Sex and the Eighteenth-Century Man: Massachusetts and the History of Sexuality in America

by Thomas A. Foster

With few exceptions, sex is noticeably absent from popular histories chronicling colonial and Revolutionary America. Moreover, it is rarely associated specifically with early American men. This is in part because sex and family have traditionally been associated with women, while politics and business are the historic province of men. But Thomas Foster turns this conventional view on its head. Through the use of court records, newspapers, sermons, and private papers from Massachusetts, he vividly shows that sex—the behaviors, desires, and identities associated with eroticism —was a critical component of colonial understanding of the qualities considered befitting for a man.

Sex and the Eighteenth-Century Man begins by examining how men, as heads of households, held ultimate responsibility for sex -not only within their own marriages but also for the sexual behaviors of dependents and members of their households. Foster then examines the ways sex solidified bonds in the community, including commercial ties among men, and how sex operated in courtship and social relations with women. Starkly challenging current views about the development of sexuality in America, the book details early understandings of sexual identity and locates a surprising number of stereotypes until now believed to have originated a century later, among them the black rapist and the unmanly sodomite, figures that serve to reinforce cultural norms of white male heterosexuality.

As this engrossing and surprising study shows, we cannot understand manliness today or in our early American past without coming to terms with the oft-hidden relationship between sex and masculinity.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, 18th Century, American History, Sexuality, American Revolutionary War

248 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Thomas A. Foster is Professor of History at Howard University, in Washington, DC, and author of Sex and the Eighteenth-Century Man: Massachusetts and the History of Sexuality in America, and Sex and the Founding Fathers: The American Quest for a Relatable Past. He is also editor of Long Before Stonewall: Histories of Same-Sex Sexuality (NYU Press, 2007), New Men: Manliness in Early America (NYU Press, 2011), and Documenting Intimate Matters: Primary Sources for a History of Sexuality in America.

Reviews

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been waiting to read this book because my work is pretty much on the exact same topic. I started reading it today and have found we use a lot of the same evidence! (Stomach sinking).

One thing I immediately agreed with Foster about was that the current historiographic trend discussing sexual acts versus identities for eighteenth century individuals is off. Ideas about sexual desire were central to characterizations of white women, white men, African Americans, Indians and the white lower class.

The first chapter on marriage and manliness was interesting, but nothing really new emerges here. Foster argues that the American Revolution freed individuals from former constraints in their courtship and marriages. I disagree with this. Changes freed men, not women, from constraints.

The second and third chapters on manliness and the limits on their sexual behavior are interesting, and I found myself both agreeing and disagreeing with the author here. Yes, rape was considered excessive violence by men, and indeed, African American and Native American men were more likely to be found guilty and hanged for it. Moreover, I agree that characterizing certain men as excessively sexual was a way of maintaining the status quo. But, I think Foster underestimates the extent to which patriarchs could assault and coerce sex from servants, slaves and other members of their households with impunity. And, I do not agree that fertility problems were blamed more on men than women.

The chapter on the community of men was the most interesting so far. I'm disturbed to see Foster note that women used fornication confessions as a means of getting paternal support (based on Godbeer's finding). Women's fornication confessions were not equivalent with men's paternity hearings. On the other hand, I really enjoyed how Foster connected man-man love with a degenerated male body (to eighteenth century minds) and tried to parcel out what an attractive male body was (again to eighteenth century minds). This is something I had not given much thought about.

I agree with much of what the author says about a proto-homosexual identity emerging. People increasingly saw sodomy as linked to a certain type of man rather than an illicit sexual act likened to others. I disagree that sodomy was losing its importance in the cultural milieu of the late eighteenth century. Sodomy and effeminacy were useful demarcations of manliness for American men looking to contrast themselves with Europeans.

[Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Relatively straight forward yet slightly repetitive by the last chapter. Men policed other men's behavior, class/wealth was a serious advantage, & the book seemed to pair well with Clare Lyons' "Sex Among the Rabble"---which centers on Philadelphia and this book follows Massachusetts.

[Donald Kratt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading, I thought to myself this was more like a doctoral thesis.
Sure enough ...

[QOH · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here's the one book about colonial Massachusetts in which I was relieved to find no mention of any of my ancestors!

While the book is about male sexuality -- as identity, as a series of acts, as tied to a man's social and business standing, as a reflection of moral character -- it contains a wealth of anecdotes from court records of assaults, affairs, rapes, incest and other sexual acts. So to my ancestors? Good job on keeping it out of the history books.

As someone who represented victims of sex abuse in civil cases, it was fascinating to see what went into similar cases in the eighteenth century. Then as now, sexual deviance and rape were most likely to be prosecuted only where the perpetrator was of lower socioeconomic status; no one likes to make accusations against the town/church elders. This truism is why sex abuse, sadly, seems as though it will always continue within the confines of any patriarchal church community. But...I'll get off that soapbox for now.

The book started life as a PhD dissertation and it shows. Not in a bad way, but in an occasionally tortured sentence, telegraph the contents of every paragraph sort of way. (But frankly, it was nice to read something that was written for an educated audience.)

That said, it was a relatively quick read (one afternoon, with many interruptions). I enjoyed it, but had the sense that the author didn't quite write the book he wanted to write, or at least didn't emphasize what he would have preferred to emphasize. There was some repetition of concepts (OK, I get that a man's fractured or intact or happy or unhappy domestic life reflected on him personally! I GET IT! I didn't need to read it fifty times!). Each chapter was interesting, but didn't necessarily tie together with the others; in a way, it was more like reading a series of journal articles.

Overall, a worthwhile trip into colonial Massachusetts bedrooms!