Why did “vice” become such a significant focus for public anxieties Essay Example

Finally, it is also important to consider the impact of both the Wolfenden committee and its subsequent report on prostitution and male homosexuality. The Wolfenden committee is vital because it was the official political response to the perceived problem of "vice" in the capital. Its background and the evidence the committee considered before publication of the official report are significant because it detailed much of the growing public anxiety in 1950s London.

"Vice" and public space

The invasion of prostitution and male homosexuality into London's communal space was of great concern to the public in the 1950s. The 'sexual geography' of London was mapped extensively in the post-war period; the spread of "vice" was perceived as an abhorrent disease, of which a cure was immediately necessary. Gordon Westwood described public opinion of male homosexuality;

The British view homosexuality with the same moral horror today as they always have. The attitude has hardly changed in hundreds of years. It is considered to be something so degraded that even its existence is only acknowledged in the form of pornographic humour or disgusted scorn.2

This view was crystallised by public opposition to the sexualisation of London's streets and public places. The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and the Festival of Britain were noted for their close proximity to London's "vice" culture.3 The public urinal, the London park and the West End alley became the focus of popular hostility in the 1950s.

Some of central London's most well known areas; Kensington Gardens, Knightsbridge, Hyde Park, Victoria, Soho, Bloomsbury and the Strand, provided a platform for "vice" and served to accentuate the perceived moral decline of the capital. Mort highlights these key areas through evidence

given from Sir Lawrence Dunn, Chief Metropolitan Magistrate and Sir John Nott-Bower, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, to the Wolfenden committee. Dunne described vividly how homosexuals gathered at 'public lavatories and urinals' in Soho and Piccadilly, grouping together in 'nests'.4 The disgust with which Dunne and Bower described their experience of homosexuality in the public spaces of London was characteristic of a wider public anxiety. Dunne and Nott-Bower consistently pursued the eradication of "vice" in the public sphere of 1950s London.

Jeffrey Weeks' statistical analysis of cases of prostitution and homosexuality is also evidence of a purge of sexual London as a consequence of public anxiety. Street offences increased from 2,000 in the early 1940s to over 10,000 in 1952 and 12,000 in 1955. The number of indictable male homosexual offences increased from 134 cases in 1938, to 670 in 1952 and 1,074 in 1954.5 This dramatic increase was noticed not only through the publicised investigation of the Wolfenden committee, but also through the press sensationalism which developed during the decade. It was also noticed through the social experience of living in London. It was obvious to all in 1950s London that the sheer volume of sexual "vice" was increasing, and more often than not, spilling out onto the capital's streets, parks and other public spaces.

Sir Hartley Shawcross Q.C speaking at the annual meeting of the Public Morality Council succinctly addressed the perceived problem of the sexualisation of London's streets; 'sex is thrust upon one constantly, leading those susceptible to those influences to immoralities which they would never otherwise commit'. Shawcross' argument was that the increased visibility of "vice" on London's streets increased temptation, a temptation

which was more frequently succumbed to in the post-war metropolis. According to Shawcross, the increased visibility of "vice" also transcended the immediate problem of the sexualisation of public space in the city. He argued that sexual education of 1950s children came increasingly from the 'gutter'.6 Shawcross demonstrated the widespread anxiety that sexual "vice" in urban London had become an accepted part of society, and thus a part of the sexual understanding of British youth.

"Vice" occupied a vast amount of London's public space, and there is a healthy body of material detailing its workings and locations. The West End was the most notorious area of the city in terms of "vice". The streets of the West End became a place for homosexuals to stroll, meet and search for partners covertly;

Bourgeois gentlemen strolled the streets looking for partners, conventionally attired and never drawing attention. Working-class youths met on street corners and picked up middle-class "steamers"...In the perpetual flux and movement of strangers, queer men could move unnoticed while making the streets bustling centres of queer life.7

Male homosexual custom had remained constant for a significant period of time. The 1950s was a peak in terms of intolerance for the underbelly of the streets of London's West End. The illegality of homosexuality in private certainly increased "vice" in public space. It was not however, the partnering customs of male homosexuals that increased public anxiety, for they remained largely unnoticed during the period. It was the sexual customs that occurred in lavatories and public parks which were found most offensive. The details of these sexual customs will be discussed with relation to the Wolfenden committee and its report in the

final section of this essay. Before this discussion, however, it is necessary to turn to the impact of the popular press and the notable examples of "vice" in 1950s London.

