Society and Sexuality: The Role of Slavery and Shaping Views of Sexuality

Slavery shaped society's view of “normal” sexuality through the process of creating a sexual institution that actively molded cultural views along the lines determined slavery. Sexual stereotypes regarding the traditional classical view of purity exemplified by the white woman and the animalistic, brutish black rapist play into how society viewed the nature and practice of sexuality. While slavery as an institution dates back centuries (The Parchman Farm being a prime example), the use of the plantation system and the very unique legal and cultural status of slaves would prove to have a major impact on the role of slavery in shaping views of sexuality throughout American society. As a result of slavery, the how society and culture viewed institutions such as marriage, the use of violence and exploitative rape and the changing ways of social relationships all indicate the great extent to which slavery helped to shape societal views of normal sexuality. 

As a racial institution, slavery is both a highly violent and highly sexual practice that has affected American society and the perception of sexuality to a great extent. Far from being a passive reflection of common views regarding sexuality, the institution of slavery has instead actively worked to shape and mold those views. The “extreme physical and psychological damage” of enslavement would prove to have a lasting impact on not only the sexual history of the African-American race in the United States but would also in return show many of the sexual traits present in mainstream society.  By legitimatizing violence as an effective and appropriate method to lower slaves to the level of nonhuman, the entire slave culture itself faced a situation in which physical violence towards their bodies took the form of beatings, rapes, and other forms of physical abuse. The “values and practices of slavery, in particular the use of violence to secure obedience and deference”, is a theme represented in the decades and centuries of the slave culture in the South.  Lacking control of their own bodies, slaves faced sexual and physical abuse without any ability to protect their individual integrity from extreme exploitation, full aware that they “must submit to their masters”.  Unable to prevent and required to do whatever asked of them, slaves were more than just the property of slave owners; rather, they became the clear representation of sexual domination based on violence as a means to an end. 

This inability to maintain control over one's own body would, in terms of the impact on culture, greatly influence the sexual character of slave men throughout the history of sexual and racial abuse. Incapable of protecting his wife, daughter, or sister from the attacks of white slave owners, the slave men “can't be a man.”  Instead, the slave is a person stripped of his ability to express his manhood because he is unable to protect those people closest to him; incapable of preserving any real benefit from the often-unofficial relationships between slave men and slave women. The years of sexual abuse backed by the usage of extreme violence both emasculated and deeply wounded the sexual character of slave men. It is clear that without any ability to effectively protest or prevent the sexual exploitation of his female family members, the slave man faces only the prospect of being forced to sit idly by as his loved ones are repeatedly violated. For the black slave, slave owners, fully capable of acting “just as they please with his wives and daughters”, removed any option for the slave to protect his family.  Any attempt at protest or rebellion was met with extreme violence, and the dominance of white power in the slave-culture of the South completely quashed any suggestions of retribution or legal recourse regarding the sexual exploitation of slave women. 

In addition, the slave man himself, stopped from acting in the way his nature and character would demand, became not only accustomed, but accepting of the concept that, as Lewis Clarke states in his account of slave owner violence and sexual assault against slave women, “a horse can't speak, and a slave darn't”.  Clarke is arguing that the “bestial” nature of slave men as perceived by slave owners is exemplified through the sexual exploitation of the female slave. The slave male is forced to accept the inevitable happening of sexual abuse, and cannot express himself in any way without terrible consequences. Thus, the sexual exploitation of the slave system would not only devastate sexual relations between slave men and women but also help to reduce and emasculate slave men from their traditional role as protectors and providers. It is through this acceptance and the removal of any possibility to help his female family members that would lower and destroy the mental ability of slave men to stand against these attacks, which deeply “violated his sense of manhood.”  Not only did sexual exploitation damage the female slave, but it indirectly caused great mental stress and disruption throughout the entire slave system, even to the men who were largely unaffected physically by sexual attacks and violations.

Though slave men experienced only indirectly the system of fear and sexual exploitation maintained by slave owners, female slaves received the full force of the brutality and violence exhibited in the societal structure of the South. J.W. Lindsay, in describing the nature of sexual relations and family within the framework of slavery, illustrates this point by using the example  of a brutal slave owner who sexually abused even his married slaves, “us[ing] her whenever he saw fit.”  Never slowing to beat a slave woman who attempted to refuse his advances, this owner is a prime example of a man who used violence and sexual exploitation to maintain power and station above his property, even going so far as to father children with his slaves. Even though “he had a boy by one of his colored women, and he would take hold of his hair, and lift him up as high as your head, and let him fall down, and almost knock the breath out of him”, it is clear that slave owners as a whole likely cared little for the offspring of their frequent forays into the slave chambers. Sexual violence against female slaves would prove to be a common activity, hardly frowned upon by mainstream society and accepted as an appropriate exercise of slave owner rights. Indeed, though “sometimes white mistresses will surmise that there is an intimacy between a slave woman and the master”, she typically would only raise domestic hell and demand the slave woman and children be sold.   Thus, while clearly white women who married slave owners did not appreciate intimacy on behalf of their husbands with their property, such practice was hardly on the same level as infidelity with other white women and any relations between a slave owner and his property was seen as a natural expression of owners' rights over his slave. As a result, normal sexuality of a slave owner would almost be definition include the accepted practice of intimacy with his property, a common occurrence with the added legal caveat that any children produced of the union would retain the slave status of their mother and could then be sold. 

