Dangerous Sexualities: Medico-Moral Politics in England Since 1830 by Frank Mort, 1988 (this edition

Dangerous Sexualities: Medico-Moral Politics in England Since 1830 by Frank Mort, 1988 (this edition with new introduction, 2000)

This book has a very boring cover, so the image is from the Whores of Yore archive - if you have any interest in the history of sex/sexuality etc you should be reading that site and following on twitter.

This is a really good examination of the issues that includes issues that were around class (some reforms to industrial working conditions were demanded because of the perceived danger of working class female sexuality, which according to upper-middle class men needed to be separated and controlled from working class men). For some middle-class women, ‘positive’ social reform was highly bound up in ‘purity’ movements, which put them on the side of the repressive forces of society, even as they felt that they were on the opposite side.

It’s quite in-depth, and a little dry, but well worth the effort.