Rules of Desire: Sex in Britain: WorldWar I to the Present

by Cate Haste

The Free Love Debate; the sex psychologists; the Bright Young Things; homosexual life in the Thirties; secret sex and World War II; the Sixties and the pill; gay rights; rape laws; the impact of AIDS; the declining ideal of marriage; the new emphasis on relationships and 'whole body sensuality'.Beginning with the Edwardian theorists, like Edward Carpenter and Havelock Ellis, Cate Haste tells the history of changing sexual attitudes in twentieth-century Britain. Intimate private experience is set against well-known cases - from Lady Chatterley to Profumo, Thorpe and Archer - and against the dictates of the churches, courts and media.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

368 pages, Paperback

First published August 10, 1994

Reviews

[Ian Clotworthy]

It was interesting to read how the morals of British society have been so much determined by the government's actions. It bravely makes the case for blaming the British government's instigating of the First World War as setting off a chain reaction among the British youth.

It refutes those who view the changes in British attitudes to sex as resulting from the moral deterioration of individuals. Instead, it demonstrates how the establishment's policies made sure that these trends were bound to happen.