WHY THE FORTIES WERE A NAUGHTY DECADE

IN LATE Forties Britain, a study called Little Kinsey (it was released in the wake of the famous study by Alfred Kinsey) was carried out by Mass Observation, a social research organisation of the time.

It had a national panel that it used for surveys. In fact, the Mass Observation panel seem to have been a racy lot — a quarter of men said they’d been with a prostitute, 38 per cent of people had enjoyed pre-nuptial sex and 24 per cent admitted they’d made love to someone else during their marriage — substantially more than today.

Many of the women on the national panel fed back vivid descriptions of their sexual experiences, many reflecting dissatisfac- tion with a lack of male intimacy, while some of the men admitted being baffled about sex. Here are some of the intriguing responses:

‘My husband accused me of being “cold” but little knew the passionate longing I experienced. If only he had made love to me instead of using me like a chamber pot.’

— middle-aged woman

‘Intercourse is not right, really, is it? Not even if you are married. Sex isn’t very nice . . . Yes, it can be harmful, it can ruin a woman’s insides as easy as pie, ruin any girl’s innards, intercourse can.’

— A labourer’s wife

‘When I was 20 I didn’t know a thing. I went to see our parson and he told me. He put it to me in a nice way. He said: ‘Do you grow marrows, George?’ I said I did and he told me: ‘Well you’ve got to pollinate marrows to make them grow, haven’t you?’ And he showed me how it was done.’

— 60-year-old shopkeeper, Peterborough

‘Sex is very unpleasant. My husband says I’m not human. If I’d known what it was like before I got married I never would have married at all.’

— middle-aged, working-class housewife

‘You can’t stop the feeling. I agree with it [pre-marital sex]. It’s to try people out — you never want to buy a pig in a poke.’

— 37-year-old steeplejack