Stanford Magazine reports on the extraordiary discovery of a sex survey conducted in the 1890s by Dr. Clelia Duel Mosher, a professor at that university. The good Dr. collected questionaires asking women to reveal their intimate thoughts on sex. It’s now the earliest known sex survey on record and reveals some surprising information about Victorian-era women.
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The Mosher Survey recorded not only women’s sexual habits and appetites, but also their thinking about spousal relationships, children and contraception. Perhaps, it hinted, Victorian women weren’t so Victorian after all.
Indeed, many of the surveyed women were decidedly unshrinking. One, born in 1844, called sex “a normal desire” and observed that “a rational use of it tends to keep people healthier.” Offered another, born in 1862, “The highest devotion is based upon it, a very beautiful thing, and I am glad nature gave it to us.”
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Slightly more than half of these educated women claimed to have known nothing of sex prior to marriage; the better informed said they’d gotten their information from books, talks with older women and natural observations like “watching farm animals.” Yet no matter how sheltered they’d initially been, these women had—and enjoyed—sex. Of the 45 women, 35 said they desired sex; 34 said they had experienced orgasms; 24 felt that pleasure for both sexes was a reason for intercourse; and about three-quarters of them engaged in it at least once a week.
Dr. Mosher was a very determined woman and an early feminist. The article is well worth reading.
What a delightful find!