IRISH PEOPLE have replaced their fear of being too sexual with a fear of not being sexual enough, history professor Diarmaid Ferriter told the Self, Selves and Sexualities conference which opened at DCU yesterday. He contrasted the sexual repression of the past century with the current emphasis on the premature sexualisation of girls.
“And there is this huge pressure on people sexually to perform, to be sexually active to be sexually knowledgeable in so many ways,” he said. “When you look at the pressures that existed in earlier parts of the 20th century, the fear of being too sexual in some respects was replaced in the early 21st century by the fear of not being sexual enough. “
“And perhaps a historian of sexuality in 20th century Ireland could conclude that the Irish are simply not good at moderation.”
Prof Ferriter is the author of Occasions of Sin: Sex and Society in Modern Irelandand gave the keynote speech on the first of the two-day conference.
The event, organised by Dublin City University’s (DCU’s) School of Nursing and School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies, was described as the first of its kind by co-organiser Dr Mel Duffy. She said it would have been impossible to have organised such a gathering 20 years ago
Opening the conference, DCU deputy president Prof Anne Scott said it was ironic that the conference was being held at this particular time in our history.
The conference is hearing from more than 60 speakers on issues including sexual health, sexuality in literature and the media, and spirituality and sexuality.
Prof Ferriter said there had been an obsession in the past with hiding away people who had transgressed from the version of a chaste and virtuous Ireland.
There was a “wholesale reliance” on institutions to hide “fallen” women such as prostitutes and unmarried mothers. “There were no fallen men and that is one of the things you will discover about the history of Irish sexuality. You search in vain for the fallen men but there are no shortage of fallen women.”
He highlighted key moments in Irish sexuality such as the Kerry Babies case and the deaths of Ann Lovett and her baby and said the public reaction to that latter case “was a very important turning point” in developing a discourse around taboo Irish sexuality subjects .
These were not individual tragedies. “These were part of a very long history of Irish sexuality and of difficult circumstances around Irish sexuality.”
Prof Ferriter asked if the history of sexuality in the 21st century had to be a history of abuse and a history of what went wrong. “We search in vain for accounts of sexual pleasure,” he said but they could be found if one looked hard enough.
The conference continues today.
