Bodily anxieties in enlightenment sex literature

Abstract

Traditional beliefs about the early modern body were based on ancient theories which expounded a humoral system; this humoral body needed regulated discharges of fluids in order to maintain a healthy equilibrium. These views were still circulating in Enlightenment sex advice literature. With the development of new medical opinion, fresh attempts were made to 'civilise' the body through the control of bodily fluids, with masturbation seen as being particularly unhealthy. Often in opposition to these new 'scientific' promulgations, erotica would stand as an expression of popular concern about the body which expressed disbelief in dominant medical opinion while retaining acceptance of some of the older theories. Moral anxieties about the body were raised in erotica through the investigation of body parts and bodily fluids in the themes of sexual initiation, blood and ejaculation (both male and female). All these discussions on bodily fluids -circulating in the Enlightenment (traditional views on the body, new medical opinion and erotica) expressed gendered notions about bodily fluids, including blood; male fluids were seen as 'precious', but female fluids were, on the other hand, dispensable.