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The Second World War and Sexual Morality

British ideas about sexual morality had been in flux even before the Second World War, and had moved on from the stereotypical Victorian ideals due to the Great War that occurred two decades previous. Before the war, and “according to their own testimonies, many people born in the Victorian age were both factually uninformed and emotionally frigid about sexual matters”[1], and it was believed that sex was something that happened to women instead of an experience they should want and enjoy. The First World War opened up opportunities for women on the home front, which in turn loosened some of these strict moral ideas. Women experienced working stereotypically ‘male’ jobs, and “a number of contemporary observers noted how women’s self-confidence and independence had grown”[2], with the New Statesman magazine “reporting in 1917 that the new women workers ‘have a keen appetite for experience and pleasure and a tendency quite new to their class to protest against wrongs’”.[3] Furthermore, ‘taboo’ issues to do with sex and morality were increasingly spoken about during the First World War, including discussions about sexually transmitted diseases, illegitimate births and birth control. Historian Lucy Bland believes that “women were thus likely to have gained in sexual confidence”.[4] 

However, the Second World War acted as a turning point and further catalyst for social change, as the total war aspect of it was a complete upheaval to the lives of the British on both the home front and the battlefield. Despite this, and due to the issues of morality and religious and social taboos that revolve around discussions of sex, “any account of the sexual aspect of World War II is complicated by the conflict of conviction, the confusions of personal memory, and the imprecision of psychological interpretation”.[5] John Costello argues that “what the war did to individuals was arguably both beneficial as well as injurious to the social fabric, because it enhanced intimacy and the expression of love that liberated many people from traditional inhibitions”.[6] Wartime promiscuity was mainly blamed on women on the home front, and “young women and teenage girls in Britain became the focus during the Second World War of widespread publicly expressed anxiety”.[7] This is due to the climate of liberalisation that followed the First World War after women gained enfranchisement, and this feeling of greater political freedom manifested in women and cumulated in “liberated fashions and liberal behaviour”.[8] 

Judy Giles states that “youth workers and educationalists concerned themselves with the impact of dance halls, cinema and a Hollywood culture on the morals of young, working-class girls”[9] as they were “perceived as both in danger of corruption from such sources and as corrupting in their lack of deference, their ‘cockiness’ and ‘loudness’”.[10] Dance halls and cinemas were of the upmost importance during the war, as they acted as a form of escapism and morale booster, but the glamorous portrayals of women in Hollywood movies had a different effect on young women; “by the end of the 1930s, girls and young women were enmeshed in a culture that extolled sexual attractiveness and heterosexual romance”.[11] Women began to wear shorter skirts and hairstyles, heavier makeup, and even smoked in public without chaperones; yet, despite all of this there was still an air of prudery within society that was “considered a public virtue”.[12] 

Women were constantly under surveillance by social observers, and this alongside “their own recognition of the importance of respectable femininity in the community from which a potential husband might be drawn left little space for self-definition and expression”.[13] Due to this, Judy Giles believes that “in these circumstances, ‘playing hard to get’ was an articulation of control and choice”[14] for women. Flirtations were bound to happen during the war, as “wartime excitement and boredom encouraged companionship”[15], but a first-hand account from a woman during the war stated that “we girls were well aware of the stigma that went with pregnancy and being an unmarried mother”.[16] Furthermore, an American soldier admitted that “by most people’s standards we were immoral […] but we were young and could die tomorrow”.[17] In fact, in a lot of cases, it was the presence of American soldiers and dance halls that threatened dominant ideas of British sexual morality. In the past, many women would have “waved their husbands off to war on the assumption that strict fidelity on the part of men was incompatible with soldiering”.[18] Whilst the dominant ideals of husbandry and fatherhood included being faithful to your partner, and protecting the domestic sphere, men who cheated on their wives whilst fighting abroad were not seen in as bad a light as women who cheated on the home front. However, the total war aspect of the Second World War had such an impact that “even on the home front many wives were also confronted by new choices and opportunities”[19] to possibly cheat on their husbands.

As women gained the freedom to work, and spend their wages on whatever they wished, they were in many ways “breaching the boundaries of the old gender order”[20]. This breach, for some women, even “included the right to choose one’s partner, regardless of race”.[21] Sonya Rose believes that “public concern became especially pronounced after the arrival of large numbers of American troops after the summer and autumn of 1942”[22], and more specifically, soldiers of African-American descent. It was believed by public officials that American soldiers posed a threat to the morality of young British women, and such ‘khaki fever’ instigated them to deploy “a range of disciplinary techniques”[23] in an attempt to keep women in order. Such techniques included lobbying the home office, and hiring female police officers to handle the younger girls loitering around military camps full of soldiers. Authorities from both Britain and the US attempted to select specifically moralistic women to enter the dance halls and mingle with the soldiers, but such actions had limited success. The governmental and public outrage over the morals of young women “intensified when the soldiers whom they dated were black”.[24] Whilst dating white American soldiers was still frowned upon, “many ordinary British men and women, social commentators, and government officials turned the mere presence of black GIs into a problem that needed to be solved”[25], and the British government “would have preferred the US army not to send black soldiers”[26] at all. Those women who did take part in relations with men of colour were seen to be “either passive victims, the pry of licentious immoral ‘aliens’, or alternatively, they were seen as active in their choice, as a result of their own sexual immorality and social marginality”.[27]

