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SEXUALITY DEFINED: JUDEO-CHRISTIAN INFLUENCES - THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION - THE DAMAGING IMPACT OF VICTORIANISM ON SEX

In any event, one end result of Victorian practices was that our mechanisms for communicating even healthy sexual values could be expressed only in a negative way. Another result was that the role of female sexuality was totally denied. Whereas men were viewed as being constantly at the mercy of their sexual desires, such that, if not restrained, they would aggressively seek satisfaction, women were urged to be constantly on guard against the male's impulses and, even in marriage, to retain their "purity." The consequence of this disharmony was to cast sex roles in a competitive posture, such that, even under socially approved circumstances, the woman was cast in the role of victim while the man was responsible for placing her in such a degrading position. Inevitably, male-female sexual relationships were characterized by guilt, shame, and anxiety (Bullough, 1976).

A third dimension of influence involved the many practical efforts to eliminate sex completely from society. We have already seen how the Victorian era produced institutionalized forms of censorship, but other examples also abound. In medicine, for example, by 1900 physicians were recommending

and practicing castration, clitoridectomy, cauterization of the genitals and prostate, severing the nerves leading to the penis, and the use of various mechanical devices to obstruct access to the genitalia or to make sexual arousal extremely painful (Sussman, 1976).

Finally, sex education went underground, relegated to the streets and to whatever sources of erotic materials could be obtained. For the typical family raised under Victorian influence, the catch phrase that best characterized the extent of parental sex education was, "You should be ashamed."

It would be a mistake to assume that American sexuality remained at the Victorian level after the turn of the century. On the contrary, a number of conditions emerged that produced changes in our sexual ethics and codes. Sex became more acceptable again during the Roaring Twenties, although it was still bad form to make too much of an issue about it; the earlier suffragette movement, which gained the right to vote for women, now began to focus its attention on more substantive social reforms, including female sexual rights as advocated earlier by Mary Wollstonecraft in England; and a sizable body of scientific and professional opinion, represented by the views of Sigmund Freud, was beginning to express concern about the damaging impact of Victorianism on sex, in particular, and human relationships, in general. The stage was set for the modest sexual reforms of the thirties and forties and the "sexual revolution" of the fifties and sixties.

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SEXUALITY DEFINED: PAGAN-POLYTHEISTIC INFLUENCES - ROMAN SEXUALITY
Although there is reasonable agreement among most authorities regarding the characteristics of Greek sexuality, Roman customs and values are a matter of considerable debate. Conventional wisdom holds that the Roman society was as sexually promiscuous as the Greek; and it is popularly believed that the collapse of the Roman Empire was due, in no small part, to the sexual excesses of its citizens (Canter, 1963). These views have been challenged, however, on the grounds that the sexual excesses of Roman society have been greatly exaggerated and that the accounts of these events are biased and inaccurate (Bullough, 1976). Whatever the actual case, certainly Roman culture was more complicated and multidimensional than Greek society. The Roman Empire endured for a relatively long period of time; and, whereas the Greeks retained their beliefs and customs, Roman culture changed in the light of the changing empire and in the face of continuous exposure to other cultures.
The Romans, of course, shared the polytheistic religion of the Greeks, as well as the sexuality of their deities. Thus, they shared the Grecian religious approval of sex. As Grimal states:
To love was to obey the gods and achieve one of the requisites of the human condition. Chastity could be required by religious rites in certain cases, but it was not a good thing in itself; not even a desirable thing; it was rather an impairment of what was good and desirable for among the gifts of the gods to man, love is always to be found. [Grimal, 1967, p. xiii]
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Men's Health-Erectile Dysfunction

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