Sex, politics and society: the regulation of sexuality since 1800

Description

Sexuality and the historian -- 'That damned morality': sexuality in Victorian ideology -- The sacramental family: middle-class men, women and children -- Sexuality and the labouring classes -- The public and the private: moral regulation in the Victorian period -- The construction of homosexuality -- The population question in the early twentieth century -- The theorisation of sex -- Feminism and socialism -- Sex psychology and birth control -- Towards a conservative modernity -- The state and sexuality -- The permissive moment -- Personal politics and moral conservatism -- The changing landscape of sexuality and gender -- Diversity, agency and citizenship.;"Provides a lucid and comprehensive analysis of the transformations of British sexual life from 1800 to the present. These changes are firmly located in the wider context of British social, political and cultural life, from industrialization, urbanisation and the impact of Empire and colonisation, through the experience of economic disruption, World Wars, the establishment of the welfare state, changing patterns of gender and the emergence of new sexual identities. This book also charts the rise of both progressive and conservative social movements, including feminism, LGBT activism, and fundamentalist movements. It is a history where the past continues to live in the present, and where the present provides ever more complex, and often controversial patterns of sexual life, with sexual and gender issues at the heart of contemporary politics."--Provided by publisher.