'Sporty' Girls and 'Artistic' Boys: Friendship, Illicit Sex, and the British 'Companionship' Advertisement, 1913-1928.
In: Journal of the History of Sexuality, Jg. 11 (2002-07-01), Heft 3, S. 457-482
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Zugriff:
On September 1, 1920, Sir Basil Thomson, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, received a note warning him of a grave threat to the morals of the British nation. The letter was from R.A. Bennett, editor of the weekly newspaper Truth and a prominent campaigner against white slavery. Bennett enclosed a small pamphlet, available from newsagents in plain cover for the price of eight pence. A cursory glance at its pages, he announced, would allow the commissioner to judge its highly immoral character. The offending paper was a small, monthly publication, usually no more than ten pages long, called the Link. To its supporters, the Link was an innocent and socially valuable medium that facilitated the formation on new friendships. To critic like Bennett, it promoted moral decay and prostitution. In spite of the Link's apparent insignificance and small circulation, its history was to become a symbol of postwar conflict over the apparently rising tide of sexual immorality. The lonely-hearts advertisement featured in the Link and similar publications enjoyed their greatest popularity in Great Britain between about 1913 and the mid-1920. The story of the Link and other publications like it reveals the subtle shifts in the nature of courtship that occurred in Great Britain in the years surrounding World War I. Despite the alarms sounded by purity reformers like Bennett, new ideas about companionship between the sexes had begun to inform social practices.
Titel: |
'Sporty' Girls and 'Artistic' Boys: Friendship, Illicit Sex, and the British 'Companionship' Advertisement, 1913-1928.
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Autor/in / Beteiligte Person: | Cocks, H. G. |
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Zeitschrift: | Journal of the History of Sexuality, Jg. 11 (2002-07-01), Heft 3, S. 457-482 |
Veröffentlichung: | 2002 |
Medientyp: | academicJournal |
ISSN: | 1043-4070 (print) |
DOI: | 10.1353/sex.2003.0008 |
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