This book describes the transformation of sexuality in England between the late 1700s and around 1975. It argues that there is a close connection between sexual attitudes and behaviour, and the gradual exertion of control over fertility caused by the gradual improvements in birth control over this period. It shows that the impact upon women of changes in levels of sexual activity was different from and greater than that upon men. This is because the economic and social consequences of children are the major cost of sexual activity and women bore the physical consequences of reproduction. Birth ... More

This book describes the transformation of sexuality in England between the late 1700s and around 1975. It argues that there is a close connection between sexual attitudes and behaviour, and the gradual exertion of control over fertility caused by the gradual improvements in birth control over this period. It shows that the impact upon women of changes in levels of sexual activity was different from and greater than that upon men. This is because the economic and social consequences of children are the major cost of sexual activity and women bore the physical consequences of reproduction. Birth rates reached historical heights in the early 19th century and, initially, succeeding generations of women, and later men, rejected sexual expression in order to limit their fertility. Detailed use of the evidence on sexual practice and contraceptive methods, availability, and use shows that not until the early decades of the 20th century did contraception become a viable option for the majority of the population. Changes in physical sexual practice and related attitudes to the body, the resulting slow relaxation of attitudes to sexuality, and the remaking of heterosexual physical sexual behaviour during the 20th century are analysed. An innovative combination of demographic and qualitative sources are combined to chart the changes that climaxed in the sexual revolution of the 1960s.