The Guide to Getting It On (154 page)

The crowning jewel of American anti-obscenity legislation came in 1872. It was the brain child of the conservative power elite from the Young Men’s Christian Association. This unusual legislation was passed during a last-minute, late-night session of Congress. It is unlikely that members of Congress understood its implications any more than Congressmen understand the laws they pass today. But at least with today’s laws, there is usually a quorum in the House of Representatives before a vote is cast, and legislation seldom passes the Senate without the vote being recorded. Neither condition was met when the anti-obscenity legislation was passed in 1872.

Comstock’s law, which was nearly identical to one written by members of the YMCA a few years prior, was quite deceptive. Its stated purpose was to close loopholes in legislation that prohibited the interstate sale of obscene literature and materials. It’s title was “The Act for the Suppression of Trade in, and Circulation of Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use.”

But buried in the text of Comstock’s law was the inclusion of “any article whatever for the prevention of conception, or for causing unlawful abortion.” Not only had Comstock managed to make it a crime to send contraceptive devices in the mail, but he made it illegal to send information about birth control as well. The highly repressive laws that he and his cohorts got through Congress helped breed a number of state laws that made it a crime for a physician to even discuss birth control with his patients.

The Comstock law made it illegal to give away, exhibit in any manner, publish, write, print or have any card, circular, pamphlet, book or notice of any kind, any drug, medicine or article for the prevention of conception or for causing abortion.

Before 1872, contraception in America was neither obscene nor illegal. For the next hundred years, it would be. It was not until 1965 that the courts would declare it illegal for a state to prohibit the use of contraceptive devices, and it wasn’t until 1971 that it became legal to send information about birth control in the U.S. mail.

Thanks to the Comstock legislation, the federal government now controlled the reproductive behavior of its citizens.

Anthony Comstock was rewarded for his efforts by being appointed the nation’s chief postal inspector. Not only did his new law give him the power to seize material, but to arrest those sending it, as well as those who received it. That might not be such a big thing today, when many alternatives to the U.S. mail exist for sharing information. But in the 1800s, the US mail was the main artery short of telegrams for getting information from point A to B.

As America’s first czar of the chaste mind, Comstock believed that the minds of the young were delicate and easily corruptible. He believed that any materials that could generate impure thoughts were obscene. This included information in leading medical journals about birth control.

Allowing Anthony Comstock to police the U.S. mails was like allowing an abortion-clinic bomber to have oversight of Planned Parenthood. Remarkably, it is difficult to find evidence that Comstock and his anti-obscenity crusade helped stem the flow of pornographic materials that might be considered obscene. He may have inconvenienced the producers of pornography, but he was unable to check them.

Comstock did his damage by stemming the flow of information about reproduction and birth control. In 1913, after searching some of the biggest libraries in America for information about contraception, birth-control crusader Margaret Sanger could find virtually no medical information about birth control anywhere in America. This had not been the case in America before the 1870s, when information about birth control had been freely available. (The stance of America’s physicians against the use of contraception did little to help check Comstock’s influence. Physicians, who were mostly white, male, Protestant and from the better classes, were trying to position themselves as guardians of the American family. Many of American’s physicians in the late 1800s believed women should be at home, having and raising children.)

While it is easy to make blanket condemnations of people like Comstock, we need to remember that Congress and the courts could have stopped him. Instead, they usually did the opposite. It is also important to remember that the purity groups of the late 1800s occasionally had an important battle on their hands. It was not unusual for twelve-year-old girls to be turning tricks in houses of prostitution. This, and the out-of-hand nature of prostitution and pornography, was often at the center of their concern.

Fairies, Wolves, Trade and Loop-the-Loop

An important starting point for our modern categories of straight, gay, and bisexual occurred at end of the 1800s. This is when the notions of heterosexual and homosexual first got off the ground. Before then, males in America tended to socialize with males, and females with females. Men could sleep in the same bed without eyebrows being raised, and two men who had a caring relationship did not usually pay a large social price for it as long as they did not flaunt what they were doing or appear to be effeminate. And it was perfectly normal for women to live together and share the same bed for much of their adult lives. Author Lillian Faderman chronicles these
romantic friendships
in her book “Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers,” Columbia University press (1991).

Until the end of the 1800s, an American male was not usually ostracized for having sex with another man as long as it seemed like he was maintaining the normal male role in the sexual act. It was only the guy on the receiving end of male-to-male sex who was considered a “fairy,” “queer,” “invert” or member of the “third sex.” For instance, a masculine-appearing sailor who let it be known that he enjoyed having sex with a male prostitute lost no social standing because people assumed that it was the male prostitute who was taking the “woman’s role” in sex. The effeminate male was called a “cocksucker,” “pogue,” or “two-way artist,” depending on whether he liked to give oral sex, receive anal sex, or do both.

Even when the government set up a sting operation to entrap homosexuals in the Navy in 1919, the male decoys who allowed themselves to receive oral sex and who were the inserting partners in anal sex did not consider themselves to be homosexual—nor did the Navy. Only the sailors who performed oral sex or received anal sex were charged with criminal activity.

