by Hanne Blank
On sex, gender, religion, and economics in the early modern era, see: Susan Cahn, Industry of Devotion: The Transformation of Women's Work in England, i5oo—i66o (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987); Natalie Zemon Davis and Arlette Farge, eds., A History of Women in the West, vol. Ill, Renaissance and Enlightenment Paradoxes (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1993); Philip Greven, The Protestant Temperament: Patterns of Child-Rearing, Religious Experience, and the Self in Early America (New York: Knopf, 1977); R. Marie Griffith, Born Again Bodies: Flesh and Spirit in American Christianity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004); Bridget Hill, Women Alone: Spinsters in England i66o-i85o (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001); Theodora Jankowski, Pure Resistance: Queer Virginity in Early Modern English Drama (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000); Susan C. Karant-Nunn and Merry E. Weisner-Hanks, Luther on Women: A Sourcebook (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Beth Kreitzer, Reforming Mary: Changing Images of the Virgin Mary in Lutheran Sermons of the Sixteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); Alister E. McGrath and Darren C. Marks, eds., The Blackwell Companion to Protestantism (Maiden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2004); Donald K. McKim, The Cambridge Companion to Martin Luther (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Peter Marshall, Reformation England, 1480—1642 (London: Arnold, 2003); and Mark A. Noll, America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).
The long and contentious history of the exploration and settlement of the Americas is chronicled not only in the work of historians but also in writings by those who were on the ground at the time. Among the sources that informed the North American sections of this chapter are: Robert Beverley, The History and Present State of Virginia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1947); Gordon Brotherston, Image of the New World: The American Continent Portrayed in Native Texts (London: Thames and Hudson, 1979); Cornelia Hughes Dayton, Women Before the Bar: Gender, Law and Society in Connecticut, 1639—IJ89 (Chapel Hill: University of North Caronlina Press, 1995); David Flaherty, "Law and the Enforcement of Morals in Early America," in Perspectives in American History, vol. 5, Donald Fleming and Bernard Bailyn, eds. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971); Peter Charles Hoffer, Law and People in Colonial America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992); Lyle Koehler, A Search for Power: The "Weaker Sex" in Seventeenth-Century New England (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980); Annette Kolodny, The Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and History in American Life and Letters (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975); John Lawson, A New voyage to Carolina, containing the exact description and Natural History of that Country, together with the present state thereof and a Journal of a Thousand Miles Travel 'd thro; several Nations of Indians, Giving a particular Account of their Customs, Manners, etc. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1967); Merril D. Smith, ed., Sex and Sexuality in Early America (New York: New York University Press, 1998); Thomas Morton, New English Canaan (New York: Arno Press, 1972); John Murrin, "Magistrates, Sinners and a Precarious Law" and "Liberty: Trial by Jury in Seventeenth-Century New England," in Saints and Revolutionaries: Essays on Early American History, Hall, et al., eds. (New York: W W Norton, 1984); Kirkpatrick Sale, The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy (New York: Penguin, 1991); Roger Thompson, Sex in Middlesex: Popular Mores in a Massachusetts County, 2649-2699 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1986); and Laurel Thatcher Ul-rich, Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-175o (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980).
11: The Erotic Virgin
Some individual pornographic sources for this chapter are listed by title within the chapter. The others are both legion and much too ephemeral to bother listing them here.
On pornography and sexually explicit writings, and specifically that of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, see: Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Rereading Sex: Battles over Sexual Knowledge and Suppression in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002); Walter Kendrick, The Secret Museum: Pornography in Modern Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996); Julie Peakman, Mighty Lewd Books: The Development of Pornography in Eighteenth-century England(London: Palgravefylacmillan, 2003); Ronald Pearsall, The Worm in the Bud: The World of Victorian Sexuality (New York: Penguin Books, 1983); Ellen Bayuk Rosenman, Unauthoriied Pleasures: Accounts of Victorian Erotic Experience (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003); Lisa Z. Sigel, Governing Pleasures: Pornography and Social Change in England, 1815-1914 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002).
