Sexual Blackmail

Picked up this book by Angus McLaren, "Sexual Blackmail, a modern history." Totally by chance, but there's some amazing stuff in here. I'm looking at blackmail as a form of 'confidence game.'

Some favorite quotes,

"It was not a crime to ask for money. Nor was it illegal to tell the truth about a person's past. But putting the two acts together as a threat constituted blackmail, a criminal offense." (side note - the play between what's illegal, and what's a crime - not always hand in hand. Hiring of judges based on ideological beliefs=illegal, but not a crime!)

"The law on blackmail is an apparent paradox. It declares that threatening to tell the truth is a crime. It raises the question of what is just: to pretend to be a moral person while leading a double life, or to gain by exposing another's guilty secrets?

"When morality was made the law's business it often became the criminal's business as well."

"The law on blackmail appeared at times to be one more defensive weapon used by the powerful to protect themselves. Blackmail accounts raised the specter of the young, the female, and the poor deviously plundering older, wealthy males... Reflecting a male perspective, these tales aimed to impress on society the necessity of respecting the power represented by age, gender, and wealth."

"Rather than silencing sexual subversives, the court accounts led to the airing of embarrassing questions: Did a man who seduced a woman "owe" her anything? Why should homosexuality be criminalized? Should women be permitted to abort?

"Society preferred to blame the eruption of blackmail on certain "dangerous" women and men rather than come to terms with the tension between the laws and the sexual practices that often provided temptation to unscrupulous individuals."

"Fear of "gold diggers in the 1930's led many American states to revoke laws - known as "heart balm statutes" - that provided compensation for the jilted."

"In the 1950's and 60's British parliamentarians claiming that the existing law encouraged the blackmailing of homosexuals, succeeded in the partial decriminalization of that sexual activity."

The gist that I'm getting is that, in the 1800's, the victorian age was in, as were the defined roles for gender and sexuality. As practice expanded beyond those boundaries, tensions rose. Making certain things illegal encouraged blackmailing. But it wasn't only that the practice was illegal, it ruined one's reputation, and character - two things that have monetary value. More later.