In addition, as seen in Harriet Jacob's account of the experiences of a slave woman, sexual relations between a slave owner and his wife were often the source of marital discord. Though frowned upon, sexual intimacy between slave and owner was not uncommon nor unexpected. Jacob recounts how she was forced to “go on with my account, her color changed frequently, she wept, and sometimes groaned. She spoke in tones so sad, that I was touched by her grief.”  The story of how the white wife of Jacob's owner felt great sadness and remorse about how her “marriage vows were desecrated [and] her dignity insulted” is indicative of the extent to which slave society completely disregarded the matter of the slave's emotional well-being or psychological health.  Instead, the wife of the slave owner could only see herself as the one wounded in the infidelity of her husband, and not the married slave girl exploited sexually and violently over many years. Lacking any feeling of shame nor compassion for Jacobs, the wife could only deal with her own feelings of loss and sadness. Thus, Jacob's account is a fascinating insight into the psychology of infidelity in the structure of slave society, showing how, even when the true victim of the crime would be the “poor victim of her husband's perfidy”, a white woman facing the realization of her husband's lack of virtue would instead feel only remorse for herself.  Indeed, the emotions of the slave woman in question are completely ignored and not factored into the crime of the husband. 

While violence against slave women was common in the forms of beatings and sexual exploitation, torture and extreme aggression were not unheard of, though slave owners typically valued their property too highly to torture or beat them to death with any regularity. Sexual assaults could begin as young as the age of twelve years. The rape of slave Susan Black, recounted by Dr. Esther Hill in 1865, shows the extent to which violent white slave owners, “in spite of her frightened resistance [and] with his handkerchief stuffed in her mouth, committed rape upon such a child.”  Raping her repeatedly throughout the coming weeks, the eventual offspring of that union was given to an older slave for caring. Years later, the same slave owner would have her “stripped naked, tied up and then with his own hands beat her”, taking “particular pains to beat her over the pubis; until she was terribly swollen and the blood run down her legs and stood in pools on the floor.”  Eventually achieving freedom following the end of the war in 1865, Susan Black would reunite with her husband and live a happy life. The story of Black, however, is indicative of the extent to which violence dominated slave culture in the South. Without excessive physical and mental abuse, slave owners lacked the ability to maintain the downtrodden character of their property. As a method of control and manipulation, sexual violence against slave women would prove to be a major theme throughout the history of slave sexual relations and the subsequent impact on what would society would view as normal sexuality. 

The institution of slavery greatly affected the practice of sexuality as it pertained to matters of love. Prior to the 1700s, marriage and sexuality had long been considered an exercise in matchmaking based on professional and familial interests. Economic security and valuable family connections took dominance over the more modern idea of marrying for love.  The idea of marrying for love ran contrary to the dominant interests of individuals and families, a theme not present when looking at the impact of slavery on marriage institutions and the ways in which slave interactions impacted the perception of normal sexuality. Though slaves often wondered “why does the slave ever love?”, it is clear that slaves, due to the formal nature of their enslavement and the highly unlikely act of them ever achieving freedom in America, often married for love and passion, rather than economic, financial, or other reasons.  The account of Harriet Jacobs shows a young slave woman desiring to marry the young free-born carpenter of which she had fallen in love, only to receive cold rejection from her slave owner. It is shown that “slaves' intimate lives were subject to their master's control, but stresses that slaves formed enduring, flexible kinship bonds that supported their resistance to domination”.   The mixture of owner and slave relationships with regards to slave marriage provides a fascinating insight into the way that slave marriage influenced perceptions of normal sexuality, as the matter of slaves marrying for love instead of more base reasons represents a strong theme of resistance to their master's attempts to subjugate them further. Moreover, though the owner clearly maintained absolute control over the conduct of the relationship, it was possible in some cases for the male slave interested in a particular woman to ask for the woman's hand in marriage from the woman's owner.  This acts one of the few examples in which a slave could proposition a slave owner for something as significant as marriage and not expect to be denied as a matter of fact. 

