Sex During the Victorian Era

By: Kiara Bell

Throughout the years, many rumors about sexuality during the Victorian Era have formed. The roles of each gender were said to have been a big component of daily living at that time, men were the breadwinners and women raised their children and were submissive to their husbands for sexual activities. The desire to have sex were solely for men and for prostitutes on the streets. These strict views on sexuality have become what we know believe as the Victorian Stereotype. Back during the 19^th century, doctors even believed that women were not capable of having any sexual desire whatsoever. If women showed any signs of sexual desire, it was seen as a disease or sickness and surgery would have to be performed on them to remove their sex organs.[1] I believe that was just insane and ridiculous.

Many people believed that throughout the Victorian Era, sex was a subject that not everyone discussed. Young girls could grow up into women and still not know the ins and outs of sex and where babies came from. Sex and anything even remotely related to the topic contradicted the notions of purity and was looked down upon extremely. [2] If women were caught doing anything along the lines of masturbating, something that was so demonized and awful, were considered to have some type of mental disorder.

After doing some research, I found that people believed men and women born during the Victorian Era were both factually uninformed and emotionally frigid about sexual matters. [3] When I finished reading articles like these, I could not help but feel terrible for the situations these women were going through and for the way they were being treated. When I saw a video during one of my classes called “The History of Sex from Don Juan to Queen Victoria, it was stated that sex within a marriage was completely normal and healthy. Eventually, doctors had limited the amounts of sex that could take place and women were to be warm and loving to their husband and have a love of home and their children. In the Victorian Era, the concept of honeymoons after marriage began and it would be referred to as the vacation from hell because they could have sex as much as they desired. Women did enjoy sex, contrary to popular belief.

 

---

[1] Pastor, Gabriella, Chelsea Mageland, and Sarah Findley. "The Victorian Era." History of Human Sexuality in Western Culture (blog), http://historyofsexuality.umwblogs.org/pre-20th-century/victorian-era-2/ (accessed January 31, 2014).

[2] "Victorian Women: The Gender of Oppression." Women as "the Sex" during the Victorian Era (blog), http://webpage.pace.edu/nreagin/tempmotherhood/fall2003/3/HisPage.html (accessed January 31, 2014).

[3] Victoria and Albert Museum, "Sex & Sexuality in the 19th Century." Last modified 2014. Accessed January 31, 2014. http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/s/sex-and-sexuality-19th-century/ .