Sex Before the Sexual Revolution

Simon Callow explores life behind closed doors before the pill.

'The book is superb on courtship and premarital sex, which was of course haunted by the universal dread of unmarried pregnancy, and on the elaborate structures and codes of behaviour that governed such matters. Equally absorbing are the criteria for attractiveness. Despite the development through the 1930s of a new body consciousness and a more sexualised public aesthetic, neither beauty nor handsomeness were much cited as reasons for attractiveness: good skin, a fine head of hair, cleanliness, smart clothes were the main draws – that and a sense of essential benevolence in a potential partner. Many of the interviewees had never seen their spouses' naked bodies.'

- Simon Callow, The Guardian

Read the rest of the review here.