The media attention surrounding ‘immoral’ young women both “documented and contributed to public anxiety”[28], but its origins lay in the media campaigns the government introduced in the effort to stop venereal diseases from spreading. According to Sonya Rose, “by 1941 rates of syphilis had increased 13 percent among males and 63 percent among females”[29], and the campaign that followed this discovery was the “most prominent information campaign on sexual health that had ever been overseen by a British government”.[30] Sexual health was of the upmost importance during the Second World War; the country could not afford to have people out of work or the army due to venereal diseases like syphilis and gonorrhoea that could be countered early on, as it would harm the national war effort. However, as previously mentioned, the air of prudery and dominant ideas about sexual morality in British society during the Second World War was prevalent despite morals loosening; when the Ministry of Health campaigned to teach the public about the dangers of venereal diseases in 1937, some British newspapers refused to publish the advertisements.[31] 

There was strong opposition to the sexual health campaigns, as they offered and encouraged the public to seek free help for any treatments they might need. This was seen to be too explicit by those who wished to keep respectability; many believed that “it would do nothing to prevent venereal disease, [and] Regulation 33B was vilified by church and social purity groups as a stimulus to vice and by feminists who feared its enforcement would target women but not men”.[32] However, in the October of 1942, the dangers associated with venereal diseases was spoken about as the “ban on radio broadcasts dealing with such matters was lifted”.[33] Following the lifting of this ban, “the Ministry of Information [conducted] an extensive poster campaign, and Parliament debated and enacted an anti-venereal disease control measure, Regulation 33B”.[34] This control measure meant that if a male or female was pointed out by at least two other people to have passed on a venereal disease, they would have to have treatment for their disease, and if they refused they could be arrested and forcibly treated. Venereal diseases were a serious threat to dominant British ideals about sexual morality, and the “educational campaign and the debate over 33B contributed to making sex a subject of extensive public discussion”.[35]

A further ‘threat’ to morality during the Second World War, alongside female promiscuity and venereal disease, was homosexuality both in the military and on the home front. Conscription stated that all men from ages eighteen to forty-one had to be ready to fight for their country, and this was “regardless of their class or sexual orientation”.[36] However, homosexual acts committed between two men was highly criminalised during the Second World War, as stated by the 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act. Furthermore, the military had their own act against homosexuality in the form of the 1879 Army Act, Section 18. This law severely punished homosexuals if they were caught; they would receive 2 years of imprisonment for committing sexual acts with other men, and life imprisonment if they were found guilty of buggery. Military laws about homosexuality were so harsh that even in 1967 when homosexuality was decriminalised in Britain, the military continued to see it as an offence. Officials held the view that homosexuality was a threat to the military and had a vast impact on a man’s ability to be a competent soldier; they believed that “their presence in units would threaten morale and discipline, and their integration would turn the military into a testing ground for radical social experimentation”.[37] Nevertheless, historian Emma Vickers estimates that around six-and-a-half million men and women in the services had had a homosexual experience during wartime, due to calculations drawn from a 1949 Mass Observation Survey.[38]

However, in practice, these harsh laws against homosexuality in the military were sometimes ignored completely. Vickers states that “it was not in the interests of the services to search out or exclude all of the personnel who came to their attention because of homosex”[39], due to the fact that Britain needed all the soldiers they could get. Therefore, “the policies of the armed forces were reactive and reflexive responses, deliberately formulated to ensure that only the most serious offenders whose conduct would impair military efficiency and who could not be usefully rehabilitated or reposted were removed from the services”.[40] These laws were therefore not applied consistently; some men were treated more leniently than others depending on their status.

