Gender and Intimacy

Controlling Intimacy: Sex in Early Victorian England

• Britishness = Prudishness?
  • Sex as a taboo subject.
• Sexual Stimulants and Derangements were reasons for admission into Asylums for women.

a) Queen Victoria:

• Her sexual appetite different to this idea of 'prudishness'.
• Her diary entries and correspondence with Lord Melbourne detail her experiences with Albert.
• ****** gift exchanges between herself and Albert
  • Sensual paintings of herself
  • Paintings of Hercules and Omphale

b) Sexual double-standards

• Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857…