there have always been awesome people...
We seem to have this sense of the past far out of touch with reality, and, on a certain level, with humanity. People living in the past are always fundamentally different from us, being either more pure or more savage, ignorant of the nature of the world around them, living in a way disorienting to the modern human. Well, aside from all of the Cuntsvilles and Cocktowns brought into being by miners moving west in the 19th century, we have another example of people being people: an old sex survey of women born in the Victorian era, lost until 1973 (and only found by me b/c of a link from Slate). I've always thought that people in all times perceieve the same things, but just act within the context they feel the world has given them - we've all always known what it means to be human, even if we don't admit it.
Clelia Mosher's survey (and life, too, while we're at it)
What did these women think? A mesh of the old and the new:
A woman born in 1862, who felt that without "a strong desire for children" marriage was no more than "legalized prostitution," nevertheless wrote: "I most heartily wish there were no accidental conceptions. I believe the world would take a most gigantic stride toward high ethical conditions, if every child brought into the world were the product of pure love and conscious choice."
Clelia Mosher's survey (and life, too, while we're at it)
What did these women think? A mesh of the old and the new:
A woman born in 1862, who felt that without "a strong desire for children" marriage was no more than "legalized prostitution," nevertheless wrote: "I most heartily wish there were no accidental conceptions. I believe the world would take a most gigantic stride toward high ethical conditions, if every child brought into the world were the product of pure love and conscious choice."