The Rise of Social Purity Movements

The late 19th century witnessed an unprecedented wave of moral reform across Europe, spearheaded by social purity activists like Josephine Butler. Her crusade against Britain’s Contagious Diseases Acts—finally repealed in 1886—exposed the hypocrisy of state-regulated prostitution. These laws had subjected women to forced medical examinations while ignoring male clients. Butler’s memoir Personal Reminiscences of a Great Crusade (1896) reveals her frustration when continental authorities dismissed her campaign. Only at the turn of the century did feminist movements in France and Germany gain traction against state-licensed brothels.

The statistics paint a stark picture: Hamburg’s brothels ballooned from 98 in 1834 to 191 by 1874 before declining to 157 in the 1880s. Britain’s 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act armed police with sweeping powers to shutter brothels, while France’s 1906 law raised the age of consent, ironically driving sex workers into illegal underground networks. These measures sparked furious resistance—most dramatically during the 1908 Rouen riots where registered prostitutes assaulted arresting officers, tore police uniforms, and staged daring escapes from trains while defiantly proclaiming their trade.

The Labouchère Amendment and the Criminalization of Male Homosexuality

The moral panic extended beyond prostitution. Henry Labouchère’s 1885 amendment to Britain’s Criminal Law Amendment Act mandated two years’ hard labor for “gross indecency” between men. Though less severe than previous sodomy laws (which carried the death penalty until 1861), its vague wording ensnared countless men. The amendment reflected purity reformers’ belief that male homosexuality stemmed from unrestrained lust—the same impulse driving prostitution.

The Oscar Wilde trials of 1895 became a cautionary tale about protecting youth from corruption. Similar scandals rocked Germany during 1907-1908 when journalist Maximilian Harden exposed homosexual relationships within Kaiser Wilhelm II’s inner circle. Prince Philipp zu Eulenburg’s perjury trial and subsequent disgrace demonstrated how anti-homosexuality laws ironically strengthened gay subcultures by forcing them into visibility.

The Paradox of Female Sexuality

While male homosexuality faced legal persecution, lesbian relationships occupied a curious blind spot in Victorian law. Contrary to popular myth, this exclusion didn’t stem from reluctance to broach the subject with Queen Victoria, but from prevailing medical theories denying women’s capacity for sexual autonomy. The concept of “romantic friendship” allowed intimate female bonds—except for rare figures like Anne Lister (1791-1840), the Yorkshire landowner whose masculine attire and unabashed pursuit of women earned her the nickname “Gentleman Jack.”

Reformers reserved their harshest condemnation for male masturbation, which moralists like Reverend James Wilson hysterically blamed for societal collapse: “The Roman Empire fell, other empires fell, and if England falls, it will be from this sin of sins and denial of God.”

Countercurrents: The Decadent Rebellion

Even as purity movements gained momentum, a defiant cultural undercurrent emerged. Aubrey Beardsley’s scandalous Yellow Book illustrations and Oscar Wilde’s aestheticism challenged Victorian norms. Across Europe, artists like Gabriele D’Annunzio (whose 1889 novel The Child of Pleasure drew Church condemnation) and playwright Frank Wedekind (whose Spring Awakening (1891) tackled teen sexuality) pushed boundaries.

The suffrage movement adopted provocative slogans like “Votes for Women, Chastity for Men,” while Christabel Pankhurst’s 1913 pamphlet The Great Scourge and How to End It controversially advocated male abstinence as the solution to prostitution. Medical discourse also advanced—Hungarian journalist Károly Kertbeny coined the term “homosexual” in 1869, while Richard von Krafft-Ebing’s Psychopathia Sexualis (1886) cataloged previously taboo behaviors, albeit through a pathologizing lens.

Medical Revolutions: From Pain Management to Germ Theory

The 19th century brought seismic shifts in medical understanding. Before anesthesia, surgeons prided themselves on swift amputations—a brutal necessity when patients like Crimean War soldiers often underwent procedures fully conscious. Florence Nightingale’s 1854 accounts of military hospitals reveal the horror:

“The mortality after operations is frightful… Every ten minutes comes a hurried summons to the ward. We must staunch the blood with soft rags before the surgeon arrives.”

Scottish obstetrician James Young Simpson pioneered chloroform anesthesia, its adoption hastened after Queen Victoria used it during childbirth in 1853. Yet religious objections persisted—some clergy denounced anesthesia as “a decoy of Satan” that denied spiritual growth through suffering.

Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis made the crucial link between handwashing and reduced maternal mortality in 1847, cutting death rates from 30% to 1% at Vienna General Hospital. But his colleagues rejected his findings, driving him to mental collapse. His tragic end—beaten to death in an asylum in 1865—preceded by just years Louis Pasteur’s germ theory validation of his work.

Legacy of an Era

The late Victorian period’s contradictory impulses—repressive morality laws alongside burgeoning sexual science, brutal medical practices yielding to groundbreaking discoveries—created fault lines still visible today. The criminalization of male homosexuality persisted for decades, while feminist arguments first articulated by Butler and Pankhurst evolved into modern gender equality movements. Perhaps most enduring was the shift toward evidence-based medicine, though as Semmelweis’s story proves, scientific progress often faces stubborn human resistance. These 19th-century battles over bodies, pleasure, and pain continue to echo in contemporary debates about public health, personal freedom, and the limits of state power.