The history of English and American sexuality-related philanthropic and legislative reform, as well as historical attitudes concerning sexuality and gender generally, are detailed in: Barret-Ducroq, Love in the Time of Victoria: Sexuality and Desire Among Working-Class Men and Women in Nineteenth-Century London, John Howe, trans. (New York: Penguin, 1991); Lucy Bland, Banishing the Beast: Sexuality and the Early Feminists (New York: The New Press, 1995); John D'Emilio and Estelle Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1988); Peter Gay, Education of the Senses, vol. I, The Bourgeois Experience: Victoria to Freud (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984); Linda Hirshman and Jane Larson, Hard Bargains: The Politics of Sex (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); Michael Mason, The Making of Victorian Sexuality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); Michelle Oberman, "Turning Girls into Women: ReEvaluating Modern Statutory Rape Law," Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 85 (1994): 15, 31—36; Roy Porter and Lesley A. Hall, The Facts of Life: The Creation of Sexual Knowledge in Britain, i65o-i95o (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995); Cynthia Eagle Russett, Sexual Science: The Victorian Construction of Womanhood (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989); Christine Stansell, City of Women: Sex and Class in New York, IJ89-1860 (New York: Knopf, 1986); and Judith Walkowitz, City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London (London: Virago, 1992).
A selection of worthwhile works on the history and definition of childhood, as well as the roles of the family, the community, and the state in the lives of children, include: David Archard, Children: Rights and Childhood (London: Routledge, 1993); Phillippe Aries, Centuries of Childhood, Robert Baldick, trans. (New York: Vintage, 1962); Marjorie Heins, Not in Front of the Children: "Indecency, " Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001); Anne Higonnet, Pictures of Innocence: The History and Crisis of Ideal Childhood (London: Thames and Hudson, 1998); Linda A. Pollock, Forgotten Children: Parent Child Relations from i5oo to 1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983); C. John Somerville, The Rise and Fall of Childhood (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1982); and Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex, and Marriage in England, i5oo—i8oo (Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin, 1977).
12: The Day Virginity Died?
On the rise of scientific gynecology and sexology, including various examples of the rise itself, see: Bullough, Science in the Bedroom: A History of Sex Research (New York: Basic Books, 1994); Oliver Butterfield, Sex Life in Marriage (New York: Emerson Books, Inc., 1940); Alan Hunt, "The Great Masturbation Panic and the Discourses of Moral Regulation in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century Britain," Journal of the History of Sexuality 8/4 (1998): 575-615; Alfred Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy, and Clyde Martin, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Company, 1948); Kinsey, et al., Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Company, 1953); Franziska Lamott, "Virginitat als Fetisch: Kulturelle Codierung und rechdiche Normierung der Jungfraulichkeit um die Jarhrhundertwende," Tel Aviver Jahrbuch fiir Deutsche Geschichte (1992): 153—70; Ferdinand Lundberg and Marynia Farnham, Modern Woman: The Lost Sex (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1947); Heidi Rimke and Alan Hunt, "From Sinners to Degenerates: The Medicalization of Morality in the Nineteenth Century," History of the Human Sciences 15/1 (2002): 59-88; Rober
tson, "Signs, Marks, and Private Parts: Doctors, Legal Discourses, and Evidence of Rape in the United States, 1823-1930," Journal of the History of Sexuality 8/3 (1998): 345-88; and Theodor van de Velde, Ideal Marriage: Its Physiology and Technique, Stella Browne, trans. (New York: Random House, 1930).
The rise of the "new woman" resulted in a great deal of writing, both historical and otherwise. The following sources are specifically relevant to the sexual and sex-political sides of women's rights and female emancipation: Beth L. Bailey, From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998); Joan Jacobs Brumberg, The Body Project: An Intimate flistory of American Girls (New York: Random House, 1997); and " 'Ruined' Girls: Changing Community Responses to Illegitimacy in Upstate New York, 1890-1920," Journal of Social History 18 (Winter 1984): 247-72; Dickinson, "Bicycling for Women from the Standpoint of the Gynecologist," American Journal of Obstetrics 21 (1895): 25; Ellen Garvey, "Reframing the Bicycle: Advertising Supported Magazines and Scorching Women," American Quarterly 47/1 (March 1995): 66—101; Christina Simmons, "Women's Power in Sex Radical Challenges to Marriage in the Early-Twentieth-Century United States," Feminist Studies 29/1 (Spring 2003): 169—98; Penny Tinker, "Cause for Concern: Young Women and Leisure, 1930-1950," Women's History Review 12/2 (2003): 233—59.
