Sexual Regulation

Lust was generally viewed as a more dangerous force than greed, especially where homosexuality was concerned. French literature celebrated sexual pleasures: Voltaire warned against harsh repression of harmless practices, and Diderot challenged the very notion that some sexual practices were perverse.²² Most countries of Northwest Europe, as well as the United States, had removed homosexuality from the list of capital offenses by the end of the eighteenth century.²³ In England, however, Puritan traditions reinforced a harsh legal climate that included ardent prosecution of sod- omy.²⁴ Even those who privately disagreed, like Jeremy Bentham (discussed in Chapter 6), were reluctant to voice any public opposition.

The English were more relaxed about heterosexuality. Novels like Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders and John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure described sexual intercourse as an exchange from which both parties bene­fited. Prostitution was forgivable if a woman was forced into it by difficult circumstances. Promiscuity could be tolerated if accompanied by good will and good humor. James Boswell, who recorded the details of his numerous interactions with prostitutes as well as lovers, declaimed that there was no ‘‘higher felicity or Wealth enjoyed by man than the participation of genuine reciprocal amorous affection with an amiable woman.''²⁵ He did not assess the felicity of sex that was not genuinely reciprocal, or define that term.

Philosophers were less forgiving than diarists, emphasizing that strict limits should be set on all women who were not prostitutes. Female infidel­ity would undermine men's confidence that their offspring were their own. David Hume patiently explained that women were so susceptible to the temptations of infidelity that civilized societies must impose shame, punish­ment, infamy, and dread upon the very idea of it.

One might worry that relaxing the strictures on men (whose compliance is, after all, required) would also encourage promiscuity. Hume did not. He formalized his argument for a sexual double standard as follows:

Tis contrary to the interest of civil society that men shou’d have an entire liberty of indulging their appetites in venereal enjoyment: But as this interest is weaker than in the case of the female sex, the moral obligation arising from it must be proportionably weaker. And to prove this we need only appeal to the practice and sentiments of all nations and all ages.²⁷

This so-called proof was hardly worthy of an Enlightenment philosopher. As Poulain de la Barre would have pointed out, it could be reduced to ‘‘might makes right”. At least one of Hume's contemporaries, Frances Hutcheson, argued that men should be bound to the same standards of sexual behavior as women.

The very notion that men could indulge their venereal appetites without corrupting virtuous women depended on the existence of those driven to sell their sexual services. Hume implicitly accepted Mandeville's argument that women who sold such services were engaging in socially beneficial com­merce. He described male lust in relatively benign terms, detailing three different components of the amorous passions: the pleasure of beauty, the sexual drive itself, and generous kindness. These components were neces­sarily related: ‘‘One, who is inflam’d with lust, feels at least a momentary kindness towards the object of it, and at the same time fancies her more beautiful than ordinary.’’²⁸ Self-interest is benign and virtue tempers all. One finds a somewhat more realistic picture in Defoe’s novels. Moll Flan­ders would have laughed herself to tears at the implication that all her customers were generous and kind.