

From: Bob <suannschafer@earthlink.net>

Subject: Re: [histsex] English law-1817 (Fwd from Peter Bartlett)

Am I reading you correctly that anal sodomy in which emission

(ejaculation?) did not occur inside the body was pardonable?

Of course my prurient nature wonders about the "evidence" of internal

"emission."

>From what I can figure out about pardoning policy,

>I SUSPECT that any conviction of sodomy when the act involved oral sex only

>would have resulted in a pardon, since convictions based on anal

>penetration, where the evidence was that emission did not occur inside the

>body, resulted in pardons.

___________________________________________________________________From: Swamp1800@aol.com

Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 23:14:51 EDT

Subject: [histsex] anonymous sex in late 18th century

Once again the Jefferson-Hemings scandal is making news in the US. Despite

recent DNA evidence that Jefferson fathered one of Heming's children, a panel

of scholars has decided that it is more likely that Jefferson's younger

brother consorted with the slave. Others point out that this is the first

time that the brother has been suggested as the culprit. (All other

relatives, who were accused by Jefferson's defenders, are ruled out by the

DNA evidence.)

My question is this. In the late 18th century was casual sex outside of

marriage usually done anonymously, that is, neither partner knew the real

name of the other?

One thing that struck me when reading Trumbach is how startling it is to read

the names of the perpetrators of the sex act. Of course, the names are in the

court records and we must use them, but while Joe Blow and Jane Short, to

make up an example, did the deed and paid the price, is it likely that when

they met that they necessarily knew each other's real name?

Taking this back to Jefferson, while his face is well known to Americans now,

there is much evidence that it was largely unknown when he was alive, even

when he was President of the United States. I'm speculating that as a single

man in Paris or even on the road in the US, he might have been accustomed to

slipping out of his persona as diplomat and "Founding Father," and looking

for sex with no fear that a woman he might use knew who he was. Or, might

there have been a fear of a network of spies that kept any public figure of

the day circumspect? I don't think that was the case in America.

Taking this back to his relationship with Hemings, I'm wondering if

consorting with a slave was possible to such a self conscious Great Man,

simply because in matters of illicit sex he had grown accustom to thinking he

was nameless and hence blameless.

Bob Arnebeck

Wellesley Island, NY

http://hometown.aol.com/Swamp1800/sex.html (sex in the 1790s)

___________________________________________________________________Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 23:03:08 -0500

From: Bob <suannschafer@earthlink.net>

Subject: Re: [histsex] anonymous sex in late 18th century

>Taking this back to his relationship with Hemings, I'm wondering if

>consorting with a slave was possible to such a self conscious Great Man,

>simply because in matters of illicit sex he had grown accustom to thinking he

>was nameless and hence blameless.

*illicit* sex? I'm wondering about the nature of the lens you're

casting upon late eighteenth-/early nineteenth-century sex between

celebrity and slave ....

___________________________________________________________________Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 10:45:11 +0100

From: "Peter Bartlett" <Peter.Bartlett@nottingham.ac.uk>

Subject: Re: [histsex] English law-1817 (Fwd from Peter Bartlett)

A few thoughts regarding the posts which have responded to mine.

Yes, Susanne, it would SEEM that emission needed to occur inside the body. The case I can recall is evidentially less problematic than the one you raise, since as I recall, the evidence was that the penetratee, following penetration and withdrawl, 'felt something warm and wet on [his] back', suggesting concrete evidence that emission ocurred after withdrawl. The person convicted in this case (second quarter of the 18th c., if memory serves) was indeed pardoned. This gets altered by statute, if memory serves, in the nineteenth century, so that penetration only needed to be shown.

As to Brian's question as to why a pardon, rather than simply quashing the conviction, I don't know for sure, but I suspect that this (like much of the discussion which has been circulating in the background about attempts) has to do with the history of law more than the history of sodomy. I suspect (although I haven't checked) that the deference due to the eighteenth century jury was such that its finding would be hard to alter, and that instead as a matter of practice not specific to sodomy cases, pardons would be granted. Anybody a sufficient expert in history of eighteenth-century criminal law generally to confirm this?

As a follow on from David's and Brian's posts in particular, the eighteenth century is of course not the nineteenth, and of course Scotland is not England. One of the differences south of the border seems to be a clarification of the law of attempts in law generally (not just specific to sodomy). By the mid-nineteeth century, I suspect it would be extremely unlikely that an attempt sodomy charge would be permitted to include the variety of sexual hyjinx that was prosecuted by the eighteenh-century charge. This puts the Labouchere amendment in a different context. It is periodically claimed that this criminalises same-sex acts other than sodomy for the first time. This is clearly not true, as we've seen. Instead, it creates a specific charge to deal with what was no longer an attempt sodomy.

This also applies to Ivan's comments about *conspiracy* to commit sodomy. It is not a charge I've seen for the eighteenth century, but I suspect the requirements and bounds of conspiracy law generally would have gelled instead in the nineteenth. It is worth taking a brief thought as to what this would mean. Conspiracy is in essence forming a joint intent to commit the crime in question, where attempt as it develops legally means doing something more towards commission of the offence than talking about it. Planning a bombing (jointly with someone else - I have a vague recollection of some curious case law as to whether it is possible to conspire with oneself alone, but I don't think it need detain us here), for example, is conspiracy; by the time the bomb has been placed and set, it is attempt; by the time the bomb goes off, it is the full offence. With Boulton and Park, one can see an argument for a joint venture, so to speak, and thus a coherent conspiracy; but if the act they were conspiring to do was not sodomitical within the law (as the court I believe held?) the conspiracy charge would also collapse, since conspiring to do something which isn't illegal is of course no crime (last time I checked, the two of us deciding to have a coffee together - which we ought to do - was not the concern of Policeman Plod).

___________________________________________________________________

From: "Brian Dempsey" <editor@scolag.org.uk>

Subject: RE: [histsex] English law-1817 (Fwd from Peter Bartlett)

Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 11:01:21 +0100

Just to pick up on the question of pardons and overturning lower courts -

which is a legal history question rather than a histsex - I imagine Peter is

correct. Without knowing the details it took the scandal around the Slater

case in Scotland in the early C20th to establish a criminal court of appeal

here. Slater was a foreign Jew (ie convenient scapegoat) convicted of a

murder which, it seemed, he did not commit.

