What the Victorians Knew About Sex

If I define Victorian learning as institutional learning sex educa tion classes in the schools or in churches, instruction offered by counselors trained in matters sexual, or government-sponsored or authored publications I could say there was no learning at all on the subject and thereby end the discussion. But we must all be haunted by the fact that not all learning is institutionally based ? perhaps little of it is, perhaps none. Sam Weiler is the wisest person in the nineteenth century, and his learning was acquired by running in the streets. Further, who are these "Victorians": of what class, gender, time, and place, of what cultural assumptions and tradi tions? How did they see through what metaphorical lens? Why do we want to recuperate all that, and why do we play the mad game of pretending that recuperation is possible? And what is it we are trying to recuperate? Sex, in this case and what is that: at titudes, assumptions, forms of discourse? All disguises, are they not but disguises of what? Behavior and activity but what is that? Say we had video tapes garnered from every Victorian bed room, every night. Would we want them? What would they show us? We might want to add tapes from the parks, the drawing rooms, the factories, the offices, the playing fields, the boarding schools, and the nurseries. But how do we understand what it is