The sexual life of our time: Medical censorship in early-20th-century England.

Abstract

This article challenges the widely held belief that early-20th-century England was one of the most sexually repressed countries in the Western world. Late Victorian physicians discussing sexual diseases and dysfunctions were granted immunity from prosecution if their publications were sold through a recognized medical publisher only to Members of the Medical, Legal and Clerical Professions. It was assumed that those same constraints applied to publications concerning the psychology of the sexual life (sexology). In 1908, Rebman Limited, a well-known medical publisher, advertised Eden Paul's (1908) translation of Iwan Bloch's The Sexual Life of Our Time (hereafter, "Sexual Life") without any restrictions. Although a magistrate ruled the book obscene, the U.K. Home Office allowed republication on condition that its sale was strictly limited. The Rebman case reveals how the U.K. Home Office tried to police the new science of sexology by limiting its circulation, not censoring its content. Despite these restrictions, Sexual Life circulated among lay readers, thereby inviting further research into how even "censored" material shaped debates on sexual, social, and political reform.

More than a case of mistaken identity: Adult entertainment and the making of early sexology

“…From 1868, following the trial R. v. Hicklin , British obscenity laws left anyone who distributed sexual-scientific works outside strictly medical circles vulnerable to prosecution (Potter, 2013: 17–18). However, the state had little interest in suppressing them, and legal action against distributors was very uncommon (Kuhn, 2020). 2 The situation in Germany was similar.…”