But am I right in thinking the parallel case in England, ie where you had a

person convicted of a crime he clearly did not commit but with no means of

overturning the conviction, involved a case of mistaken identity turning on

the man's penis? If I am not living in a world of my own fantasies (a big

"if"), I seem to recall that the convict had a foreskin while medical

records of a prison examination showed that the person who had committed the

crime had had his foreskin removed. "The Role of Male Genital Mutilation in

the Development of the English Criminal Court" - Discuss.

Brian

___________________________________________________________________

From: <mswann@interchange.ubc.ca>

Subject: [histsex] know of histsex research in Switzerland?

Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 07:17:18 -0700

Does anyone know of any history of sex research being done in Switzerland?

___________________________________________________________________

From: Swamp1800@aol.com

Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 10:19:40 EDT

Subject: Re: [histsex] anonymous sex in late 18th century

In a message dated 4/26/01 11:59:33 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

suannschafer@earthlink.net writes:

<< *illicit* sex? I'm wondering about the nature of the lens you're

casting upon late eighteenth-/early nineteenth-century sex between

celebrity and slave .... >>

Foggy, as usual. And while we're splitting hairs. What kind of lens are you

casting when you write "celebrity?"

Bob Arnebeck

___________________________________________________________________

Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 09:48:03 -0500

From: Bob <suannschafer@earthlink.net>

Subject: Re: [histsex] anonymous sex in late 18th century

><< *illicit* sex? I'm wondering about the nature of the lens you're

> casting upon late eighteenth-/early nineteenth-century sex between

> celebrity and slave .... >>

>>Foggy, as usual. And while we're splitting hairs. What kind of lens are you

>casting when you write "celebrity?"

Oh ... the problems of langue ... celebrity was certainly consciously

chosen for its alliterative value ... certainly should have been in

quotes ... the dialectic of "master" and "slave" seemed just so

Hegelian ....

___________________________________________________________________From: "Rictor Norton" <norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk>

Subject: Re: [histsex] English law-1817 (Fwd from Peter Bartlett)

Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 15:55:55 +0100

Peter Bartlett writes:

"This also applies to Ivan's comments about *conspiracy* to commit =

sodomy. It is not a charge I've seen for the eighteenth century, but I =

suspect the requirements and bounds of conspiracy law generally would =

have gelled instead in the nineteenth."

In 1809 Richard Thomas Dudman and Edward Wood were convicted =

specifically of a "conspiracy to commit sodomy", and sentenced to two =

years' imprisonment and to stand for one hour in the pillory. I cannot =

cite such a case during the eighteenth century, but I would not =

altogether rule out the possibility of such a case (though certainly it =

would be rare). There do exist cases in which two men are specifically =

indicted for "consenting and agreeing to commit sodomy" together which =

is just a hairsbreadth away from "conspiring to commit sodomy" together. =

(In 1730 "William Holiwell was Indicted for a Misdemeanor, in assaulting =

William Huggins, with an Intent to commit the detestable Sin of Buggery; =

and William Huggins, for a Misdemeanor, in consenting and submitting to =

the same." They were found guilty, both stood in the pillory, Holiwell =

was fined GBP40 and sentenced to 6 months' imprisonment, Huggins got 8 =

months' imprisonment, and unusually long term for a misdemeanour during =

this period.)

Indictments for conspiracy to blackmail homosexuals were very common =

during the eighteenth century, and I believe such cases were an =

important part of the origin of the legal interpretation and application =

of the concepts of "conspiracy" and "extortion" or what we now call =

"blackmail" (the other important part was sending letters threatening to =

burn people's houses down unless money was paid). In 1699 William =

Tipping, a clergyman, was indicted for a conpiracy to suborn two other =

men to falsely charge Capt. Edward Rigby with sodomizing them; the Grand =

Jury threw out the bill, with directions to seek out the two FitzGeralds =

to try them for perjury (the cases is too complicated to go into here). =

In December 1730 John Lewis and John Jones "were indicted for a =

Misdemeanor, in conspiring to charge John Battle with Sodomy, in order =

to extort Money from him" and were convicted and stood on the pillory at =

the Royal-Exchange. According to a report in The Post Boy for 16-18 =

December 1707 "at Hicks-Hall, the Trial of Thomas Vaughan a =

Foot-Soldier, and of Tho. Davis a Brandy-Man in New-street by =

Covent-Garden, for a Conspiracy with Thomas Knight a Barber, and Edward =

Knight, his Relation, ... who were indicted for falsly accusing an =

Eminent Apothecary, who is a Person of an unquestionable and untained =

Reputation, of Attempting to commit the Sin of Preposterous Venery", and =

were found guilty and sentenced to be whipped, stood in the pillory and =

fined. In 1726 John Oviat was convicted of a "Conspiracy, falsly to =

charge an innocent Person with attempting to commit Sodomy with him". An =

indictment in 1725 reads "Benjamin Goddard, for a Robbery, and with =

Richard Rustead, for a Misdemeanor, in conspiring to charge Richard =

Wise, with Sodomitical Attempts" (a rather odd term was used during the =

same trial: "... were indicted for a Trespass, in conspiring to charge =

Robert Wise with the Intention to commit Sodomy" etc.).

=20

On the subject of emission, during the Castlehaven trials in 1631 the =

defense argued that penetration had not taken place but that emission =

had occurred outside the body prior to penetration, but the court =

specifically rejected the relevance of that fact and from then until =

1781 it was held that either emission or penetration was sufficient =

proof for conviction of the capital felony. In 1781 during the tiral of =

one Hill (according to Montgomery Hyde) it was decided that both facts =

had to be proven (in other words, internal emission). But the issue of =

emission was seldom addressed.

In actual practice during most of the eighteenth century, the deciding =

proof for conviction on the capital felony was the confession of one of =

the parties, which in practice meant that one of the men (the passive =

partner) turned King's Evidence and was granted immunity while his =

(active) partner was hanged. This was true of much court practice during =

the period: thieves and highwayman etc. were almost always convicted on =

the evidence of one of their former accomplices. Without such =

confessions, it was extremely difficult to rely on just witnesses or =

circumstantial evidence, though witnesses and circumstantial evidence =

was sufficient for conviction on misdemeanours.

Rictor Norton, London

mailto:norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk

http://infopt.demon.co.uk/eighteen.htm

=20

___________________________________________________________________From: Martin Beran <jazzeman@seznam.cz>

Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 18:18:43

Subject: [histsex] English Law-1817

Hello,

I have been subscribed to this list for a few days and find it very

interesting.

