Advances in opthalmic plastic and reconstructive surgery, vol. V: History and tradition

But they failed not least because they were too divisive and doctrinaire: purity crusaders such as Frances Swiney were offering emancipation for women based on the refusal of sex, at the very moment when for many women changing social conditions and the advent of better contraception were making sexual fulfilment an attractive possibility for the first time. All too often, these ladylike campaigners seemed to target their repressive activities principally against prostitutes and fallen women. Class and gender divides splintered the activists. Above all, as Mort emphasizes, such programmes of sexual regulation-aimed at whichever ends-were always received with the greatest suspicion by both the organized medical profession (which feared interference with "confidentiality") and the politicians, who, having burnt their fingers over the Contagious Diseases Acts, argued that sexual reformation should be voluntaristic, within the sphere of persuasion and education rather than enforcement. While many other nations moved to the compulsory treatment of venereal disease, or to sterilization programmes, in England the competition of rival lobbies led to a stalemate, which allowed politicians to do nothing, and to do so in the name of protecting traditional liberties. This is a cogent, intelligent, and often witty book, both polemical and self-aware, though it is a pity that the period from the First World War to the present receives rather skimpy treatment. It is the best survey of the "medico-moral complex" and the politics of the state regulation of sexuality in modern Britain currently available.