Marriage between slaves, though totally dependent on the agreement of the slave owner or owners in question, still functioned as a method by which slaves exhibited at least some control over some aspects of their own lives. Maintaining “their own way of doing things”, slaves and their ideas about marriage and courtship were “shaped by gender convention and community concerns, but not by default the same conventions or concerns.”  The harsh reality of slave culture meant that, despite the total control of the owner over the conduct of his property, slaves would still follow common ideas and procedures, though adopted to match their unique situation. The male interested in the match would take the first step in approaching the woman and her close family, as well as older slaves that gained a sort of “elder” status in the community. Once the match had been agreed upon and the respective owners given their approval, the marriage could take place. Even so, “mothers and elderly women also held power in certain slave quarters, particularly in relation to younger slave women.”  Thus, marriage and sexuality are one of the few areas in which slaves, though completely subjugated and controlled by their masters, could, in some cases, actually maintain enough personal integrity “even to the exclusion of owners or slave men.”  The example of the marriage of slave William Grose, who married a free black woman, went unapproved by Grose's master, and therefore sold to a trader in Louisiana, is a story by which the institution of marriage, though not sexuality itself, would impact broader themes of normal sexuality in American society. Grose and his wife, separated by hundreds of miles, eventually reunited in Louisiana, only to then flee north and find refuge in the free territories of Canada.  This story, reflective of the classic American love story, is a rare but admirable example of the extent to which slave marriages were influenced American perceptions of sexuality and marriage. 

As a racial institution, slavery greatly impacted the ways in which society's views of sexuality have been shaped. Strong sexual stereotypes have emerged as a result, primarily the theme that black men are strong sexual predators and lust after innocent, pure white women. The infamous accusations of slave men raping white women and, in later years, freed African Americans doing the same, and the resulting lynchings that dominated much of the post-war South, are a result of the extreme sexual and racial degradation of African Americans throughout the institution of slavery. Portrayed as “inherently licentious and uncontrollable”, the racial stereotype of African American men is a common theme still present in contemporary society.  Though evidence by Ida B. Wells-Barnett make it clear that such accusations are based not on fact, but rather racist suspicions as a result of decades of slave culture, it is impossible to stop lynchings when “the ball of lynch law [starts] rolling.” Incapable of preventing lynchings on a widespread scale, authorities often side with the lynchers or stood idly by and did not prosecute the offenders, despite the illegal use of vigilante and mob-based justice. These shifts in post-war views on sexuality and society help to tell the story of how slavery impacted the ways in which society shaped views of normal sexuality. For most of the pre-war period, normal sexuality for a white slave owner meant frequent and common couplings with his property. Slaves, on the other hand, were forced to receive their masters consent for marriage, often choosing their mates based on love and passion and not economic concerns. By basing their marriage systems and ideas regarding individual sexuality on the grounds of romantic involvement, slaves did their best to resist the “soul-murder” attempted by white slave owners. 

Slavery, as a racial and sexual institution, provided a powerful tool to manipulate society's views of normal sexuality. By reinforcing and, at times, creating fake sexual stereotypes and corrupting the family structure of slave families, slavery deeply affected and influenced how slavery shaped society's views of normal sexuality. By influencing and reflecting society's view of “normal” sexuality, slavery represents a powerful tool by which society was manipulated into specific notions of sexuality. Specifically, the double standard of white male slave owners able to become “close” with their slaves without moral or legal consequences compared to the vulnerability of the slave being used, the manipulation of the institution of marriage to allow for increased power over slaves, and the impact slavery had on sexual violence and exploitative rape are all important ways in which the institution itself helped to shape society's views on sexuality. Normal sexuality, therefore, is a result of the powerful forces exerted on it, of which the institution of slavery is a significant part. 

Bibliography

Clarke, Lewis. “Leaves from a Slave's Journal of Life”, National Anti-Slavery Standard, 156.

Jacobs, Harriet A. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself (1861), ed. Jean Fagan Yellin, 27-39, 31-33, 37-39, 53-56.

Lindsay, J.W. “Interviews by Benjamin Drew and Samuel Gridly Howe”, 1863. 400-401. 

Painter, Nell Irvin. “Soul Murder and Slavery: Toward a Fully Loaded Cost Accounting”. 125-146.

Peiss, Kathy, ed. Major Problems in the History of American Sexuality: Documents and Essays (Major Problems in American History Series). Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. 

Schwartz, Gerald. A Woman Doctor's Civil War: Esther Hill Hawk's Diary, 154-155.

Stevenson, Brenda E. “Slave Marriage and Family Relations,” in Life in Black and White:  Family and Community in the Slave South, 226-246, 254-255, 257. 

Wells-Barnett, Ida B. Southern Horrors. Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892). 51-54, 58-62.