Is there any website on which I can find that English Law? I'd like

to read an actual text.

Thanks, Martin.

____________

Martin Beran

beran@braillnet.cz

or jazzeman@seznam.cz

ICQ: 110444628

___________________________________________________________________

From: "theo van der meer" <1vandermeer@planet.nl>

Subject: Re: [histsex] English law-1817 (Fwd from Peter Bartlett)

Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 20:20:06 +0200

Lectori salutem,

It may be of some interest that the same kind of questions and confusions

vis a vis oral intercourse arose during 18th century sodomy trials in The

Netherlands. While Dutch prosecutors, judges and legal experts could call

upon a variety of legal sources, ranging from Roman Law, the Constitutio

Criminalis Carolina, to European legal commentaries, local custom and laws,

they agreed e.g. in a 1765 trial in Amsterdam that oral intercourse did not

constitute sodomy, meaning also that in of itself it did not warrant the

death penalty. In the few cases that appeared in court rooms, oral

intercourse did cause confusions though. Sodomia perfecta did require an

ejaculation inside a body, though only few legal sources indicated in which

part of the body.

As previous authors on this list have indicated, trials in which oral

intercourse was mentioned were very rare indeed. That would not only be true

for England but also for most of the rest of continental Europe over a

period from the late Middle Ages until at least the late 19th century. In my

own work on well over 1000 sodomy trials from that period (which for the

most part have left enormouslty detailed court records) I have only found a

few in which fellatio was mentioned. It raises of course the question how

wide spread such activities were. I believe fellatio was lacking from most

people's appetites or skills. While of course one has to be cautious as to

what may be gleaned from court records, I think that they more or less

reflect reality in this case. Trial procedures at the time required people

to make full confessions, meaning that they had to reveal details as to how,

where and with whom, for every instance they had perpetrated their crimes.

Also: many people who were sentenced to death (for sodomy) just prior to

their executions (of course encouraged by judges and church ministers) tried

to cleanse their souls and still made more detailed confessions. While often

it would of course nigh be possible to come up with all the details of every

sexual act they had engaged in, even in such final confessions fellatio was

never mentioned.

>From those cases that it was mentioned it becomes obvious that those men who

did engage in fellatio, were either upper class men themselves or had first

learned it from upper class men. Unlike what one might expect at first sight

it was not a matter of hygiene: it were upper class men who fellated lower

classes servants, or such a servant had been fellated before by an upper

class man before doing it himself. This should not come as a surprise: for

most people sex meant vaginal penetration (Clinton was right) or, in this

case, anal penetration. For prostitutes in Holland any other kind of act

than vaginal intercouse was taboo and some would even turn in customers who

had wanted to be masturbated. Probably related to this was the fact that

fellatio held a different position in sexual hierarchies than it has today.

>From the early modern material I have seen it is obvious that unlike today

it was the fellator who was considered to be the active partner in the act

and the fellated to be the passive one.

All the best,

Theo van der Meer

___________________________________________________________________Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 15:11:03 -0400

From: fxxm <fxxm@aspma.com>

Subject: Re: [histsex] English law-1817 (Fwd from Peter Bartlett)

theo van der meer wrote:

> > Histsex:For historians of sexuality - http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah/listinf.htm

> > --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor --------------------------

> Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb

> ----------------------------------------------------------------------

> As previous authors on this list have indicated, trials in which oral

> intercourse was mentioned were very rare indeed. That would not only be true

> for England but also for most of the rest of continental Europe over a

> period from the late Middle Ages until at least the late 19th century.

> It raises of course the question how

> wide spread such activities were. I believe fellatio was lacking from most

> people's appetites or skills.

Do you (or anyone else) suppose this was equally true during the middle

Middle Ages? I am trying to understand why Peter Damien's report to the

pope c.1049 on homosexual activity among the Catholic clery, which

details specific practices, fails to mention fellatio among them.

--Phil Milstein

___________________________________________________________________From: "theo van der meer" <1vandermeer@planet.nl>

Subject: Re: [histsex] English law-1817 (Fwd from Peter Bartlett)

Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2001 10:07:44 +0200

----- Original Message -----

From: "fxxm" <fxxm@aspma.com>

To: "Histsex:For historians of sexuality" <histsex@listbot.com>

Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 9:11 PM

Subject: Re: [histsex] English law-1817 (Fwd from Peter Bartlett)

> Histsex:For historians of sexuality -

http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah/listinf.htm

>> --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor --------------------------

> Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb

> ----------------------------------------------------------------------

>> theo van der meer wrote:

> >> > Histsex:For historians of sexuality -

http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah/listinf.htm

> >> > --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor --------------------------

> > Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb

> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------

> > As previous authors on this list have indicated, trials in which oral

> > intercourse was mentioned were very rare indeed. That would not only be

true

> > for England but also for most of the rest of continental Europe over a

> > period from the late Middle Ages until at least the late 19th century.

>> > It raises of course the question how

> > wide spread such activities were. I believe fellatio was lacking from

most

> > people's appetites or skills.

>> Do you (or anyone else) suppose this was equally true during the middle

> Middle Ages? I am trying to understand why Peter Damien's report to the

> pope c.1049 on homosexual activity among the Catholic clery, which

> details specific practices, fails to mention fellatio among them.

>> --Phil Milstein

I would not know for sure, although it seems likely. May be check Payer's

book on the Penitentials and/or Brundage's Law, Sex and Christian Society

etc.

Theo van der Meer

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

From: "Brian Dempsey" <editor@scolag.org.uk>

Subject: [histsex] European oral sex

Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2001 12:01:29 +0100

Unless someone has some convincing theory I find it difficult to accept that

Europeans only engaged in oral sex from relatively recently. It would have

to be a _very_ strong social custom throughtout a disprate population to

keep it off people's private agenda from c1000 to c1800. After all, there

were injunctions against homosex, sodomy, bestiality, incest etc but we

know that went on.

Brian

___________________________________________________________________From: "Rictor Norton" <norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk>

Subject: Re: [histsex] English law-1817

Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2001 13:44:53 +0100

Theo van der Meer writes:

"As previous authors on this list have indicated, trials in which oral

intercourse was mentioned were very rare indeed. That would not only be =

true

for England but also for most of the rest of continental Europe over a

period from the late Middle Ages until at least the late 19th century. =

In my

own work on well over 1000 sodomy trials from that period (which for the

most part have left enormouslty detailed court records) I have only =

found a

few in which fellatio was mentioned. It raises of course the question =

how

wide spread such activities were. I believe fellatio was lacking from =

most

people's appetites or skills."