Three excellent discussions of the history of contraceptives are: Hera Cook, The Long Sexual Revolution: English Women, Sex, and Contraception 1800-19J5 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); Lara V. Marks, Sexual Chemistry: A History of the Contraceptive Pill (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001); and Elizabeth Siegel Watkins, On The Pill: A Social History of Oral Contraceptives 1950-1970 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998).
The so-called sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s spawned its own supply of commentators and historians. The following works are useful, informative, and, most important, reliable: David Allyn, Make Love, Not War: The Sexual Revolution, an Unfettered History (Boston: Little, Brown, 2000); Bullough and Bullough, Sexual Attitudes: Myths and Realities (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1995); David Buss, et al., "International Preferences in Selecting Mates: A Study of 37 Cultures," Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 21/i (March 1990): 5-47; D'Emilio and Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America', Jane Gerhard, Desiring Revolution: Second-Wave Feminism and the Rewriting of American Sexual Thought, 1920-1982 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001); Paula Kamen, Her Way: Young Women Remake the Sexual Revolution (New York: New York University Press, 2000); and Judith A. Levine, Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002).
The ongoing controversies over abstinence education and related legislation in the United States continue to generate literature, of which this is a highly limited sample: Bearman and Bruckner, "After the Promise: The STD Consequences of Adolescent Virginity Pledges," Journal of Adolescent Health 36/4 (April 2005): 271-78; Bearman and Bruckner, "Promising the Future: Virginity Pledges and First Intercourse," The American Journal of Sociology 106/4 (January 2001): 859—912; Ted Carter, Evaluation Report for the Kansas Abstinence Education Program (Topeka: Kansas Department of Health and Environment, November 2004); Centers for Disease Control, Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey (2001); Lisa J. Crockett, C. Raymond Bingham, et al., "Timing of First Sexual Intercourse: The Role of Social Control, Social Learning, and Problem Behavior," Journal of Youth and Adolescence 25/1 (1996): 89—in; J.F. deGaston, L. Jensen, and S. Weed, "A Closer Look at Adolescent Sexual Activity," Journal of Youth and Adolescence 24/6 (1995): 465—79; Patricia Goodson, et al., Abstinence Education Evaluation Phase 5: Technical Report (College Station: Texas A&M University, Department of Health & Kinesiology, 2004); Marjorie Heins, "Sex, Lies, and Politics: Congress Is Poised to Reauthorize Fearmongering 'Abstinence-Only' Sex Ed," The Nation 272/18 (May 7, 2001); Kaiser Family Foundation, Issue Update: Sex Education in the U.S.: Policy and Politics (March 2002); Kaiser Family Foundation and Seventeen magazine, Sex Smarts: National Survey of Teens: Virginity and the First Time, 2003; Kaiser Family Foundation and KM magazine, The Kaiser Family Foundation and YM Magaiine 1998 National Survey of Teens (1998); Douglas Kirby, "Do Abstinence-Only Programs Delay the Initiation of Sex Among Young People and Reduce Teen Pregnancy?" (Washington, D.C.: The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, October 2002); Kirby, "Emerging Answers" (Washington, D.C.: The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, 2001); Jonathan D. Klein and the Committee on Adolescence, American Academy of Pediatrics, "Adolescent Pregnancy: Current Trends and Issues," Pediatrics 116 no. 1 (July 1, 2005): 281-86; R. Mayer and L. Kantor, "1995-1996 Trends in Opposition to Comprehensive Sexuality Education in Public Schools in the United States," SIECUS Report 24/1 (1996); Josh McDowell, Why True Love Waits: The Definitive Book on How to Help Your Kids Resist Sexual Pressure (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2002); Karen Kay Perrin and Sharon Bernecki Dejoy, "Abstinence-Only Education: How We Got Here and Where We're Going," Journal of Public Health Policy 24/3—4 (2004): 445—59; Robert E. Rector, "The Effectiveness of Abstinence Education Programs in Reducing Sexual Activity Among Youth," Backgrounder no. 1533 (Washington, D.C.: The Heritage Foundation, April 2002); Lisa Remez, "Oral Sex Among Adolescents: Is it Sex or Is It Abstinence," Family Planning Perspectives 32/6 (November/December 2000); Edward Smith, Jacinda Dariotis, and Susan Potter, Evaluation of the Pennsylvania Abstinence Education and Related Services Initiative: 1998-2002 (Philadelphia: Maternal and Child Health Bureau of Family Health, Pennsylvania Department of Health, January 2003); Adam Sonfield and Rachel Benson Gold, "States' Implementation of the Section 510 Abstinence Education Program, FY 1999," Family Planning Perspectives 33 (2001): 166—71; and Jackie West, "(Not) Talking About Sex: Youth, Identity, and Sexuality," The Sociological Review (1999): 525-47.