History of Sex, Love and Sexuality 1900 - 1925

About the history of sex, love, and sexuality from 1900 to 1925, oral sex is outlawed, syphislis is cured, Birth Control is coined, Charlie Chaplin and Fatty Arbuckle are outrageous.

1901--Sexual Inversion, by researcher Henry Havelock Ellis, was published. Based on case studies and information from a variety of sources, it was suppressed as obscene, "a filthy publication."

1904--An investigation in Paris turned up 4 manufacturers of chastity belts, which had been invented during the Crusades. A silver one with a padlock cost 50 francs.

1909--In the case of Commonwealth of Kentucky v. Poindexter, 2 black men who had been accused of having oral sex with each other were not convicted because there was no law on the books against such a practice. The judge immediately issued a statement against oral sex and asked that it be made illegal. Anti-oral-sex laws were then enacted in many States.

1910--In New Orleans, La., an annual guide-book for tourists gave the addresses and delineated the charms of the city's leading houses of ill-fame.

1912--Dr. Paul Ehrlich, a German, found a cure for syphilis.

1914--Margaret Sanger coined the term "birth control." Two years later, she opened the 1st birth-control clinic in the U.S. Sanger said, "A woman's body belongs to herself alone," and insisted that a woman had the right to "dispose of herself, to withhold herself, to procreate or suppress the germ of life."

1914--The U.S. Federation of Women's Clubs banned the tango and hesitation waltz as immoral.

1918--Women began to denounce the double standard, which postulated that males need not be virgins before marriage, but women must. About these women protestors, H. L. Mencken wrote: "What these virtuous beldames actually desire is not that the male be reduced to chemical purity, but that the franchise of dalliance be extended to themselves."

1920s--Charles Chaplin stunned the nation when, during a divorce trial in which he was accused of indulging in cunnilingus, he exclaimed, "But all married people do that!"

1921--U.S. movie producers hired Will H. Hays, former Postmaster General, to head an association which would establish and maintain motion picture standards. The association was originally founded to avoid censorship; however, the Hays office's arbitrary standards soon tied the industry up in knots.

1921--The renowned Hollywood comedian, Fatty Arbuckle, allegedly committed anal rape on actress Virginia Rappe, using either his penis or a Coke or champagne bottle. When she died as a result, Arbuckle faced criminal charges. He went to trial 3 times, twice got a hung jury, and the 3rd time was acquitted. But he was blackballed from films forever and died penniless.

1921--An Irish journalist after visiting the U.S.: "Unbalanced by prolonged contemplation of the tedious virtues of New England, a generation has arisen whose great illusion is that the transvaluation of all values may be effected by promiscuity."

1922--Edward Aleister Crowley's book Diary of a Drug Fiend was reviewed by James Douglas, who was shocked by it. The London Sunday Express, in that same year, exposed Crowley as a libertine, who wanted his women brought to the back door "like milk," preferred women who were exotic or deformed, and engaged in orgiastic rites.

1922--Ulysses, by James Joyce, was published in Paris.

1923--Adultery was made grounds for divorce in England.