Research into archive sources in the past 8-10 years is tending to =

demonstrate a wider range of sexual repertoire than was thought possible =

even a dozen years ago.

For example, the very extensive research of Michael Rocke into the =

sodomy archives of late-medieval Florence has revealed that 12 percent =

of the confessed cases mentioned fellatio, leading Rocke to conclude =

that "this practice was well known and fairly widely employed in =

homoerotic interactions in Florence."

The usual Florentine patterns was that the older partner sucked the =

penis of the younger partner before sodomizing him. The "active/passive" =

role dichotomy required by strict formalists collapses in the face of =

this data. Rocke cites numerous colourful examples showing how the same =

person can suck on one occasion and be sucked on another, or both during =

the same encounter, and also can fuck or be fucked on other occasions or =

during the same encounter. Fellatio was part of the overall sexual =

repertoire rather than a fixed role characteristic (and this was true =

also of pedication). The fact that a boy's penis was important in the =

relations also contradicts the standard argument that boys and women are =

desired indiscriminately because both are treated as passive sex =

"receptacles". It also indicates, among other things, that giving the =

boy pleasure was important to the active sodomite, i.e. he did not =

simply "take his pleasure", but contributed to a mutually pleasurable =

relation.

Incidentally, Rocke argues that the laws were constructed in such a way =

that anal intercourse would be more highly documented than oral =

intercourse; since the law specifically regulated sodomy, it is =

especially significant that such a high incidence of oral intercourse is =

documented, and likely that the reported incidence would have been even =

greater if the law had been constructed to regulate oral intercourse =

more specifically.

I have been reviewing Bernd-Ulrich Hergomoeller's book _Sodom and =

Gomorrah: On the everyday reality and persecution of homosexuals in the =

Middle Ages_ (just published in English, based on a book and articles =

recently published in German), which concentrates on late-medieval =

sodomy sources in northern Europe, especially in the German areas. He =

mentions, inter alia, the case of a man in Hamm monastery near Muenster =

who regularly approached men in public latrines and offered to "suck out =

the nature" from them (in the 1530s); this phrase occurs several times =

in the trial records. One man in Strasbourg in 1400 regularly met men in =

public latrines and they rubbed their penises together until they came. =

He mentions other cases of mutual masturbation. In the trial records =

"knavery" is sometimes listed by the recorder because the sexual =

activity cannot be classified specifically as anal intercourse. And some =

other cases are mentioned in which the older man clearly wants to "get =

to work on" the penis as well as the anus of the younger partner.

Hergemoeller has the very commendable habit of prefacing every tentative =

conclusion he makes about sex in history with the remark "according to =

the current state of knowledge."

Rictor Norton, London

mailto:norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk

http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk

___________________________________________________________________Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2001 10:21:12 -0700 (PDT)

From: Stephen Morris <smmorris58@yahoo.com>

Subject: Re:[histsex] penitentials and homosexuality

Howdy.

Does anyone know if anyone has actually taken up

Payer's suggestion that the penances/canons are:

homosexual behavior in the penitentials be

catalogued/described/etc.?

Thanks.

___________________________________________________________________

Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2001 20:09:13 +0100

From: Hera Cook <hera.cook@btinternet.com>

Subject: Re: [histsex]abortion in Scotland and legal/semilegal

Hi,

On the topic of Scottish law on abortion I asked Stephen Brooke, who is

about to have an excellent article on abortion law reform in Britain

published, if he knew what the difference was and he doesn't. I am

interested that both this and the fascinating discussion on fellatio and

the law reveal such gaps in knowledge on the part of historians of

sexuality. Is the law not that important or is this because of an

insular approach to sources?

(Stephen Brooke. "A new world for women"? Abortion law reform in Britain

during the 1930s." American Historical Review (Forthcoming))

Also a belated response to Pablo's interesting comments about my

position on abortion.

Pablo Ben wrote:

> I think Heras perspective is a little problematic as in her discourse

> there is little possibility to see how the law came to exist in 1967.

> I really cannot say anything respecting to "historical facts" in

> England, but it has little verosimilitude for me that a society where

> the antiabortion front is so strong can pass a law making it legal.

> I think abortion, as many other things, in terms of the political

> field where the legalization is the result of a historical

> construction of a hegemony. In Heras perspective 1967 seems to be a

> dividing line coming from where?. Which social processes permited

> the passing of a legalizing law?

>> Prohibition, I think, has always an amount of violations to it, not

> only practised by women. It is a little maquiavelic to opposse doctors

> and women in a so dichotomical way. To say this is to recognize

> resistance in social processes and not to say that the norm wasnt

> that oppresive and consequently make our political questioning

> lighter. I dont think Lesleys idea is to build a tale in which women

> were able to scape suffering as Hera suposses if I did not make a

> wrong interpretation of what she said.

Well this is complicated. No, that was certainly not what I intended and

not what I feel Lesley intended at all. My divergence from Lesley's

perspective is on the question of legal and semi-legal.

There are two reasons why I think this is important.

The first is that I feel it is not accurate. The vast majority of the

abortions most women wanted were not legal. A good parallel is drugs -

cocaine is a class A drug in Britain. A survey last week said some

incredible percentage of the under 24s had tried the drug - well over

half. This high level of use doesn't make it legal and the unlucky

minority who get caught by the police get hammered. Obviously the police

are getting increasingly unhappy about having to police the unpoliceable

- and some judges are also unhappy. This creates pressure for future

change in the law but it merely extends the lottery like nature of the

results for those who get caught with the drug prior to any possible law

change. Some get hammered, some don't. I think the situation was

probably similar with regard to abortion by the late 1950s.

Secondly obtaining and talking about having an abortion remains

problematic in this country. Provision of services remains uneven and

there is still a definite social stigma even now - women have

internalised very negative attitudes and have tended to talk about

abortion in terms of guilt and loss (Lesley sent in a post about an

excellent article by Nicci Gerard in the Observer which talked about

this). It is still unacceptable to admit to choosing barrier methods and

using abortion as a back-up. The historiography has tended, quite

rightly, very much to emphasise these continuing problems (E.Wilson,

J.Lewis, S.Rowbotham) but this obscures the huge and very real

improvements that took place after 1967. As historians, I think we

should resist diminishing the effort and the achievement of those

involved in the law reform - and one way to do this is to ensure that we

do not underestimate how unpleasant women's experience was before law

reform. I also want women to be aware of how much (white western)

women's lives improved over the 20th Century because I think this

encourages people to contribute to further improvement.

