Sex, Politics & Society
The Regulation of Sexuality Since 1800
2nd edition

By J. Weeks
May 1989
Pearson Education / Longman
ISBN: 0582023831
336 pages
$52.50 Paper original

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This major work explores the transformation of attitudes to sexuality over the last 200 years. It provides detailed discussions of class differences, the significance of family, the changing experiences of childhood, changing concepts of female sexuality, the development of theories of homosexuality and the role of class.

Since the first edition of this major work was published in 1981 Britain has experienced major social and political transformations, which have had a significant impact on the regulation of sexuality. This book has been revised and a new chapter examines the effects of AIDS and its relationship to the new `moral agenda' that has emerged in recent years.

Contents
Acknowledgements.
Preface.
1. Sexuality and the historian.
2. `That damned morality': sex in Victorian ideology.
3. The sacramental family: middle-class men, women and children.
4. Sexuality and the laboring classes.
5. The public and the private: moral regulation in the Victorian period.
6. The construction of homosexuality.
7. The population question in the early 20th century.
8. The theorization of sex.
9. Feminism and socialism.
10. Sex psychology and birth control.
11. Beliefs and behavior 1914-39.
12. The state and sexuality.
13. The permissive moment.
14. Currents and counter-currents.
15. Postscript: the 1980s.
Suggestions for further reading.
Index.

Reviews
'This is 'a history of the present' worthy of the name, and as such cannot fail to raise difficult questions'
Michael Ignatieff

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