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• W4386014746 abstract "Asexual, bicurious, fluid, polyamorous, and queer are just a few of the many sexual identities in existence today. While such variety was not available in nineteenth-century America, Kara French’s new book, Against Sex, examines three subsections of society that advocated unconventional sexual identities in the antebellum era: Shakers, Catholic priests and nuns, and followers of the health reformer Sylvester Graham. All contested the status quo sexuality of early American society. As “celibate sexual outsiders” (14), members of these three groups faced ridicule, mockery, and violence for their sexual abstinence. They challenged heteronormative ideals of gender and marriage and offered alternate modes of family life. At odds with a society that deemed heterosexual marriage the be-all and end-all of adult social achievement, these Americans chose an alternate path to gain profound meaning in their lives “by sacrificing sexual expression, they hoped to allow other desires to grow in its place—a deeper communion with God, a sacred community of believers, greater health and longevity” (17). By studying Shaker brothers and sisters, Catholic religious men and women, and Grahamites, Against Sex provides “a more comprehensive picture of the sexual landscape of early America” (19).Chapter 1, “Vinegar-Faced Sisters and Male Monsters,” interrogates traditional gender ideology to contend that celibate men and women were threatening in different ways. At a time when white notions of masculinity, which differed by class, were undergoing transformation, male followers endangered their manhood by joining these groups. For white middle-class women, the dogma of “passionlessness” made this option less problematic. Yet “sexual restraint challenged and transformed conventional gender roles in early nineteenth-century America” (21). For example, when Catholic women entered the cloister, it was not a chaste decision based on faith but evidence of sexual excess. Anti-Catholic publications evoked images of sexually deviant priests and pregnant nuns fleeing their oppressive orders. Celibacy soured women into “wasting virgins” (24) whose sacrifice to the church was sexualized in sensational dime novels, which also tapped into anti-immigrant fears. Conversely, men who chose abstinence were deemed female hysterics who were emasculated shells of their former corporeal virility. Shaker men were feminized for their religious faith while Grahamites became “cadaverous cannibals” (42) for choosing self-denial. The lived experience of individuals who were part of these three groups is the subject of chapter 2, “Identities of Sexual Restraint.” By analyzing the lives of three white men, one Shaker brother, one Catholic priest, and one Grahamite reformer, the author outlines how they struggled to adopt their new identities. The life of Rebecca Cox Jackson, a free woman of color who became head of a Philadelphia Shaker community in the 1850s, presents a counterpoint to these men, as well as demonstrates that sexual identities were socially constructed. Familial structures are investigated in chapter 3, “Breaking and Remaking the Family,” to establish that these three communities reworked their group dynamics to privilege homosocial bonds (Shakers), communal ethos (Catholic priests and nuns), and equal marriages (Grahamites).The last two chapters are particularly insightful by linking these three groups to the larger society, specifically through the market economy and popular culture. Chapter 4, “Alternate Extracts,” addresses the commodification of sexual restraint through the marketing of Shaker goods such as medicines, teas, and herbal remedies, which enabled consumers to “buy” purity. Catholic orders commodified their product through convent boarding schools that gained reputations for elite status and demanding standards. These groups branded their public image to generate capital. Arguing that Grahamism was a form of religion, French explains that their message, spread through testimonials and publications, sold a lifestyle based on temperance in all forms (diet, alcohol, sex, etc.) that could revolutionize an individual’s health. The fifth chapter, “Performing Sexual Restraint,” reveals the sexual distinctiveness of these three groups as expressed through public entertainments and tourism. Though readers may be familiar with the famous print of Shakers dancing in their meetinghouse in front of outsiders, they may not know that Shakerism became a popular format on the antebellum stage. For example, one act, called the “Black Shakers,” performed a comedic reenactment of Shaker ritual worship in blackface, which enjoyed wide appeal among American audiences. Another group, known as “the Shaking Quakers,” appeared at P. T. Barnum’s American Museum in the 1840s. There were similar acts that derided Catholic nuns, which appeared when anti-Catholic tracts surfaced in the 1830s, such as the story of runaway nun Maria Monk, made famous in the publication Awful Disclosures of the Hotel Dieu. These productions were matched by sponsored trips to exotic locales, such as Shaker villages and convent schools. Due to the transportation revolution, middle-class Americans could experience otherness by visiting these sites to affirm their “normality” and “the supremacy of married heterosexuality” (146).The author could have done more to assess the ways in which sexual restraint interacted with corporeality. How did the embodiment of celibacy occur through distinctive bodily regimes? How did these differing bodies challenge normative tropes of sexuality, health, and gender identity? In addition, the author overemphasizes normative gender ideology among Shakers, which belies the radical notions of sexual segregation, gender complimentarity, and female autonomy found in their early history. However, these comments don’t take away from this highly readable and cogently argued monograph but rather spark more questions for scholars to explore in the wake of its publication. Through concise analysis and the use of relevant literature, Against Sex complicates our knowledge of the history of sexuality in the antebellum era. A wide range of US historians will find this book worthwhile; instructors could assign it in courses on the history of sexuality, gender, popular culture, religion, and health." @default.
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• W4386014746 date "2023-01-01" @default.
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• W4386014746 title "Against Sex: Identities of Sexual Restraint in Early America" @default.
• W4386014746 doi "https://doi.org/10.5325/pennhistory.90.3.0506" @default.
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