Sam McDougle

BOME, Mr. Meyers, H-band

Spring, 2004

Sexuality in 19^th Century Bourgeois Vienna

Conservatism and Liberalism

            In the late 19^th century, the Victorian bourgeois population of Vienna had a fascinating view of sexuality. While the conservative façade of sexuality as taboo and the cult of virginity remained, new liberal ideas and trends were beginning to sprout up and shine a new light on sexuality. The middle-class Victorians that were characterized by the “skirt on the piano leg” stereotype were judged by their seemingly conservative surfaces, though many facets of sexual repression were beginning to dissolve. With the pioneering psychoanalytical publications of Freud, the rather explicit writings of authors such as Arthur Schnitzler, ground-breaking progress in means of contraception, and the mood of the “modern” middle class individual illustrated by an uncertainty about the morals of the past, new views on sexuality were part of a dramatic sociological revolution. The Victorian middle class of Vienna was generally restless, conflicted, and sometimes excessively anxious. These new modern attitudes were both caused and affected by a departure from the more purely “traditional” lifestyles that were still somewhat present, though unquestionably threatened. While there are many definitions for “modernity,” one that could be connected to the evolution of the Victorian views on sexuality would be a definition that included the internal conflicts within the new middle-class and the difficulty for the middle-class to find a balance between accepting progressivism while respecting traditions.

Many members of the Victorian bourgeoisie neglected to confront sexual issues, which is the main cause for the typical attitude towards the Victorians as “uptight.” This traditionalism was caused to some extent by many Victorians “feeling guilty about the loss of their religious faith.1” The ideal woman could still be characterized by the Virgin Mary, and in many cases Victorians proudly sought to uphold the, “sanctity of marriage,¹” when thinking about themselves or their children.

One of the most unbreakable conservative doctrines regarding sexuality was the rigid expectation for a young woman to remain a virgin until marriage. While increasing sexual openness may have led to social acceptance of promiscuous young men, women were left out of the “mix.” As Peter Gay writes in Schnitzler’s Century, “…few apart from severe divines called on men to make the same strenuous demands for self-abnegation; the male animal, as the cliché had it, was supposed to prepare himself for monogamy by sowing his wild oats.2” This new acceptance of sexuality only applied to sex between a husband and wife, or the need for a young man to explore sex to its fullest, “getting it all out” before being sexually confined to his wife (adultery notwithstanding). The cult of virginity was strongly established in public opinion; Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing, a well-established German psychologist said in the 1880’s, “However sensual he may be, the man of higher feelings demands a wife in marriage who had been, and is, chaste.²”

Moreover, a young women’s virginity often was a sign of a wealth-driven propriety brought about by a sheltered, high-end school environment that made it almost impossible for a young woman to experiment with sex. These standards put the status of a woman’s virginity in an economic light, making virginity a sign of economic worth, and thus, making her a more “valued” marriage prospect. This Victorian attitude towards young women and their virginity (even the revolutionary playwright Arthur Schnitzler had an “obsession” with it2) was entrenched in their sexual politics, despite the many new liberal trends.

                        The monumental works of many members of Vienna’s intelligentsia, particularly psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and playwright Arthur Schnitzler, helped create a more open-minded view towards sexuality in the Viennese middle-class by making sexuality the central theme in their works. Freud referred to Schnitzler as his doppelganger; Schnitzler was a student of psychology and a friend of Freud’s. Schnitzler’s critiques of social phenomena in his writings were revolutionary, and he was deeply thoughtful in his scrutiny of psychological themes. One of his most popular plays, Reigen (1897, meaning “merry-go-round”), is a sequence of dialogues that deals candidly with a series of sexual encounters. In the following excerpt from Reigen, Schnitzler used the asterisks in the script to represent sex.

 

YOUNG GENTLEMAN: Come, come here . . . there, that's right . . .

CHAMBERMAID: But if someone should ring now--

YOUNG GENTLEMAN: Oh stop fussing, will you . . . just let them ring . . . [Bell rings.]