I don't feel that Lesley would disagree with this however we might

diverge on what it means in terms of writing history. (Perhaps she does

- apologies if so)

As to doctors being machiavellian -

My research which is primarily into sexuality and contraception suggests

that many British doctors felt that preventing births was a luxury and

women who had sex should take the consequences. There are many accounts

in which women who seek abortions describe doctors treating them with

contempt, sexually harassing them and giving barely adequate medical

care. This is consistent with the attitude to contraception. There were

also good doctors who worked very hard to help their patients but this

was a more radical stance. But overall I came out of doing research with

less respect for doctors than I had when I began it. I no longer feel

the bad experiences women had were exceptional.

(Pablo-)

Reading Lesleys writing I could imagine a way of building a resistance

by convincing physicians to violate the law in a country where public

debate is quite difficult. Reading Heras perspective I can just feel

the impossibility to make any political move and then it seems we should

wait to a legalizing law to come from I dont know where.

I think much resistance did come from doctors who were concerned about

women. I don't wish to devalue this.

And thanks for your description of your mother's experience and your own

feelings of connection.

Best wishes,

Hera

___________________________________________________________________From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>

Subject: Re: [histsex]abortion in Scotland and legal/semilegal

Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2001 23:20:55 +0100

Hi Hera:

Yes, I don't think we have a profound difference in our understanding =

of the abortion situation pre 1967 - I think I perhaps place more weight =

on the fact that people who had money and contacts or a general =

'knowledge of the ropes' could manipulate the system within the fuzzy =

spaces delineated by the Bourne case (as modified by Bergmann/Ferguson, =

1949) with a fair degree of impunity. In Penelope Mortimer's _Daddy's =

Gone A-Hunting_ (?late 1950s), which has a middle-class mother =

organising an abortion for her daughter at University, the analogy with =

income-tax evasion/avoidance is the one that's made (and of course there =

were ways this could be done _within_ the law given a sharp accountant) =

- something vaguely dodgy that everyone does. I'd see it as analogous in =

some respects to the ways the knowing, well-informed and reasonably =

well-off were able to 'play the system' with the Divorce Law pre 1937 =

(i.e. when it was adultery or nothing as grounds for divorce). This =

didn't mean that there was total impunity for the more privileged =

classes (cf the famous Earl Russell case where he ended up being tried =

and imprisoned for bigamy). But it meant that they started out with an =

advantage, if only because they could afford to consult a lawyer who =

could steer them carefully. I think there was a class/economic element =

about things which were (more or less) legal if you could pay for them =

yourself but to which access was restricted for individuals dependent on =

state assistance.

What do you think of the argument - which seems to be partially =

implied in Brookes's work - that many 'backstreet' abortionists were =

actually competent operators, but didn't have the backup of blood =

transfusions, antibiotics, etc if something went wrong?=20

On the Scotland position, there were/are significant differences in =

legal systems and culture which would have an impact on abortion but I =

don't know anyone who's looked at this specifically. There is, as has =

been pointed out, a tendency to treat the UK as a monolithic entity. I'd =

be interested to know whether there were regional versions of 'Harley =

St' in large provincial towns in England, or whether access to London =

was necessary.=20

Lesley Hall

lesleyah@primex.co.uk

website http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah

___________________________________________________________________From: "theo van der meer" <1vandermeer@planet.nl>

Subject: Re: [histsex] English law-1817

Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2001 12:22:38 +0200

----- Original Message -----=20

From: Rictor Norton=20

To: Histsex:For historians of sexuality=20

Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2001 2:44 PM

Subject: Re: [histsex] English law-1817

"Hergemoeller has the very commendable habit of prefacing every =

tentative conclusion he makes about sex in history with the remark =

"according to the current state of knowledge."

It seems to me that that is implied in all scholarly work. His comment =

particularly applies to the German context, since until recently little =

of this kind of research was done up there. I haven't seen =

Hergem=F6ller's english book yet; i am familiar with many of his German =

publications. If they are anything to go by, his source material on =

Germany is very scarce and also of a sketchy nature.

"Research into archive sources in the past 8-10 years is tending to =

demonstrate a wider range of sexual repertoire than was thought possible =

even a dozen years ago."

My colleagues and I in Holland have covered two thirds of early modern =

courts in the Netherlands; the ones that have not been done are mostly =

courts in rural area's, in which sodomy trials were usually very rare. =

It's also not as if my last visit to an archive did occur a dozen years =

ago - when I first published in English; I have continued my work on the =

early modern period until 1995 and I actually spend most of my time =

right now in there studying 19th century court records of 'sex crimes').

While prior to the late 17th century usually only summary =

verdicts were kept, from that time onwards we have immensely extensive =

files which commonly includes interrogations, affidavits and verdicts, =

as well as extensive material on social backgrounds, e.g. inventories of =

possessions of people who had been arrested or who had fled prosecution, =

and sometimes personal documents like love letters. In some exceptional =

cases a file contains several hundreds and on one occasion well over a =

thousand documents. My colleagues and I have also studied marital =

records of many people arrested, which implies that we were able to =

reconstruct whether they had been married and if, when and how many =

children they had fathered. Under such circumstances to keep saying =

"according etc. ...." would be utterly ridiculous. I haven't come to my =

conclusions lightly. I did not say by the way that fellatio did not =

exist, or that it was not known, I said it was rare. 12% in Florence =

may not be rare, yet not exactly wide spread either. I may add here that =

given the way 18th century dutch sodomites gossiped about these things, =

they themselves considered it to be exceptional (and a treat to be =

sucked).

"The usual Florentine patterns was that the older partner sucked the =

penis of the younger partner before sodomizing him. The "active/passive" =

role dichotomy required by strict formalists collapses in the face of =

this data. Rocke cites numerous colourful examples showing how the same =

person can suck on one occasion and be sucked on another, or both during =

the same encounter, and also can fuck or be fucked on other occasions or =

during the same encounter."=20

Micheal Rocke: "Passive sodomy among older men was not unknown, at =

least as some informers alleged, but it seems to have been =

rare."(P.104). The whole point of Rocke's book is of course that it is =

overall about age structured same-sex behavior in Florence of which he =

says that it mostly followed medterranian patterns, and indeed sometimes =

deviates from that pattern. What you say about switching roles here is =

by Rocke's accounts the exception and not the rule. That of course does =

not exclude that people gave one another mutual pleasure. Besides there =

is the representational issue of which Rock=E9 also says that references =

to fellatio in them were rare.=20

"Incidentally, Rocke argues that the laws were constructed in such a =

way that anal intercourse would be more highly documented than oral =

intercourse; since the law specifically regulated sodomy, it is =

especially significant that such a high incidence of oral intercourse is =

documented, and likely that the reported incidence would have been even =

greater if the law had been constructed to regulate oral intercourse =

more specifically."

