Contraception A History

In this engaging new book Robert Jütte offers a history of contraception from the Ancient world to the present day. He distinguishes two broad phases: first, a long phase, extending from the Ancient world up to the 18th century, in which birth control was part of a traditional form of sexual knowledge what Jütte calls, following the French social philosopher Michel Foucault, the ars erotica. In the second phase, which began in the 19th century, practices of birth control are increasingly shaped by the emerging models of scientific knowledge, while still retaining some vestiges of the erotic arts.

In addition to the contraceptives we know and use today, from coitus interruptus to the condom and the pill, Jütte considers other methods of birth control as diverse as the use of herbal potions and vaginal pessaries, the castration of young boys and the enforced sterilization of men and women. This comprehensive history of one of the oldest and most widespread of human practices offers a rich and nuanced account of how men and women across the centuries have struggled with the needs both for sexual gratification and for limitation of offspring, while also looking beyond the present to catch a glimpse of how contraception might evolve in the future.

List of illustrations vii

Illustration acknowledgements viii

Foreword ix

Introduction 1

Ars erotica: The Early Art of Contraception 11

The economics of sexual reproduction: birth control in the ancient world? 11

Calls for greater fertility: origin of the ethics of procreation in Judaism, Christianity and Islam 17

The not so secret wisdom of ancient medicine 29

Poetic truth: deliberate infertility as a theme in ancient literature 37

Unfruitful activities: 'suppositories for women' and herbal potions 42

Transformations: The Supposed Repression of Knowledge about Contraception in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times 51

A history of demographics and the origins of birth control 51

Secreta mulierum: female wisdom on pregnancy and contraception 62

Sexual desire and atonement: the theology of the 'sinful flesh' 75

Castration, condoms, Casanovas: old and new methods of contraception 89

The Beginnings of scientia sexualis in the Nineteenth Century: The Impact of Moral and Political Imperatives on the Debate about Contraception 106

(Neo-)Malthusianism and its demographical implications 106

A fresh approach to knowledge: sex education pamphlets and theirreaders 117

Sexual politics: intensified control and resistance to it 139

The practice of 'being careful': between tradition and progress 144

An Everyday Regime: The 'Democratization' of Birth Control in the Twentieth Century 157

The promise of deliverance: contraception as emancipation 157

The 'Nationalization' of contraception: enforced sterilization and national birth control programmes 174

Changes in sexual morality and the waning influence of religion 186

Simultaneous existence of old and new methods of contraception 199

Future Prospects 216

The 'Pill for men': the contraceptive of the future? 216

Notes 221

Bibliography 237

Index 247

Translated by Vicky Russell.