Rules of Desire
Sex in Britain First World War to the Present
Publisher
Chatto and Windus
Published
1992
Rules of Desire tells the history of changing sexual attitudes in 20th century Britain.
Haste links shifts in sexual values to wider social changes, when wars and economic upheavals, rising material expectations, government interventions and, in particular, the changing status and aspirations of women have influenced behaviour and ideas.
Through letters, private diaries, intimate stories and public records, the prevailing ethos of each decade is explored: the Free Love debate; moral fears in World War 1: the sex psychologists; the Bright Young Things; gay life in the 1930s; secret sex and World War Two; the sixties and the pill, gay rights, rape laws; changing ideals of marriage and of sex in relationships.
This is a secret history showing how personal happiness has been successively pitted against the demands of social order.
EXTRACT
Reviews
Haste explores that dark meeting between private desires and society’s rules – She writes about women’s needs and bodies in a refreshingly straightforward, but quietly eloquent way. Her discussion of subjects such as prostitution is mature and convincing..... .....Her feminist approach is upfront, matter-of –fact, sympathetic and consistently informative...... The great message of this book.. is of wonderful sexual versatility. ..... The good news in this book is that in sex there is no limit to the possibilities.
The Sunday Times. Richard Davenport Hines
I was bound to [Haste] by gratitude from page 2, where she reveals Dame Ethyl Smythe’s marvellous protest to the Archbishop of Canterbury about the Prime Minister Herbert Asquith’s opposition to women’s suffrage. It was “disgraceful”, said the battling composer, that “millions of women shall be trampled underfoot because of the ‘convictions’ of an old man who notoriously can’t be left alone in a room with a young girl after dinner.”
The Times. Libby Purves
The book is as diverting and as suggestive as a very good novel.... temperate, balanced, subtle and humane.
Independent on Sunday. Maureen Freely
Provocative... sharp-eyed history.
Mail on Sunday. Hilary Moore
The book to read and to give our mothers and fathers, sons and daughters.... Haste puts a fraught and complex subject into a cool, intelligent perspective and throws a lot of light into the dark corners of the generation gap.