So what about Doug? or Michael? Or Wojtek? Closet drivers?
>From Geoffrey Pearson, Hooligan: A History of Respectable Fears,
Macmillan 1983 p66-7:
'More grievous allegations were brought against the bicycling
"scorchers" who went to fast or, to strike another note of discontent,
who went too far and barged into middle-class leisure haunts. There were
editorial fumings in The Times (15 August 1898) about the "East-End or
suburban 'scorcher', dashing along quiet country roads through peaceful
villages with loud shouts and sulphurous language, and reckless of life
and limb", and the Lancet (6 August 1898) saw fit to have a medical
entry on "The Fool on the Cycle". Accounts of youths whizzing about
madly on their bikes, causing pandemonium among the traffic, frightening
horses, and knocking over pedestrians were as commonplace as the
headlines which repeatedly sensationalised "The Cyclist Terror", "The
Risks of the Cycle", "The Perils of the Wheel", "Moloch of the Wheel",
"The Dangers of City Cycling" and "Cyclomania".'
In message <v03102803b17530556fd4@[128.146.43.45]>, Yoshie Furuhashi
<furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> writes
>I don't think that Victorians were sexless, but I find it hard to even
>imagine Victorian-era workers engaging in SM after long hard hours of
>manual labor (unless they were paid by the rich to do so). I would think
>that SM (to the extent that the term could be applied to Victorians) must
>have been a ruling class pastime (with participation of their servants +
>some 'rough trade').
A point that is confirmed in John D'Emilio and Estelle B Freedman's book, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America, just republished by the Chicago U Press.
'Victorians were actually obsessed with sexuality, elaborating on its meanings and creating new categories of deviance and identity.' pxiii
What's interesting about SM is that it makes relations of direct domination and servitude a feature of play, just as they are becoming unacceptable as features of ordinary life in democratic societies: consider for example Donatien De Sade's complex relation to the French Revolution. -- Jim heartfield