By the end of the 1800s, same-sex activity could be found at social clubs, baths, beaches, parks, tearooms (washrooms and comfort stations where men were known to meet for same-sex activity) and rooming houses. The larger cities in America had masquerade balls where men dressed as women, dance halls where same-sex couples danced, and certain buildings and public parks that were known for their cruising and pick-up opportunities. By the time the 1900s rolled around, a young man wanting to explore sex with other men couldn’t go wrong by getting a room at the local YMCA, as the Y would soon become the vortex of same-sex relations for males in America. Lesbian enclaves were forming as well by the end of the 1800s.

On the commercial side of same-sex relations, there was no shortage of “fairy prostitutes,” such as Loop-the-Loop, who wore women’s dresses and borrowed his name from a popular ride at Coney Island. Sailors in the 1800s had a full range of sexual possibilities, from female prostitutes who crowded naval ports, to interested males who would wine and dine sexy seamen in exchange for being able to give them oral sex or share anal maneuvers.

Only as the social order started to change in the late 1800s and early 1900s did the notions of “homosexual” and “heterosexual” come into play. Women were suddenly getting high-school and college educations, and they were beginning to compete with men for jobs in the workplace. Middle-class males found their world being invaded by women. One way these men coped with the increasing social status of women was to see themselves as having distinctly different roles from women—or to appear to be the opposite of women. This had never been necessary because men’s and women’s roles in society had been so different. It may have been the origin of our modern-day notion of masculinity, which rests upon the premise that a man’s feminine side needs to be well-hidden. This also corresponded with a time in the late 1800s when physicians and psychiatrists were trying to invent the notion of psychopathology. Men who were attracted to men became excellent targets for modern psychiatry, as did women who were defying the social order by choosing careers over motherhood.

Then and Now

This is as good a place as any to end our look at sex in America during the 1800s. While it is sometimes difficult to see the forces that are guiding our sexual choices of today, that is certainly not the case as we peek under the sheets of generations past.

Whether it’s 1850 or today, our sex drives have always been present. They are the engines that entice us to be naked together. But how we get there and what we do when we get there often depends on the time and culture.

Today’s young couples might wonder about techniques for giving each other better oral sex. In the 1800s, there were no articles in books or magazine about oral sex. But modern technology in the 1800s became a vehicle for delivering pornography just like modern technology has today. Consider the invention of the phonograph recording in the late 1800s. The brand-new technology of Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell was being used to delight listeners with the sounds of vulgar conversations, dirty songs, simulated sexual encounters, and even a “secret” recording of a husband’s verbal advances to the family maid.

We could fill an entire book talking about the impact of the Model T on dating and relationships in America. It was just around the corner from where this chapter stops. And we could compare the impact of the railroads in the 1800s with the Internet today, or the obscenity laws of the 1800s with the latest attempts of the FCC to levy massive fines for indecency.

As we look back over the evolution of sex and the different twists and turns it has taken, hopefully we will appreciate that it continues to twist and turn today. As our great, great-great-grandparents were its guardians in the 1800s, so we are its guardians today.

Within each of us lies a sexual heritage that includes prostitution and explicit sex acts on the one hand, and fears about everything from birth control and masturbation to bicycle seats on the other. As we look at the sexual landscape in America today, it’s difficult to see how any of that has changed. The issues might be different, but the duality remains.

The Gold Rush, The Automobile and Beyond

In 1846, there were only 40 miles of telegraph wire in the entire US. It was a test system set up by Morse between Baltimore and Washington DC. By 1852, there were more than 23,000 miles of telegraph cable in the US, with another 10,000 miles under construction—the precursor of today’s cellphone.

We leave off in the early 1900s, as the automobile is about to change the landscape of America and the Alaska-Yukon gold rush was giving prostitution in North America a new frontier and a new face. In the next chapter, we turn the clock ahead 100 years, to look at Sex on the Interstate.

A Bit of Sex Slang from the 1800s

crib girls—
prostitutes who lived in tiny row houses or shacks that were known as cribs. Crib girls were often former brothel whores who had grown old or were in poor health. They often had to pay high rent to a landlord, pimp or madame.

cruisers
—prostitutes in New York City who gathered in small groups along Broadway. If these girls had a sense of subtlety or reserve, it was hidden well.

French love—
when a prostitute was willing to give a man oral sex.

gamahuche
—to have oral sex with, “she gamahuched me with her warm lips.”

gash
—vulva

grog shops
—term for bars or taverns that often had rooms in the back or upstairs that were rented to prostitutes in order to service customers (1790 to 1820), aka “slop shops” and “tippling houses”

guidebooks
—in most cities around America, small guidebooks were printed that listed the brothels and their specialties. These books were often made in a size that could easily fit into a coat pocket.

have your ashes hauled
—for a man to be sexually serviced.

lemon
—stealing the money of a man when he was focused on the sexual favors of a woman.

masquerade balls
—masked balls which were often sponsored by the madams of the leading brothels. These became popular in the 1840s and remained so for the rest of the century. Dress for these often elaborate and elite affairs ranged from masks and magnificent costumes to masks and the costume you were born in. By the end of the night, the line between a masquerade ball and a drunken orgy was sometimes thin.

panel house
—a room used by prostitutes with a false wall that an accomplice could hide behind. He or she would quietly rob the customer’s wallet once his pants were off.

public houses
—brothels where the average man was welcome. Often had long, loud lines of drinking and drunken men, especially from Saturday night to Monday morning.

signboard girls
—prostitutes who lived on the streets and did their tricks in back alleys or behind billboards or large street signs. These were women who didn’t have a single good thing going for them.