Penal laws in Holland also only mention sodomy; criminal practice is a =

very different matter. Unlike in many other countries mutual =

masturbation in Holland was at least since the seventeenth century =

severly punished, commonly with periods of upto 30 or 40 years of =

solitary confiment. Sodomy required the death penalty. (According to =

Dutch authors at the time, most other countries, including Italy and =

Britain treated same sex behavior only as peccadillo's, minor sins). =

That itself seems to be related to the development of a well organized =

prison system in Holland since the late 16th century, that was able to =

keep people alive or sustain for long periods of time. Incarcerations =

elsewhere often were a far more immediate form of corporal punishment =

which no one could survive for long.

Not surprisingly criminal discourse in 17th century Holland began to =

follow a very concrete slippery slope theory, saying that mutual =

masturbation would always result in sodomy. By necessity criminal =

interrogations' focus was not entirely on actual sodomy but also on =

behaviors and acts that supposedly had preceded or accompanied sodomy. =

(In fact, in the absence of any direct evidence of actal sodomy, =

intteroagtors were not allowed to ask any queations about that) =

Nonetheless, skillfull interrogators were often able to bring defendants =

to detailed confessions, even within restrictions of trial procedures, =

while on the other hand defendants often felt guilty enough - especially =

in the face of death - to make such detailed confessions, in which they =

often also volunteered information on their own or others' sexual =

behavior that interrogators did not know about yet. And yet, fellatio =

is mostly absent from those confessions. Even if we allow for the fact =

that such confessions were also structured by representations, the =

absence of fellatio is striking. Dempsey may ask for a convincing theory =

of why fellatio would have been rare, I would need a convincing theory =

about its scarce representation in court records if it had not been =

rare.

Theo van der Meer

Rictor Norton, London

mailto:norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk

http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk

___________________________________________________________________From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>

Subject: [histsex] Review of interest: Global Sex

Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2001 13:21:42 +0100

In today's _Observer_, review by Philip Hensher of Dennis Altman's _Global

Sex_, which touches on a number of issues recently under discussion on the

list:

http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/politicsphilosophyandsociety/0,6121,4799

52,00.html

I'd argue with some of Hensher's comments (surely the Ladies of Llangollen

fitted into to an existing model of female devotion??), in particular (given

recent exchanges here), that 'homosexual practices, until relatively

recently, proceeded by analogy, and if sodomy became less common with the

appearance of Aids, there was also a sense that same-gender relations need

not always refer back to the penetrative habits of heterosexuals' - I'd

suggest (comments anybody?) that while legal and popular understandings of

same gender relationships tended to refer them to a heterosexual model, this

wasn't necessarily anything to do with actual same-sex practices.

Lesley Hall

lesleyah@primex.co.uk

website http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah

___________________________________________________________________From: "Rictor Norton" <norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk>

Subject: Re: [histsex] English law-1817

Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2001 13:45:51 +0100

The subject of pardons has been mentioned in this thread. It is =

certainly the case that more and more capital convicts were pardoned =

throughout the 18th cent. and into the 19th cent., to the point were it =

was a routine matter of rubber-stamping a reprieve hardly a day after a =

capital sentence was passed. It would be very interesting to know if the =

rate of pardons for homosexual offences increased at the same rate as =

the pardons for all other capital felonies. I think that gay offenders =

were treated more severely (less leniently) than other offenders and =

that pardons did not often come their way.

=20

This view was certainly held by a contemporary gay man, William =

Beckford, who wrote in 1816 regarding one Eglerton, who was convicted by =

the jury after ten minutes' deliberation: "Tomorrow they are going to =

hang a poor honest sodomite. I should like to know what kind of deity =

they fancy they are placating with these shocking human sacrifices. In a =

numerous list of thieves, assassins, house-breakers, violators ... he =

was the only one to be sent to the gallows; all the others were =

'respited during pleasure'."

=20

Louis Crompton in _Byron and Greek Love_ has shown that during the late =

18th cent./early 19th cent., the number of hangings for sodomites =

increased pro rata in comparison with the hangings of other convicted =

felons (though the actual figures aren't a large enough database for =

scientific statistical analysis).

=20

Most of the mercy petitions for pardons, and accompanying answers and =

discussions by the judge and letters of character etc., with notations =

of decision taken etc., for this period still exist in the Home Office =

archives. A fair number concerned petitions to pardon convicted =

homosexuals, most of which I believe were rejected. Only one of these =

documents has been partly published, and it is quite extraordinary. It =

is by an anonymous writer appealing to the King's Council to have mercy =

on Martin Millett and James Farthing who were condemned to death for =

buggering one another in their own lodging house in 1828 (at a time when =

only buggers, murderers and traitors were the only convicts still being =

executed):

"All, whether male or female, have certain inclinations or =

propensities which must be and are gratified, and for aught I see should =

be so: they are implanted in us by some unknown power ... [or] superior =

agency, and over [them] we have little control ... I would ask you =

whether youth is not initiated at the most tender age into such =

practices, aye, long before they leave School. ... It may be, and very =

likely was, your own case, for the practice pervades all classes of =

society, from the peer to the peasants, though unquestionably the former =

in far greater proportion to the latter. For God's sake therefore bestir =

yourself, and do not suffer these unfortunate wretches to die, when =

thousands besides, are as guilty and perhaps much more so (if guilt it =

be) than they are."

The King in Council commuted their death sentence to transportation for =

life.

This comes from V.A.C. Gatrell's _The Hanging Tree_. Gatrell is the only =

one to have investigated these archives; he says there are other gay =

cases but this is the only one he cites. It's an ideal project for a gay =

research-based thesis.

Rictor Norton, London

mailto:norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk

http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/eighteen.htm

=20

___________________________________________________________________Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2001 10:46:43 -0500

From: Bob <suannschafer@earthlink.net>

Subject: Re: [histsex] Review of interest: Global Sex

>In today's _Observer_, review by Philip Hensher of Dennis Altman's _Global

>Sex_, which touches on a number of issues recently under discussion on the

>list:

>http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/politicsphilosophyandsociety/0,6121,4799

>52,00.html

Thanks Lesley for the reference ....

