For a long time, the story goes, we supported a victorian egime, and we continue to be dominated by it even today Thus the image of the imperial prude is emblazoned on our restrained, mute, and hypocritical sexuality At the beginning of the seventeenth century a certain had little need of secrecy; words were said without undue reticence, and things were done without too much conceal ment;one had a tolerant familiarity with the illicit. egulating the coarse, the obscene, and the indecent were quite lax compared to those of the nineteenth century. It was a time of direct gestures, shameless discourse, and open transgressions, when anatomies were shown and intermin gled at will, and knowing children hung about amid the laughter of adults: it was a period when bodies"made a display of themselves. fell upon this bri owed by monotonous nights of the Victorian bourgeoisie. Sexuality was carefully confined; it moved into the home. The conjugal family took custody of it and absorbed it into the serious function of reproduction. On the subject of sex, silence be- came the rule. The legitimate and procreative couple laid wn the law. The couple imposed itself as model, enforced the norm, safeguarded the truth, and reserved the right to peak while retaining the principle of secrecy. A single locus of sexuality was acknowledged in social space as well as at he heart of every household, but it was a utilitarian and fertile one: the parents'bedroom. The rest had only to re- gue; proper demeanor avoided contact with other bodies,and verbal decency sanitized one's speech. And ster