Masturbation And Sexual Pleasure During The 19th Century

April Haynes lectured and wrote about masturbation and sexual pleasure in the 19th century. She covered the history behind the women-led reformation of sexual pleasure and desire in women, and spoke about the anti-masturbation movement, which was surprisingly lead by women in the same era. I found these talks to be very interesting in that they covered a discrepancy between the wonder of sex, and the female reintroduction to knowledge about their body, and anti-masturbation, which was an ideology enforced by women of that time. An overarching theme in the 19th century was the ideology of passionlessness. This claimed that women were incapable of experiencing sexual pleasure, and had no sexual desire. It was prevalent throughout the early 19th century, but middle class reformers shifted this view in the 1830s. Male lecturers used to only give men talks about their own sexual bodies, but the reform was headed by these lecturers as well. They began to speak about woman’s sexual b odies, emphasizing that women have as much sexual desire as men, and could achieve orgasm through hetrosexual sex. Women from the middle class, and lower middle class, attended these lectures to gather information on their own bodies. 19th century women did not know about their own bodies as they did in the past, which attracted women to these lectures, in an attempt to re-obtain this held knowledge. The popularity of these lectures not only caused a reform against the ideology of passionlessness, butShow MoreRelatedSigmund Freud s Theory Of Psychology1568 Words   |  7 Pages Freud Sigmund Yifan Wang Current issues in history Vanier College 2014-11-11 Freud Sigmund In the 19th century, people progressed toward a new era of scientific revolution with new inventions and technologies. Doctors find treatment to heal cancer and people lives longer than before. 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