Having read the "review", "Philip Hensher *on* ...", to me it appears

as an excuse for the "reviewer" to demonstrate his own knowledge of

the subject rather than review the book ... the worst kind of

narcissistic, masturbatory intellectualizing ....

___________________________________________________________________

From: "Brian Dempsey" <editor@scolag.org.uk>

Subject: [histsex] Scottish modern history - Section 28

Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2001 20:47:38 +0100

In the spirit of sharing historically significant information, please see

below the note from SCOLAG Legal Journal which records the repeal of

"Section 28" in Scotland - is remains in place in England and Wales.

"Section 28" was the Tory law which stated that local authorities could not

promote homosexuality and that schools could not teach that homosexuals were

a pretended family relationship" (I know, it is meaningless). There is a

mass of information about the vicious fight we had to secure repeal and how

elements of the right-wing media and the Churches tried to "Keep the

Clause" - hopefully that experience will be written up some day.

Brian

Section 28

Sections 34 and 35 of the Ethical Standards in Public Life etc (Scotland)

Act 2000 (2000 asp 7) have been brought into force by 2001 SSI 113 (C. 5).

S34 provides that Section 2A of the Local Government Act 1986 (c10)

(prohibition on local authorities' activities in connection with same-sex

relationships) (ôSection 28ö) is repealed.

S35 ôCouncilsÆ duties to childrenö provides in part ô(1) It is the duty of a

council, in the performance of those of its functions which relate

principally to children, to have regard to- (a) the value of stable family

life in a child's development; and (b) the need to ensure that the content

of instruction provided in the performance of those functions is

appropriate, having regard to each child's age, understanding and stage of

development.ö

___________________________________________________________________

From: "Brian Dempsey" <editor@scolag.org.uk>

Subject: RE: [histsex]abortion in Scotland and legal/semilegal

Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2001 20:53:34 +0100

Hera Cook wrote

Hi,

On the topic of Scottish law on abortion I asked Stephen Brooke, who is

about to have an excellent article on abortion law reform in Britain

published, if he knew what the difference was and he doesn't. I am

interested that both this and the fascinating discussion on fellatio and the

law reveal such gaps in knowledge on the part of historians of sexuality. Is

the law not that important or is this because of an insular approach to

sources?

The difficulty in relation to Scotland is multifaceted, at least if my

experience of homosex history is anything to go by.

1. There is the combined ignorance and arrogance of "scholars" who refer

to "the UK" when they mean England and Wales. This has the dual effect of

misinforming readers and giving the impression that a particular subject has

been explored "in Britain" when it has not thus leading to complacancy in

publishing.

I don't know Stephen Brooke but worry about an "excellent" article

purporting to examine the issue of abortion law reform "in Britain" that

fails to engage with the issue in pre- (and post?) 1967 Scotland.

2. Money helps. There is more money available for research in London and

London-based universities and "UK-wide" bodies tend not to address issues in

Scotland. I am sure there are similar difficulties in relation to Wales and

the north of Ireland and, indeed, the English regions.

3. We are a small nation. This means that we have heretofor lacked a

critical mass of researchers in "new" or marginalised areas of research such

as history relating to women, same-sexers, ethnic minorities etc.

4. We have had a conservative "labour/social history" millieu which has

tended to focus on white male trade unionists and, like everywhere else, a

conservative academy. Those interested in history from the point of view of

women, lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgendered people etc have not found

much encouragement.

I am currently working on the law reform process in relation to marriage

in Scotland in the last 100 - 200 years. My view is that law (and that is a

far from simple term) was and is certainly important though quite what its

role was/is remains to be discovered.

But things are not all bad. There are vast amounts of records available

which require to be gone through again by people interested in uncovering

various aspects of our history. Fortunately, as New Labour would say,

things can only get better. Comrades in other countries can help my ceasing

to make our existence and experiences invisible.

Brian

___________________________________________________________________

From: "Brian Dempsey" <editor@scolag.org.uk>

Subject: [histsex] Abortion, homosex and Foot and Mouth

Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 10:57:37 +0100

At last someone is prepared to speak the truth about abortion, homosex and

Foot and Mouth disease. We await earthquakes with some trepidation.

Brian

Pastor Blames Gays for Foot-and-Mouth

Matt Alsdorf, Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network

Thursday, April 26, 2001 / 02:45 PM

Scientists haven't yet identified the cause of Britain's devastating

foot-and-mouth outbreak, but one local pastor thinks he knows who's to

blame: the gays.

A British church pastor is distributing leaflets claiming that the latest

outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the U.K. countryside was caused by

God's disapproval of homosexuality.

In the Moreton Christian Assembly's newsletter, pastor Ray Borlase suggests

that the devastation wrought by foot-and-mouth disease is linked to the

recent reduction in the U.K.'s age of consent for gay sex to 16.

"The last major outbreak of foot-and-mouth was in 1967. A Christian leader

at that time linked that outbreak with two acts of Parliament. The first was

the Abortion Act and the second was the legalising of homosexuality," writes

Borlase. "Those acts permitted behaviour which would have brought the

disapproval of God upon our nation. Soon afterwards the foot-and-mouth

disease began to affect our country.

"In recent weeks, just prior to this outbreak, Parliament lowered the age of

consent for homosexual acts to 16 -- mere minors! We have failed to protect

our children from perversion. ... There is such a similarity between events

in 1967 and this outbreak that we have to conclude this is more than a

coincidence."

Local resident Julie Dean described herself as "totally and utterly

gobsmacked" by the pamphlet. "It is publications like this that drive up the

suicide rate for young gay people. Now every homophobic idiot thinks they

have an excuse to terrorize lesbians and gays after a rowdy night at the

pub, and I can guarantee that it will happen," she said. "The pastor of

Moreton Christian Assembly should be ashamed of himself."

But Borlase did not back down from his allegations, saying, "The Bible

clearly states that homosexuality is wrong."

___________________________________________________________________

From: Lesley Hall <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>

Subject: Re: [histsex] Abortion, homosex and Foot and Mouth

Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 10:26:36 GMT

> > At last someone is prepared to speak the truth about

abortion, homosex and

> Foot and Mouth disease. We await earthquakes with

some trepidation.

