title: Innocence and experience: sexuality among young people in modern France, c. 1750-1950.
abstract: Prying into the sex lives of young people in the past has always proved a challenging exercise. Historians have often ended up relying on the testimony from adult observers or on the quantitative evidence provided by illegitimacy rates. This article adopts a more direct route by drawing on first-hand accounts of early sexual experiences written by French people in diaries, childhood reminiscences and autobiographies. As a preliminary, it analyses the way various authorities depicted young people as sexual (or non-sexual) beings, and the state of sex education in France before the mid-twentieth century. It then considers the way people depicted their first stirrings of sexuality during childhood and adolescence. Finally, it examines evidence from the "ego documents" on sexual relations in the run-up to marriage.
authors.affiliation: University of Nottingham.
authors.forename: Colin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Heywood
mesh_terms: D001723:Birth Rate / Q000208:ethnology; D003710:Demography; D005602:France / Q000208:ethnology; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D007086:Illegitimacy / Q000191:economics / Q000208:ethnology / Q000266:history / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000523:psychology; D054526:Men's Health / Q000208:ethnology / Q000266:history; D012725:Sexual Behavior / Q000208:ethnology / Q000266:history / Q000502:physiology / Q000523:psychology; D012747:Sexual Partners / Q000523:psychology; D019529:Sexuality / Q000208:ethnology / Q000266:history / Q000502:physiology / Q000523:psychology; D016387:Women's Health / Q000208:ethnology / Q000266:history; D055815:Young Adult