Why and when did sexuality become an important political issue for Victorian feminists? Why were Edwardian feminists so divided in their views about sexual freedom and its relationship to women's emancipation? The Real Facts of Life tackles these important questions, providing an analysis of the struggle for female sexual autonomy which posed a significant threat to the structure of male power during this period.

It shows how feminists confronted the institution of heterosexuality by waging campaigns to expose what they called 'The Real Facts of Life': the sexual exploitation of women in marriage and prostitution, and the double standard of sexual morality which legitimated this as 'natural'.

The author analyses the work of feminist theorists such as Elizabeth Blackwell, who challenged the patriarchal model of sexuality and argued that sexuality was socially constructed. She discusses the attempts by feminists to construct a feminist model of sexuality based on female sexual autonomy; and shows how the scientific 'experts' of the early twentieth century undermined this process by redefining as natural what feminists had exposed as political.

This challenging book, with its radical approach to the social construction of sexuality, is a valuable contribution to feminists' thinking about sexuality today. It is essential reading for all those interested in the interrelationship of sex and power.