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[zompist]

You'd need experts to give you a better answer, but my very rough estimate would be: in the 1940s in English, in the 1800s in French.

In both cases there were scandalous predecessors, often banned or hard to get, e.g. Ulysses (1922), Lady Chatterley's Lover (1929), Tropic of Cancer (1934); Les liaisons dangereuses (1782), Justine (1791). But within a generation or two you could have explicit sex in mainsteam novels.

Later than that for French literature, though earlier I think than English literature.
I don't remember anything really explicit in Les liaisons dangereuses, though the implications were enough to get it banned. Justine and the rest of sad is extremely explicit (and very disturbing!)

I looked a bit at my copy and it does seem that Les liaisons dangereuses isn't very explicit; on the other hand it has sex, which I think was avoided in English literature at the time. Plus, it's explicitly about sex rather than romance. (Given the purposeful irony that Valmont is undone precisely because unwanted romantic feelings intrude.)

I recall a story by Maupassant whose point, or joke, was that a simple man hears his wife having sex with another man and is surprised that she is making so much noise. I may be wrong, but I don't think aboveboard 19C English literature allowed that.

I'm not that familiar with medieval literature, but I'd mitigate your claim a little. It's definitely not puritan, and a lot more explicit than later works... but definitley not as graphic and open as we are.

Again, I'd just point to Chaucer, whose comic stories are pretty darn explicit. Or the Spanish La Celestina, or the stories described here.

Also, two nuances. One is that novels have grown more longwinded. A typical medieval story could be extended by adding episodes, but each one was fairly short. So Chaucer doesn't write about sex for pages on end, but that's (I believe) more the style of the times than prudery.

Another is that we can miss the racy parts because they're either hidden by allegory, or because the focus is on the preamble. C.S. Lewis wrote a book on The Allegory of Love, which was a whole genre exploring nobles' adultery (which is how love has to appear in a time of arranged marriage). These books might include, say, an extended story about picking a rose in a walled garden (cf. Le roman de la rose). Doesn't sound like sex, but that's exactly what the metaphor meant.

Similarly, what Laclos loves to write about is the seduction scene itself: how the seducer moves a woman from cold and resistant to submissive and/or passionate. This process goes on for pages, while the actual sex is described extremely briefly, as the woman "yielding." In intention at least, I think these passages are intended to be steamy and titillating, even if these emotions are mixed with revulsion at Valmont's character.

[malloc]

Another is that we can miss the racy parts because they're either hidden by allegory, or because the focus is on the preamble.

But hiding sex behind allegory sounds like quite the opposite of making it explicit and certainly indicates that society at the time frowned on overt sexuality.

[keenir]

Another is that we can miss the racy parts because they're either hidden by allegory, or because the focus is on the preamble.

But hiding sex behind allegory sounds like quite the opposite of making it explicit and certainly indicates that society at the time frowned on overt sexuality.

I'm going to hazard that, for people who were familiar with the references, similies, etc, those allegories were overt. Its more pragmatics...at least as i understand them, I believe it to be so.

[zompist]

Another is that we can miss the racy parts because they're either hidden by allegory, or because the focus is on the preamble.

But hiding sex behind allegory sounds like quite the opposite of making it explicit and certainly indicates that society at the time frowned on overt sexuality.

Have you ever read Animal Farm? Do you think that Orwell was afraid of talking about Soviet communism directly?

(I'll give you a hint: Orwell spent most of his time talking about Soviet communism directly.)

[malloc]

Have you ever read Animal Farm? Do you think that Orwell was afraid of talking about Soviet communism directly?

(I'll give you a hint: Orwell spent most of his time talking about Soviet communism directly.)

That presupposes that plenty of Mediæval literature described sexuality overtly rather than allegorically. Was that indeed the case?

[Travis B.]

Have you ever read Animal Farm? Do you think that Orwell was afraid of talking about Soviet communism directly?

(I'll give you a hint: Orwell spent most of his time talking about Soviet communism directly.)

That presupposes that plenty of Mediæval literature described sexuality overtly rather than allegorically. Was that indeed the case?

Umm look at my example of Under der linden if you haven't already ─ while it doesn't explicitly depict the act of sex itself directly, it isn't far from it either. And it is very much medieval literature (it's written in MHG for that matter).

[Darren]

As Chaucer said, c. 1400:

This Absolon gan wype his mouth ful drye:
Derk was the night as pich or as the cole,
And at the window out she putte hir hole,
And Absolon, him fil no bet ne wers,
But with his mouth he kiste hir naked ers,
Ful savourly, er he was war of this.

He's always talking about grabbing ladies by the "queynte" and "thakking her about the lendes". Although he doesn't actually talk about anyone having sex, they're too busy kissing each others' arses.

[zompist]

Have you ever read Animal Farm? Do you think that Orwell was afraid of talking about Soviet communism directly?

(I'll give you a hint: Orwell spent most of his time talking about Soviet communism directly.)

That presupposes that plenty of Mediæval literature described sexuality overtly rather than allegorically. Was that indeed the case?

Jeez man, this time I even gave you a link.

[foxcatdog]

Thinking of getting onto ADHD meds in hopes of them making me more productive.

[foxcatdog]

Ah yes the whole gamut of music "From Jazz to Classical" totally not the two genres most people would group as closest together.

[Raphael]

So, is the question here whether literature in previous periods would state something as

More: show

"And then they had sex"

, or as

More: show

"And then he put his cock inside her"

? The latter sounds a lot more explicit than the former to me, and is more what I had in mind when I started this particular subdiscussion.