Sex life in England / Iwan Bloch.

  • Bloch, Iwan, 1872-1922.
Date:
1934
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Sex life in England / Iwan Bloch. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    11111111111II111111111111111111111111111111111111111 1111111 r 1111111111111111111111111:1111111111111111: i FOREWORD 1111111 i 1111111111111111111 i i i i i 11111111111111111111 I I I I I ! I I I ! I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I ! I I I I I ! I I I ! I I I I I I I I ! I The pattern of sexual life in England has been a miniature reproduc- tion of the historical Western attitude to sex throughout the last thousand years. At times, the current of sexuality has been submerged by a rising clamor of politics or by a transition of the economic struc- ture. At other times, the force of sexual behavior has been thwarted and twisted into perverted channels by the curious psychology of the English people, only to break through to a stronger and truer expression. The value of this, Dr. Iwan Bloch's greatest work, lies not only in the hitherto inaccessible material he has brought together, but also in the interpretation we are forced to give to that material. Inevitably, we are led to the conclusion that the cyclical attempts at repressing this very human need result always in periods of debauchery and profligacy, to perversions and aberrations alien to the human spirit. Periods such as the Restoration and the Regency were caused not by the innate immorality of man, as the reformers would have us believe, but by the unnatural attempts of these reformers to eradicate that which is most human from humanity. The strong historical sense of the Western man of today enables him to gain knowledge and understanding from the errors of the past. Until late, there has been a tendency to glorify such periods as the Puritan and Victorian as the prosperous result of moral living and