The Facts of Life: The Creation of Sexual Knowledge in Britain, 1650-1950

by Roy Porter, Lesley A. Hall

This remarkable study presents the first detailed and scholarly analysis of the creation of sexual knowledge in Britain. Surveying the period between the mid-seventeenth and the mid-twentieth centuries, it examines the major texts which established and authorised sexual knowledge and sexual practices. Porter and Hall then explore the various kinds of backgroundssexual, moral, religious, scientific, medical, domestic, social and cultural - without which these texts are unintelligible. And they examine their authors (some famous, some obscure, some anonymous), their careers, and the motives for involvement in medico-moral campaigns that were often thought unsavoury and commonly led to criticism and censure. The Facts of Life also assesses the wider impact of the publication of sexual knowledge and especially of sex advice literature, and explores the interplay between expertise, therapy, social mores and behaviour. Chapters on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries discuss prostitution, contagious diseases and gender relations, and consider debates on sexual issues and associated revelations of personal experience.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

428 pages, Hardcover

First published March 20, 1995

About the author

Roy's books cover several fields: the history of geology, London, 18th-Century British ideas and society, medicine, madness, quackery, patients and practitioners, literature and art, on which subjects (and others) he published over 200 books are articles.

List of works can be found @ wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Porter )

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and informative discussion of the history of sexual knowledge in Britain. Not titillating at all, but I wasn't really expecting it to be lol

[KW · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinarily niche, extraordinarily good

[Teal · Rating 4 out of 5]

writing style is great and I am a big fan of Lesley Hall. Perhaps taking too much with the time range, but does a good job of combining macro and micro history to weave a compelling narrative.