Press sensationalism and its notable victims

Mass media and sensational tabloid journalism accentuated the sense of "vice" on London's streets in the 1950s. There were numerous publications which placed emphasis on the "evils" of homosexuality and prostitution. Much of the perception of London's "ugly" urban environment was developed as a result of crude journalism. Chris Waters has highlighted the fact that tabloid journalists investigating "vice" were portrayed as heroic crusaders, who would 'root out "moral rot" '.8 In the 1950s London became an arena for the victimisation of the male homosexual, and there was widespread support for its continuation.

There are several important examples of this ugly persecution which must be detailed. Hugh Cudlipp editor of the Daily Mirror and the Sunday Pictorial was a pioneer in terms of sensational press in the 1950s. May 1952 saw the release of the Sunday Pictorial's three-part series, entitled 'Evil Men'. The articles Cudlipp released were a scathing attack on homosexuality and an appeal to an anxious public over the issue; 'most people know there are such things-"pansies"-mincing, effeminate young men who call themselves queers. But simple decent folk regard them as freaks and rarities.'9

The articles were not only an attack on the "vice" which had emerged in the post-war capital. They were a rallying cry to the British public for an outright rejection of male homosexuality; 'this vice can no longer be ignored. The silence, I find, is a factor which had enabled the evil to spread. Homosexuality is an

unpleasant subject, but it must be faced if it is ever to be controlled'.10 Cudlipp, The Daily Mirror, and the Sunday Pictorial represented the unsavoury face of public anxiety in the 1950s metropolis.

There were however, certain sections of the popular press which condemned the view put forward by Cudlipp and his publications. The Guardian and the Observer took a more progressive view of homosexuality. These newspapers were far more appreciative of academic research which was undertaken in post-war Britain. Chris Waters has highlighted both the development of tabloid sensationalism and scientific definitions of homosexuality;

the 1950s witnessed not only the crystallisation of a tabloid discourse of homosexuality but a parallel expansion of an alternative, scientific discourse, one that battled in the marketplace of ideas for both popular and state acceptance.11

Waters' argument is extremely important in considering public anxiety over "vice" in the 1950s. Scientific definitions of homosexuality as well as the tabloid version of "vice" generated much public interest in the 1950s. Medical explanations for homosexuality did become more common during the period; however, they did not immediately eradicate the problem of public anxiety.

The press was also responsible for another representation of "vice" which increased public anxiety. Sex scandals dominated tabloid newspapers throughout the 1950s. The tabloids targeted celebrities, politicians, actors and servicemen as a means to sell papers, and there was no better way to do this in 1950s London than an invasion of private sexual spheres. The most notable case in the 1950s was that of Peter Wildeblood, Lord Montagu, Michael Pitt-Rivers and two young RAF servicemen. Wildeblood, Montagu and Pitt-Rivers were all convicted of committing homosexual acts and the trial was extensively covered

in the newspapers.12 Patrick Higgins argues that the arrests of the men were purposefully timed to gain maximum coverage;

Whoever planned the arrest appreciated that the Sunday papers would provide much more space than the dailies. As the accounts that appeared in Saturday evening newspapers suggest, fairly detailed briefings of the press had taken place soon after the arrests. These provided material for sensational copy, and the story would stay on the front pages until the three men were convicted on 24 March 1954.13

Higgins' argument is extremely important in terms of assessing how public anxiety about "vice" increased in 1950s London. Much of this anxiety was formed by the collusion of political authority and the popular press, both of which provided damning accounts of the spread of "sexual deviancy" in the capital.

The Montagu-Wildeblood trial, however, posed a problem which the public remained divided over. There was a certain lack of confusion over how far the law should encroach on private space. There was no evidence of 'corruption', no implication that the sexual acts which took place were not consensual, and the event took place in private.14 The Montagu-Wildeblood trial was immensely important in expressing the idea that male homosexuality could be acceptable in private. Wildeblood's book; Against the Law also argued this case;

I am no more proud of my condition than I would be of having a glass eye or a hare-lip. On the other hand, I am no more ashamed of it than I would be of being colour-blind or of writing with my left hand. It is essentially a personal problem, which only becomes a matter of public concern when the law makes it

so...In Britain, however, the law is very much alive and heavy penalties are incurred by anyone who breaks it. A homosexual who gives way to his impulses even if he is doing no conceivable harm to anyone, therefore runs appalling risks. The fact that so many do so shows the law is no deterrent.15

Wildeblood's view was the strongest argument that "vice" in the private sphere should be accepted. It was also an important reason for the establishment of the Wolfenden committee in 1954, whose primary objective was to clarify and potentially modify the law on "vice".

