Governing pleasures : pornography and social change in England, 1815-1914 / Lisa Z. Sigel.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sigel, Lisa Z., 1965-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Pornography--England--History--19th century.

Pornography.

History.

England--Social conditions--19th century.

England.

Social conditions.

Great Britain--Social conditions--19th century.

Great Britain--Social conditions--20th century.

Local Subjects:

Great Britain--Social conditions--19th century.

Great Britain--Social conditions--20th century.

Physical Description:

ix, 227 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, [2002]

Summary:

How did concepts of sex and gender, race and class, home and empire develop in Victorian society? Lisa Z. Sigel charts the evolution of these ideas through the medium of pornography. Governing Pleasures details its production, distribution, and consumption in Great Britain between Waterloo and World War One. Rather than viewing pornography as a static phenomenon, Sigel examines how this medium changed over time to explore key questions: How did British society define pornography? Who had access to it? What did people make of its ideas? And how did these messages affect sexual and social dynamics? The author asserts that pornography offered people a way to make sense of sexuality and its relationship to the world during the transition of British society from an era of radical politics to one of consumer pleasures. Sigel vividly illustrates her arguments with literary and visual materials drawn from public and private collections.

Contents:

Introduction: Sexual Imaginings 1

Chapter 1 Revolutionary Pornography 15

Chapter 2 Sexuality Raw and Cooked: Empirical and Imperial Pornography 50

Chapter 3 The Pearl before Swine: Fetishism and Consumer Culture 81

Chapter 4 Filth in the Wrong People's Hands: Postcards and the Expansion of Pornography 119

Conclusion: Sexuality Re-imagined 156.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 189-216) and index.

ISBN:

0813530016

0813530024

OCLC:

48013362