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Sexual Blackmail : A Modern History / Angus McLaren.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2002]Copyright date: ©2002Description: 1 online resource (352 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780674275256
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 364.16/5 21
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- ILLUSTRATIONS -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- INTRODUCTION -- 1 SODOMY AND THE INVENTION OF BLACKMAIL -- 2 THE MODERN MANIA FOR MORALITY -- 3 WOMANIZING ACROSS CLASS LINES -- 4 ENTRAPPING THE JAZZ-AGE AMERICAN MALE -- 5 THE HOMOSEXUAL TARGET BETWEEN THE WARS -- 6 EXPLOITING RACIAL ANXIETIES -- 7 BLACKMAIL AND THE NEW WOMAN -- 8 CAUTIONARY TALES OF ADULTERY AND ABORTION -- 9 DISARMING THE POSTWAR BLACKMAILER -- 10 THE GAY MOVEMENT’S ATTACK ON VICTIMIZATION -- 11 FROM BLACKMAIL TO TABLOID EXPOSÉ -- CONCLUSION -- NOTES -- INDEX
Summary: Sexual blackmail first reached public notice in the late eighteenth century when laws against sodomy were exploited by the unscrupulous to extort money from those they could entrap. Angus McLaren chronicles this parasitic crime, tracing its expansion in England and the United States through the Victorian era and into the first half of the twentieth century. The labeling of certain sexual acts as disreputable, if not actually criminal--abortion, infidelity, prostitution, and homosexuality--armed would-be blackmailers and led to a crescendo of court cases and public scandals in the 1920s and 1930s. As the importance of sexual respectability was inflated, so too was the spectacle of its loss. Charting the rise and fall of sexual taboos and the shifting tides of shame, McLaren enables us to survey evolving sexual practices and discussions. He has mined the archives to tell his story through a host of fascinating characters and cases, from male bounders to designing women, from badger games to gold diggers, from victimless crimes to homosexual outing. He shows how these stories shocked, educated, entertained, and destroyed the lives of their victims. He also demonstrates how muckraking journalists, con men, and vengeful women determined the boundaries of sexual respectability and damned those considered deviant. Ultimately, the sexual revolution of the 1960s blurred the long-rigid lines of respectability, leading to a rapid decline of blackmail fears. This fascinating view of the impact of regulating sexuality from the late Victorian Age to our own time demonstrates the centrality of blackmail to sexual practices, deviance, and the law.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780674275256

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- ILLUSTRATIONS -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- INTRODUCTION -- 1 SODOMY AND THE INVENTION OF BLACKMAIL -- 2 THE MODERN MANIA FOR MORALITY -- 3 WOMANIZING ACROSS CLASS LINES -- 4 ENTRAPPING THE JAZZ-AGE AMERICAN MALE -- 5 THE HOMOSEXUAL TARGET BETWEEN THE WARS -- 6 EXPLOITING RACIAL ANXIETIES -- 7 BLACKMAIL AND THE NEW WOMAN -- 8 CAUTIONARY TALES OF ADULTERY AND ABORTION -- 9 DISARMING THE POSTWAR BLACKMAILER -- 10 THE GAY MOVEMENT’S ATTACK ON VICTIMIZATION -- 11 FROM BLACKMAIL TO TABLOID EXPOSÉ -- CONCLUSION -- NOTES -- INDEX

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

Sexual blackmail first reached public notice in the late eighteenth century when laws against sodomy were exploited by the unscrupulous to extort money from those they could entrap. Angus McLaren chronicles this parasitic crime, tracing its expansion in England and the United States through the Victorian era and into the first half of the twentieth century. The labeling of certain sexual acts as disreputable, if not actually criminal--abortion, infidelity, prostitution, and homosexuality--armed would-be blackmailers and led to a crescendo of court cases and public scandals in the 1920s and 1930s. As the importance of sexual respectability was inflated, so too was the spectacle of its loss. Charting the rise and fall of sexual taboos and the shifting tides of shame, McLaren enables us to survey evolving sexual practices and discussions. He has mined the archives to tell his story through a host of fascinating characters and cases, from male bounders to designing women, from badger games to gold diggers, from victimless crimes to homosexual outing. He shows how these stories shocked, educated, entertained, and destroyed the lives of their victims. He also demonstrates how muckraking journalists, con men, and vengeful women determined the boundaries of sexual respectability and damned those considered deviant. Ultimately, the sexual revolution of the 1960s blurred the long-rigid lines of respectability, leading to a rapid decline of blackmail fears. This fascinating view of the impact of regulating sexuality from the late Victorian Age to our own time demonstrates the centrality of blackmail to sexual practices, deviance, and the law.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 01. Dez 2022)