The story of Annie Besant, a Victorian woman who fought for reproductive rights
Ninety years before the Lady Chatterley trial, the Old Bailey was tying itself in knots trying to decide whether The Fruits of Philosophy was the sort of thing that would corrupt wives and servants. Written in simple, unshowy language by an American physician, Fruits set out the basics of contraception, principally by means of “the female” self-administering a spermicidal douche post-coitus. The tone was sensible and brisk, and about as far from a turn-on as could be imagined.
Still, as far as the British authorities were concerned, the suggestion that married couples might want to have sex for any purpose other than making babies was downright obscene. The biggest fear, so horrible that it could barely be articulated in polite company, was that, armed with the wherewithal to avoid pregnancy, women might choose to steer clear of the drudgery of marriage while still enjoying “sensual passions”. Rather like men, then, who had been doing something similar for centuries (mostly minus the prophylactic) using the services of sex workers, without anyone suggesting that civilisation was about to crumble.
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