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Iowe a huge debt of gratitude to the friends and colleagues who read and critiqued chapter drafts, passed on bits of virgin lore, pointed me to sources, advised me in their academic specialties, helped me with translations, hung out with me while I watched several seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and generally helped me stay sane throughout this long and frequently maddening project. Thanks are due to many, but in particular I wish to acknowledge the contributions of Rahne Alexander, S. Bear Bergman, Heather Corinna, Dr. Leigh Ann Craig, Melissa Fox, Roxane Gay, Dr. Lesley A. Hall, Laura Waters Jackson, Dr. Helen King, Dr. Kathleen Kennedy, Keridwen Luis, Dr. Sarah Monette, Moira Russell, Danya Ruttenberg, and Elizabeth Merrill Tamny. I must also thank the interns who assisted me at various points during this project, Kristen Simpson, Judy Berman, Kate McGill, and the incomparable Beverly Rivero. Additionally, I am grateful to Philip Cronenwett of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Dibner Library, Harry Finley of the Museum of Menstruation, Erin Clements Rushing of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, and Bettina Smith of the Folger Shakespeare Library for their expert referrals and aid. My deep appreciation also goes to those by whose efforts my work became the book you hold in your hands: Colin Dickerman, Lindsay Sagnette, and Greg Villepique of Bloomsbury USA, and especially Christopher Schelling. Any errors or inaccuracies that remain in this book are mine alone.
My deep thanks also go to a handful of fellow virginologists, on whose exemplary historical, archival, and medical work I have drawn heavily throughout these pages and without which I would have been unable to write this book. They include Abby Berenson, Peter Brown, John Bugge, Laura Carpenter, Theodora Jankowski, Kathleen Coyne Kelly, Helen King, Helen Rodnite Lemay, Marie Loughlin, JoAnn McNamara, Aline Rousselle, and Giulia Sissa.
The Institute for Teaching and Research on Women at Towson University, Towson, Maryland, and its director, Dr. Karen Dugger, welcomed me as Scholar of the Institute during 2004—2005. This book owes a great deal to ITROW's kind patronage of this independent scholar, and for providing that "room of one's own" for a critical period of time.
Also to be thanked are
Johns Hopkins University's Program for the Study of Women and Gender, the Johns Hopkins Department of Philosophy, the Department of History at Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Delaware, and West Virginia University, all of which at various times in my research and writing process provided me with welcome opportunities to get out of my solitary office and present some of this material to living, breathing, interactive audiences.
The various libraries of the Johns Hopkins University and the Library of Congress, the places where I did the bulk of the research for this book, were perhaps my most important institutional benefactors of all. The existence of grand libraries like these is a credit to our species.
Lastly, I must publicly thank Malcolm Gin for his impeccable tolerance of my long hours and ever-expanding collection of research materials, for distracting me as needed with Star Trek, The Thin Man movies, and Katamari Damacy, and, last but very much not least, for a decade (and counting!) of loving partnership.
A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR
Hanne Blank is a writer, historian, and public speaker whose activities have taken her from university lecture halls to the pages of Penthouse. An independent scholar, she has served in various capacities at several institutions of higher learning, most recently as the 2004—2005 Scholar of the Institute for Teaching and Research on Women, Towson University, Maryland. A former professional classical musician, she lives in Baltimore.