Even if men were not homosexual, many still took part in homosexual acts, due to the military culture of ‘homosociability’. Soldiers were constantly in close proximity to each other; they bonded closely, and formed loyal friendships due to shared hardships and the need to keep each other safe from harm. Vickers believes that “intimacy and homosociability were fundamental canons of the institution […] in fact, non-sexual same-sex intimacies formed part of the very fabric of service life”.[41] Servicemen would sometimes take part in acts of mutual masturbation; “such activity was overwhelmingly viewed as a harmless source of sexual relief which was simply more satisfying than solo masturbation because the pleasure was controlled by somebody else’s hand”.[42] Mutual masturbation was not always a sign of homosexuality, but was seen as “a legitimate response to the absence of women and the need for same sexual relief”.[43] The Second World War posed a threat to dominant British ideas about sexual morality as it “allowed a generation of young men and women the chance to explore their desires in an environment that was wholly dependent on physical intimacy and close, interpersonal relationships”.[44]

Homosexual acts between women, on the other hand, were not a criminal offence, although they were heavily condemned. This was due to the fact that women were not supposed to have any forms of sexual agency; sex was an act that happened to women, not something they should willingly seek out. Furthermore, historian Cate Haste states that “lesbians escaped criminal punishment because it was thought better that the female population should remain in ignorance of lesbian sexuality”.[45] Therefore, lesbianism was not really acknowledged during the Second World War. Nevertheless, the military services “offered something of a boon to queer women, […] lesbians were attracted to the idea of uniformed service because it sanctioned ‘lack of femininity, encouraged them not to marry and allowed them to live in a women-only environment’”.[46] However, whilst homosexuality between women was not criminalised, if private acts of lesbianism were “made explicit publicly, it was liable to be prosecuted for obscenity”.[47]

Just as ‘homosocial’ acts were commonplace, women were seen as important for soldiers on the battle front, as “when the presence of death or extinction was just around the corner or the next cloud, the comfort of women takes on great importance”.[48]John Costello believes that “sex and sexuality in all its guises and complexities played an extensive role in the war experience […] whether it was pinups of Hollywood stars, well-thumbed pictures of ‘the girl back home’, ‘Rosy the Riveter’ or female pilots, war acquired an undeniable feminine aspect”.[49] These idealised images of women, like the Hollywood starlets, are when kept some men going through such traumatic experiences, and this in turn may have had some effect on how young women back on the home front acted and presented themselves.

In conclusion, the Second World War posed many threats to dominant ideas about British sexual morality, but such ideas had already begun to change since the First World War, as “there is a wide-ranging association of war with sexuality; complex, intricate, intimate and at every level”.[50] Despite attempts to return to pre-war British ideas about sexuality, through calls for women to return to filial life and create ‘Homes Fit For Heroes’, the experiences the British public encountered during the Second World War made it impossible for them to return to “pre-war ideals of [both] femininity” and masculinity”.[51] Homosexuality wasn’t understood in the same ways that it is today; “understandings of same-sex desire oscillated between an innate and incurable condition and an environmentally induced symptom of loneliness, fear and desperation”.[52] The Second World War threatened dominant British ideas about sexual morality because for many, and on both the home front and the battleground, “the war represented a moment of freedom; familial constraint was temporarily ruptured and the ephemeral, transient nature of service life prompted experimentation, self-discovery and opportunity”.[53] In the words of John Costello, “the mobilisation, disruption, and excitement of so many lives was not only a catalyst of social change, but it also sowed the seeds of a far-reaching shift in private and public sexual attitudes”.[54]


Further Reading:

Bérubé, A., Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II (North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1990)

Bingham, A., ‘The British Popular Press and Venereal Disease during the Second World War’, The Historical Journal 48.4 (2005)

Bland, L., ‘White Women and Men of Colour: Miscegenation Fears in Britain after the Great War’, Gender & History 17.1 (2005)

Costello, J., Virtue Under Fire: How World War II Changed Our Social and Sexual Attitudes (New York: Fromm International Publishing Corporation, 1987)

David, H., On Queer Street: A Social History of British Homosexuality 1895-1995 (Harper Collins, 1997)

Giles, J., ‘Playing Hard to Get: Working-Class Women, Sexuality and Respectability in Britain, 1918-1940’, Women’s History Review 1.2 (1992)

Haste, C., Rules of Desire: Sex in Britain: World War 1 to the Present (London: Pimlico, 1994)

Marsh, J., ‘Sex & Sexuality in the 19th Century’ in Victoria and Albert Museum <http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/s/sex-and-sexuality-19th-century/> [accessed 23/12/18]

Rose, S., ‘Girls and GIs: Race, Sex and Diplomacy in Second World War Britain’, The International History Review 19.1 (1997)

Rose, S., ‘Sex, Citizenship, and the Nation in World War II Britain’, The American Historical Review 103.4 (1998)

References:

[1] Marsh, J., ‘Sex & Sexuality in the 19th Century’ in Victoria and Albert Museum <http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/s/sex-and-sexuality-19th-century/> [accessed 23/12/18]

[2] Bland, L., ‘White Women and Men of Colour: Miscegenation Fears in Britain after the Great War’, Gender & History 17.1 (2005), p.31

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Costello, J., Virtue Under Fire: How World War II Changed Our Social and Sexual Attitudes (New York: Fromm International Publishing Corporation, 1987), p.2

[6] Ibid.