 

* * *

YOUNG GENTLEMAN: Hell . . . the fellow's making enough noise, all right . . . He probably rang before and we never noticed it. 3

 

Every dialogue of Reigen is centered on a sexual theme, and the play explores how the desire for sex could transcend all social barriers (class in particular). Reigen was censored and banned in most of Austria for its content, and was not widely received by the public its in full original form for about 20 years. One of Schnitzler’s other early plays, Anatol (1893), is about a young man speaking with a series of mistresses. Schnitzler’s uninhibited writings were widely read, and particularly popular in Viennese culture. They helped bring sexual issues to the forefront of the Victorian mind in as forthright a way as ever seen before.

Sigmund Freud brought sexual issues to the spotlight as well, through his amazing insight into human psychology. Though the bulk of Freud’s work came slightly after the end of the Victorian era, his earlier works were not without impact. In Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), he gives his views on dreams and their significance, and writes, “…the majority of the dreams of adults deal with sexual material and give expression to erotic wishes.4” In this treatise Freud not only acknowledged the importance of sexual feelings and their close connections to the inner conscience, but also recognized the fact that these were widely suppressed feelings: “No other instinct has had to undergo so much suppression, from the time of childhood onwards, as the sexual instinct in all its numerous components…⁴”

Perhaps the most revolutionary sexual theory in The Interpretation of Dreams was Freud’s theory of the “Oedipal complex.” The Oedipal complex consisted of an individual’s subconscious desire to compete with the parent of the same sex in order to have the parent of the opposite sex for themselves (the theory was usually applied to males, though it did work both ways). Freud described “Oedipal Dreams” as, “the dream of having sexual intercourse with one’s mother. ⁴” Freud wrote with relatively frank language, and his Oedipal theory dealt with very literal sexual topics. In light of the Victorian obsession with the idea of “the family,” Freud’s work in The Interpretation of Dreams, especially the Oedipal theory, challenged the accepted notions of what a family was “supposed” to be and the relationships within it. The idea of the son wanting to kill the father was very threatening, though also very intriguing to the Viennese public. Freud brought an approach to the topic of human sexuality that was enormously important in the world of psychoanalysis and equally significant in its new place in the bourgeois’ Viennese household.

New developments in science, specifically innovations in contraception, played a large role in continuing to shape the emerging liberal approach towards sexuality in middle-class Vienna. Advances in contraception in the Victorian era included vaginal jellies, pessaries, douches, the diaphragm2 and the most monumental, the rubber condom. In 1844 Charles Goodyear patented vulcanized rubber5, and soon after, cheaper, more reliable condoms began to be manufactured. The contraceptive industry was extremely successful; eventually condoms were mass-produced and became more affordable for many people. In England in the 1860’s, “the price of a condom dropped from ten pence to a ha’penny.²” Contraceptives removed the “logistical” problems of unprotected sex and also allowed a couple, economically unable to support an addition of a child, to have sex and, most of time, avoid pregnancy completely. New views on sexuality were affecting the world of science and the world of business. The arrival of mass-produced contraceptives was a sign of a new modern acceptance of sex as a leisurely and pleasurable activity, not just a means for procreation.

           The internal contradictions of the Viennese middle-class concerning sexuality only increased their already anxious tendencies. The world was changing, and the newly emerging middle-class was still attempting to adapt to these drastic changes. The “Victorian obsession with morality,1” played both conservative and progressive roles. Religious and traditional morals (the expectation of a young women’s virginity, for example) were looked at with a sympathetic eye, though new ideas and inventions regarding sexuality were embraced with intellectual and psychological rationales. Middle-class culture was filled with internal quarrels in the realm of sexuality, and such discord could not only be defined as “modern,” but in light of recent events, “current.” Our society today finds itself in a position where people may embrace the sexual traditions of the past while also expressing interest in the progressive sexual ideas of the future. The contemporary argument over homosexual marriage can be linked with the sexual ideologies of the Viennese middle-class in the 19^th century by identifying the situation as a case in which new progressive notions in regards to sex exist alongside conventional principles within the public, the culture, and even the individual.