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Period: to
What is Europe? Lessons from the past: 1648-1948
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Utrecht sodomy trials
In the C18th, the most ferocious persectution of homosexuals began in The Netherlands. A moral panic emerged as homosexuals were scapegoated for things like a declined economy. Terror spread and "sodomites" were strangled, burned, hanged and drowned in Amsterdam and The Hague.
primary source: Wanted poster for sodomites - Amsterdam, 1730. -
Political comics targetting Marie Antoinette
In the 1740s-90s, French porn turned increasingly political as criticism of the monarchy increased before the French Revolution. Porn pamphlets attacked the the clergy, court and king. Anti-royalist propagandists exploited the alleged lesbianism of Marie Antoinette by releasing secret cartoons and satires. primary source -
Victorian fear of masturbation
The 19th century saw great sexual prudery and sex negativity. There was a fear of masturbation stemming from the idea that a loss of the body's vital fluids causing nervous exhaustion. Some believed that too much masturbation led to insanity.
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Trials of Oscar Wilde
In Britain, homosexuality was given a public face due to prominant court cases. One of these involved the writer and poet Oscar Wilde who was arrested after 2 cases and found guily on gross indecency. His face helped put the image to a homosexual as a decadent, immoral type.
primary source: Wilde's writings on trial -
Sexual Revolution in Bolshevik Russia
After the October revolution in 1917, the Bolsheviks took power and began to implement new laws - abolishing influence of the church in marriage, granting divorce on demand, legalizing abortion, abolishing idea of illegitimacy. These were ways to ensure gender equality and to give women equal status in marriage.
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Institut für Sexualwissenschaft
As the Nazi's rose to power, sexual freedom diminished. Jewish sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld set up an Institute for Sexual Science which had an extensive library. A library which was burned and sacked by the Nazis in 1933.
primary source: photo taken after the raid
