Science, Sexual Difference and the Making of Modern Marriage in American Sex Advice, 1920–40

Abstract

This article considers discussions of sexual difference in a range of popular prescriptive texts published between 1920 and 1940 in order to explore the relationship between science and American marital advice literature. It demonstrates the particular role science played in shaping, legitimising and enforcing changing discussions about what 'good sex' should look like in contemporary advice -supporting a hierarchy of sexual activities and desires that privileged a particular version of marital heterosexual expression. Through this, it also interrogates the 'popular' version of sexual science being consumed by the American public at this time. In addition to adding new perspectives to our understanding of contemporary advice and its relationship with science and medicine, it will also act as a provocation for further research into the ways the public engaged with sexual science in early twentieth-century America.

‘All the progressive forms of life are built up on the attraction of sex’: Development and the social function of the sexual instinct in late 19th- and early 20th-century Western European sexology

“…Here, too, sexual expression was the mechanism through which 'higher' (often especially human) developments, including spirituality, creativity, morality, altruism, love, and social cohesion, were achieved in ways that opened up discussions of nonreproductive sex and its benefits. A diverse range of sexual scientists and reformers were united in their belief that non-reproductive sex between men and women could improve intimate bonds, allow individuals (and especially women) to realize their full potential in life, and, finally, lead to a more cohesive and strong society by fostering social, moral, and intellectual skills (Jones, 2023;Laipson, 1996;Sears, 1977). In these early 20th-century debates, the initially tentative teasing apart of different-gender desire and biological reproduction discussed in the previous section led to a more explicit articulation of the individual and social advantages of non-reproductive sex between men and women that would become central to modern constructions of heterosexuality (H. Cook, 2004).…”