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'Cross-dressing convicts, effeminate bushrangers and women-shortage woes – here is the first ever history of sex in Australia, from Botany Bay to the present-day. In this readable social history, the author uses vivid examples to chart the changing sex lives of Australians. He shows how a predominantly male penal colony gave rise to a rough and ready culture: the scarcity of women made for strange bedfellows, and the female minority was both powerful and vulnerable. Then came the Victorian era, in which fears of sodomy helped bring an end to the transportation of convicts. Tracing the story all the way to the present, Bongiorno shows how the quest for respectability always has another side to it, and how the contraceptive pill changed so much. Along the way he deals with some intriguing questions - were the Kelly gang gay? Why did the law ignore lesbianism for so long? - and introduces some remarkable characters, both reformers and radicals. This is the thought-provoking story of sex in Australia.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Desert Worlds
2019
single work
essay
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 79 no. 1 2019; (p. 84-105) 'In late 1914, twenty thousand mostly young Australian men ventured forth from the driest inhabited continent on earth to cross the ocean in a convoy spread over twenty-five kilometres in length and measuring twenty kilometres in width. The greatest mass exodus from the Antipodes which included a further ten thousand New Zealanders, this was the first and largest of many similar voyages over the next four years. The Australians might have considered themselves to be desert people. “The sand has his own / Wave and motion,” wrote S. Musgrove in “Australia Deserta” in the first issue of Southerly in 1939, “Rages the bed / Of the stony ocean” (14). Yet they preferred to identify as colonial sons returning to the motherland of pastoral England before heading to war. Of their own place, “They call her a young country but they lie,” wrote A. D. Hope in his much debated poem “Australia” which he began writing around the time of the publication of the inaugural issue—and to which he contributed an essay—“She is the last of lands, the emptiest, / ... the womb within is dry” (Hope).'(Introduction)
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Rudd 'no' to Prize for Book on Sex
2016
single work
column
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 11-12 June 2016; (p. 21) -
[Review Essay] The Sex Lives of Australians
2013
single work
essay
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Colonial History , no. 15 2013; (p. 223-224)'I am very glad that this book has been written, and even more so that Frank Bongiorno has written it. Histories of sexual behaviour in the West abound and especially so if we include studies of sexual behaviours past and present. But no histories of Australian sexuality existed before this book. I italicise 'histories' the word in order to address my second reason for celebration. This is an exemplary piece of social history, written with equal assiduity and clarity. So much is this the case that it could be (and I believe was intended to be) read by layperson and academic alike. Moreover, as the title suggests, this account draws heavily on subjective and deeply intimate accounts in the proud tradition of the first sexologists of the late nineteenth century. This is one of the strengths of the author's approach — clearly intent on moving beyond 'sexual behaviour' and focusing instead on 'sex lives'.' (Introduction)
-
Rudd 'no' to Prize for Book on Sex
2016
single work
column
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 11-12 June 2016; (p. 21) -
[Review Essay] The Sex Lives of Australians
2013
single work
essay
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Colonial History , no. 15 2013; (p. 223-224)'I am very glad that this book has been written, and even more so that Frank Bongiorno has written it. Histories of sexual behaviour in the West abound and especially so if we include studies of sexual behaviours past and present. But no histories of Australian sexuality existed before this book. I italicise 'histories' the word in order to address my second reason for celebration. This is an exemplary piece of social history, written with equal assiduity and clarity. So much is this the case that it could be (and I believe was intended to be) read by layperson and academic alike. Moreover, as the title suggests, this account draws heavily on subjective and deeply intimate accounts in the proud tradition of the first sexologists of the late nineteenth century. This is one of the strengths of the author's approach — clearly intent on moving beyond 'sexual behaviour' and focusing instead on 'sex lives'.' (Introduction)
-
Desert Worlds
2019
single work
essay
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 79 no. 1 2019; (p. 84-105) 'In late 1914, twenty thousand mostly young Australian men ventured forth from the driest inhabited continent on earth to cross the ocean in a convoy spread over twenty-five kilometres in length and measuring twenty kilometres in width. The greatest mass exodus from the Antipodes which included a further ten thousand New Zealanders, this was the first and largest of many similar voyages over the next four years. The Australians might have considered themselves to be desert people. “The sand has his own / Wave and motion,” wrote S. Musgrove in “Australia Deserta” in the first issue of Southerly in 1939, “Rages the bed / Of the stony ocean” (14). Yet they preferred to identify as colonial sons returning to the motherland of pastoral England before heading to war. Of their own place, “They call her a young country but they lie,” wrote A. D. Hope in his much debated poem “Australia” which he began writing around the time of the publication of the inaugural issue—and to which he contributed an essay—“She is the last of lands, the emptiest, / ... the womb within is dry” (Hope).'(Introduction)
Awards
- 2013 shortlisted Australian Capital Territory Book of the Year Award