[7] Rose, S., ‘Girls and GIs: Race, Sex and Diplomacy in Second World War Britain’, The International History Review 19.1 (1997), p.146

[8] Costello, J., Virtue Under Fire: How World War II Changed Our Social and Sexual Attitudes (New York: Fromm International Publishing Corporation, 1987), p.3

[9] Giles, J., ‘Playing Hard to Get: Working-Class Women, Sexuality and Respectability in Britain, 1918-1940’, Women’s History Review 1.2 (1992), p.240

[10] Ibid.

[11] Rose, S., ‘Girls and GIs: Race, Sex and Diplomacy in Second World War Britain’, The International History Review 19.1 (1997), p.148

[12] Costello, J., Virtue Under Fire: How World War II Changed Our Social and Sexual Attitudes (New York: Fromm International Publishing Corporation, 1987), p.4

[13] Giles, J., ‘Playing Hard to Get: Working-Class Women, Sexuality and Respectability in Britain, 1918-1940’, Women’s History Review 1.2 (1992), p.242

[14] Ibid.

[15] Costello, J., Virtue Under Fire: How World War II Changed Our Social and Sexual Attitudes (New York: Fromm International Publishing Corporation, 1987), p.9

[16] Ibid., p.8

[17] Ibid., p.7

[18] Ibid., p.12

[19] Costello, J., Virtue Under Fire: How World War II Changed Our Social and Sexual Attitudes (New York: Fromm International Publishing Corporation, 1987), p.12

[20] Bland, L., ‘White Women and Men of Colour: Miscegenation Fears in Britain after the Great War’, Gender & History 17.1 (2005), p.31

[21] Ibid.

[22] Rose, S., ‘Girls and GIs: Race, Sex and Diplomacy in Second World War Britain’, The International History Review 19.1 (1997), p.146

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid., p.152

[25] Ibid., pp.152-153

[26] Rose, S., ‘Girls and GIs: Race, Sex and Diplomacy in Second World War Britain’, The International History Review 19.1 (1997), p.1153

[27] Bland, L., ‘White Women and Men of Colour: Miscegenation Fears in Britain after the Great War’, Gender & History 17.1 (2005), p.33

[28] Rose, S., ‘Sex, Citizenship, and the Nation in World War II Britain’, The American Historical Review 103.4 (1998), p.1150

[29] Ibid.

[30] Bingham, A., ‘The British Popular Press and Venereal Disease during the Second World War’, The Historical Journal 48.4 (2005), p.1055

[31] Costello, J., Virtue Under Fire: How World War II Changed Our Social and Sexual Attitudes (New York: Fromm International Publishing Corporation, 1987), p.5

[32] Rose, S., ‘Sex, Citizenship, and the Nation in World War II Britain’, The American Historical Review 103.4 (1998), p.1150

[33] Ibid.

[34] Ibid.

[35] Ibid.

[36] David, H., On Queer Street: A Social History of British Homosexuality 1895-1995 (Harper Collins, 1997), p.141

[37] Bérubé, A., Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II (North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1990), p.2

[38] Vickers, E., Queen and Country: Same Sex Desire in the British Armed Forces, 1939-1945 (2015), p.4

[39] Ibid., p.104

[40] Ibid.

[41] Vickers, E., Queen and Country: Same Sex Desire in the British Armed Forces, 1939-1945 (2015), p.55

[42] Ibid., p.56

[43] Ibid., p.57

[44] Ibid., p.55

[45] Haste, C., Rules of Desire: Sex in Britain: World War 1 to the Present (London: Pimlico, 1994), p.85

[46] Vickers, E., Queen and Country: Same Sex Desire in the British Armed Forces, 1939-1945 (2015), p.56

[47] Haste, C., Rules of Desire: Sex in Britain: World War 1 to the Present (London: Pimlico, 1994), p.85

[48] Costello, J., Virtue Under Fire: How World War II Changed Our Social and Sexual Attitudes (New York: Fromm International Publishing Corporation, 1987), p.17

[49] Ibid., p.1

[50] Ibid., p.6

[51] Giles, J., ‘Playing Hard to Get: Working-Class Women, Sexuality and Respectability in Britain, 1918-1940’, Women’s History Review 1.2 (1992), p.240

[52] Vickers, E., Queen and Country: Same Sex Desire in the British Armed Forces, 1939-1945 (2015), p.153

[53] Ibid., p.56

[54] Costello, J., Virtue Under Fire: How World War II Changed Our Social and Sexual Attitudes (New York: Fromm International Publishing Corporation, 1987), p.5