> > Brian

Also the plague of frogs...

Lesley Hall

lesleyah@primex.co.uk

___________________________________________________________________

From: "Pablo Ben" <benpablo@hotmail.com>

Subject: Re: [histsex]abortion in Scotland and legal/semilegal

Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 12:54:06 -0000

Dear Hera and Lesley

I evidently distorted some of the things on discussion, I just beg your

pardon. It was a combination of a misreading with a lack of knowledge. I

like to participate in the list, but sometimes I feel it is difficult to me

to do it because all the subjects discussed are on Europe or the United

States and they refer to very specific historical situations.My intention to

participate took me to an exagerated position in which I misunderstood the

axe in your arguments.Thanks a lot for your capacity to argue in a friendly

manner.

Pablo Ben

___________________________________________________________________Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 15:47:12 +0100

From: "Peter Bartlett" <Peter.Bartlett@nottingham.ac.uk>

Subject: [histsex] activity and passivity

Theo writes -

> From the early modern material I have seen it is obvious that unlike today

> it was the fellator who was considered to be the active partner in the act

> and the fellated to be the passive one.

I wonder when this changed? I seem to recall when I came out (late 1970s/early 1980s) that "French active" (the quasi-respectable term used in somewhat less respectable classified ads) meant liking to suck, not liking to get sucked. Does this meet with anyone else's recollections (surely we're not ALL under 30?). I came out in Canada; did this change earlier elsewhere? And would any of the body historians like to speculate on the significance of the change? (It does seem to be a Foucault analysis waiting to happen ...).

peter

___________________________________________________________________

Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 10:32:05 -0700 (MST)

From: Tim Hodgdon <Tim.Hodgdon@asu.edu>

Subject: [histsex] Cross-post from H-WOMEN: Ellen Key readings? (fwd)

Apologies for any duplication--but I am sure that people on HISTSEX,

especially those in America Latina, will be able to help.

Tim Hodgdon

Ph.D. candidate

Department of History

Arizona State University

Tim.Hodgdon@asu.edu

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 09:42:20 -0400

From: Beth Salerno <BSalerno@Anselm.Edu>

Reply-To: H-NET List for Women's History <H-WOMEN@H-NET.MSU.EDU>

To: H-WOMEN@H-NET.MSU.EDU

Subject: Ellen Key readings?

From: Gabriela Cano [mailto:gabcano@yahoo.com]

What readings would you suggest for studying German writer Ellen

Key and her influence in American feminism?

I live in Mexico City so I have done basic research in Mexican libraries

with no results. I am requesting help from H-Women because briefly I will be

travelling to the US and hope to advance my research on the reception of

Western feminism in Latin America. Thank you,

Gabriela Cano, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana

___________________________________________________________________Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 12:44:06 -0500

From: Gail Bederman <Gail.Bederman.1@nd.edu>

Subject: Re: [histsex] anonymous sex in late 18th century

Sex between enslaved women and white masters was extremely common in

the American south. Everybody knew it was going on: the very shades

of slave children's skin showed it was a ubiquitous problem, as the

famous Mary Chestnutt remarked. There's no reason to think Jefferson

was more scrupulous than other sexually-active slave-owners, when it

came to sexual relations with slaves.

Indeed, the wonder isn't that Jefferson had slave children; the

wonder is that the US historical profession needed DNA to take the

story seriously.

Gail Bederman

___________________________________________________________________From: "Rictor Norton" <norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk>

Subject: Re: [histsex] Abortion, homosex and Foot and Mouth

Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 18:53:20 +0100

Pastor Blames Gays for Foot-and-Mouth

There is an ancient tradition about what the Sodomites got up to . . . .

Rictor Norton, London

mailto:norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk

___________________________________________________________________Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 23:25:24 +0100

From: Hera Cook <hera.cook@btinternet.com>

Subject: [histsex] fellatio, arguing and personal experience

Dear Pablo,

Please do not apologise. I appreciated your contribution very much. It is a pleasure to have

someone responding to one's argument. You have also expanded my understanding of how the

arguments I make or the research I do speaks to people's understanding of their own lives by

describing your mother and yourself. In British academic culture people rarely speak about

this. Peter Bartlett's contribution reminded me of this also - how much gay male history is

still being written by gay men who came out and are still willing to speak about themselves.

On fellatio - I have thought that the best way to understand why men (and women cunnilingus

or fellatio) may have not enjoyed these practices is through Mary Douglas's work on

boundaries, pollution and liminality. It is I believe usual in most cultures to have a

boundary between shitting and pissing and eating. As a child I lived for various periods in

commmunities dominated by Moari people (the native people of New Zealand) who believed it was

wrong to sit or stand on a table, a place at which one ate. I have read that Hindus use one

hand for eating and the other for cleaning the genitals after shitting.

I think our culture creates this boundary through washing. In other words regular washing of

the genitals is a symbolic boundary which was not practiced/created in European cultures

(certainly not in Britain) until the late nineteenth century. I have a vague feeling that Joe

Ackerley makes some comments about working class men and their bodies and his sexual

practices that seemed consistent with this.

best wishes,

Hera

___________________________________________________________________From: MillerJimE@aol.com

Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 20:02:26 EDT

Subject: Re: [histsex] Abortion, homosex and Foot and Mouth

In a message dated 04/30/2001 12:54:32 PM Central Daylight Time,

norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk writes:

<< Pastor Blames Gays for Foot-and-Mouth

There is an ancient tradition about what the Sodomites got up to . . . . >>

Well, um . . . in the Hebrew Bible "foot" is a common euphemism for the

male genitals . . .

Jim Miller

___________________________________________________________________From: David Greenberg <david.greenberg@nyu.edu>

Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 20:37:54 -0400

Subject: Re: [histsex] European oral sex

There are ancient Roman sources referring to fellatio, but it was

considered defiling to the mouth of the fellator. I think it is a

reasonable inference from the limited historical record that the

practice has become more popular in the last century or so, and this may

reflect improved hygiene. David Greenberg, Sociology Department, New

York University.

___________________________________________________________________

Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 21:12:44 +0000

From: fxxm <fxxm@aspma.com>

Subject: Re: [histsex] Abortion, homosex and Foot and Mouth

> Well, um . . . in the Hebrew Bible "foot" is a common euphemism for the

> male genitals . . .

I wasn't aware of that. In the late Middle Ages it was

"yard" -- the thing must've grown over the centuries!

--Phil Milstein

Back to Archives List