Abstract
The paper addresses the issue of sex and sexuality in the late Georgian Scotland. Scottish culture and mentality was changing during the period between 1770s and 1830s: the Enlightenment and the French Revolution revived ancient and Renaissance ideals of mental freedom and physical pleasure.
This change slowly but surely affected all aspects of everyday life, science and art. By the end of the 18th century the sexual relationships became more relaxed and carefree, but this trend didn't last very long and soon the Victorian era started - the epoch, which is infamous for its hypocritical double standards and flourishing prostitution.
The paper focuses on the period of certain "transformation": Sex slowly became taboo again, especially among the growing middles class, but the sexual relationships remained rather frivolous for a bit longer in the countryside and among aristocracy. Even middle class literature at the time of "transformation" was nothing like later Victorian press, many books - published in the period of transformation - contained uncensored love scenes and some non-pornographic novels were entirely about sexuality (such as John Gibson Lockhart's Adam Blair, which was published in 1822 and twenty years later it had to be censored by Lockhart himself).
The paper discusses sex at the time of "transformation" from the perspective of social history, historical anthropology, gender studies and demography; the research is based on various sources such as historic medical books and journals, personal diaries and letters, poems, novels, art, popular press and pornography.