Bauer's History

As a scholar currently working with issues of sexualities of the past and sex in the early 20th century, I often get peculiar questions. Among the most frequently asked is whether society really dealt with sexuality "back then"—a temporality that most often refers to Victorian times or, in Sweden, the late 19th century. People are often shocked to hear that sexuality back then was, just like in contemporary times, the talk of the town. What many people are particularly surprised to learn is that there were actually discussions on sexual education as early as the 1890s in Sweden—or perhaps even earlier, depending on how we define sexual education. If we take our departure from the writings of historian of ideas Lena Lennerhed, sexual education or sexual enlightenment (in Swedish: sexualupplysning) is actually a very old phenomenon. If we believe that sexual education is about teaching people about the consequences and practices of sexuality from a matter-of-fact approach, we c...

 In the 2024 movie The Conclave one of the possible candidates for papacy was described as strikingly modern. One way that the film tried to illustrate this was his phrase "We do not want to return to the times of large families and overcrowded houses 'cause momma and poppa did not know any better", which was a subtile way to illustrate how both the catholic and many protestant churches had handled the issues of contraceptives and sex education. In todays very polemic landscape, it is easy to think that only the most provocative parts of sex eduation (i.e. educating about social gender) is under attack, but the latest development here in Sweden have made me wonder.  A week ago, NGO RFSU (national association for sexual education) claimed that the proposal for a new curriculum contained what could be viewed as a dismantling of sexual education in Sweden. This was due to sexual education being written out of the general curricula and instead being placed in plans for indivi...

(the title of this entry is a play with words, since the name "Hinke" carries resemblance to the word hink in swedish which means bucket).  For the past months I have been working on a project on Swedish politician Henrik "Hinke" Bergegren, who is often forgotten in contemporary history writing. Bergegren was born in an upperclass family in Stockholm in the year of 1861 and early in his life came into contact with rising workers movement. Within the movement he soon gained prominence and was a key person in forming the social democratic party, which would shape Sweden upuntil this day. In the scholarship on Bergegren a key concern have been the framing of him as a political terrorist, where he on the party's congress spoke openly about using violence as a mean to achieve the workers goals. In 1908 he was excluded permantly from the social-democratic party, which often have been described as a result of his agitation for violence. However, historian Åsa Linderbor...

In 1970's Sweden a common joke went like this: why do the soviets always sleep in a bed made for three? Because Stalin is always with them. This joke can be seen as a construction of sexuality, were the normative way to have sex is a intercourse between two persons. For the past year I have thought alot about sexuality and none the least the construction of sexual deviance.  In history of sexuality Foucault develops a notion of sexuality as a social construct. Foucault does not deny that there exist a objective reality surrounding sex, but he however makes an important observation: the field known as sexuality is largely constructed by social norms. In this perspective people will always have intercourse, but sexuality only exists once it has been determined as a field. The creation of this field of sexuality is usually done to control people, were for instance the church during 16th century invoked harsh restrictions on sexuality. This was later underscored by the 19th century med...

 The philosopher Foucault puts forward the notion that sex and sexuality have had different understandings throughout history. When reading the history of sexuality, it therefore does not exist one history of sexuality, but a multitude of social discussions that are manifested in different ways. This is insight that have become important in my own project, since one of my main challenges is trying to remember that there such thing a villains within history but rather actors who tries to better society from their contemporary problems.  One such example was my understanding of the victorian age before entering the project. I saw this age as an Other time, where sexuality were merely oppressed as the result of religious and morale doctrines. A couple of months ago I did what I usually do when entering a new project, I simply take a stroll on the library and tries to find monographs that works in the projects favor apart from utilizing tools such as Google Scholar. Whilst on this...

 Today (the 2nd of january) marks the birth-day of Swedish sexual educator and reformer Elise Ottosen Jensen. Originally born in a conservative priest family in Norway, Ottosen-Jensen lived her life as an international anarchist whose actions would transform the swedish sexual politics during the last fifty years of her life (1923-1973). As a reformer Ottosen-Jensen is mostly known for the creating of the Swedish association for sex education (RFSU) in 1933 which was formed during a dynamic period in Swedish sexual history. During the 1920's and most of the 1930's it was illegal to publicly support contraceptives in Sweden and hence one of the key goals of RFSU was to reform the legislation, which eventually suceeded in 1938 when marketing of condoms and pessars were made legal. After that Ottosen Jensen and RFSU spent years propagating for important reforms such as sexeducation in public schools and a reform of the swedish abortion legislation, which Ottosen Jensen however did...