The Wolfenden committee and its significance

The Wolfenden committee was established in 1954 and procured a vast amount of evidence related to "vice" on the streets of 1950s London. The Wolfenden committee also represented the first time "vice" was officially investigated. It was not only the press however, that called for an official investigation into the morality of law concerning homosexuality and prostitution. Other official organisations had probed the perceived problem of "vice". The National Vigilance Association, the Public Morality Council, and the Church of England pushed for a thorough investigation of homosexuality and its causes.

These official organisations were given what they and the public wished in terms of a thorough analysis, however Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, then Home Secretary, believed that 'homosexuals, in general are exhibitionists and proselytisers and a danger to others, especially the young...I shall give no countenance to the view that they should not be presented from being such a danger.'17 The firm stance that Maxwell-Fyfe took on the subject echoed public anxiety in 1950s London. It was clear from the beginning of the investigation that the subject

matter would become very divisive indeed.18

The subject matter which proved most worrisome to the public in 1950s was discussed in graphic detail by the committee. Frank Mort cites the evidence given by Sir John Nott-Bower to the committee as an example of the 'obsessive detail' which was considered; 'Perverts were adept at cutting holes about two inches square in the partition between the W.C cubicles. These holes functioned as both a means of communication (so that men could pass notes to each other) and as sexual orifices.'19 Bower not only provided the intimate details of "vice" in public space, he was able to annotate maps of urban London, commenting on the hubs of sexual activity in the capital.20 The Wolfenden committee was thus official confirmation to London's population that "vice" was indeed invading public space. There was enough "sexual deviancy" in the central district of the capital it could be effectively mapped and its intricate details explained.

The Wolfenden report's conclusion on homosexuality was that it was of no concern to criminal law; however public displays should be punished more harshly. Its conclusion in terms of prostitution was that the public nuisance of soliciting should be curbed, and in turn punishments for this should also be harsher.21 The conclusion that the law should not intervene in "unnatural" homosexuality was extremely controversial with the public. Jeffrey Weeks illustrates this point by quoting the editor of a well-known medical periodical; 'I am afraid I should hate to be mixed up in any way with the Wolfenden report. As the editor of a medical journal I want to keep clear of Wolfenden and his unsavoury crowd.'22 This perfectly encapsulates

the ill-feeling which existed towards the Wolfenden report. Undoubtedly, there were sections of the ruling class which had accepted homosexuality as an unfortunate condition; however, the Wolfenden report remained extremely divisive for the final years of the decade.

Conclusion

Ultimately, public anxiety towards "vice" in 1950s London increased dramatically. Male homosexuality and prostitution were increasingly seen as problem which plagued London's streets throughout the period. The invasion of "vice" into London's public space caused a great deal of anxiety in the 1950s. The central district became a renowned hub for sexual deviancy which led to much public concern. "Vice" became apparent both in terms of more obvious soliciting and the increased number of accounts of male homosexuality. The West End was associated with this perceived increase in "sexual deviancy".

The increased prevalence of "vice" in terms of public anxiety must be considered alongside the popular press and the Wolfenden committee's findings. Press sensationalism peaked in the 1950s and the most popular topic for the Sunday papers was sexual scandal. The Montagu-Wildeblood trial and Hugh Cudlipp's 'Evil Men' articles are the best example of press sensationalism in the period. The stereotyping of the homosexual and the detailed accounts of public figures' sexual tendencies provided hype to the debate about the increased levels of "vice" in London.

Sir John Wolfenden and his team also contributed to public anxiety during the period. The detailed evidence of "vice" in the public areas of London was tremendously alarming to London's population. The mapping of the "sexual geography" of London by Sir John Nott-Bower for example, certainly brought the public closer to the truth of London's "problem". "Vice" was a much debated issue in the

1950s, and London was the stage of both a dramatic increase in the visibility of "sexual deviancy", and also the development of an increasingly anxious public.