Sexuality in Wartime

Abstract

War posed an implicit threat to the maintenance of the normal boundaries of gendered space as the reorganisation of social life challenged established gender relations. Women’s morality became an issue in public discourse because it connected to fears surrounding change in spatial organisation, male morale and postwar relations. The fracturing of space and the creation of new spaces that women were colonising were complicated by the arrival of the Allied troops in Britain. From early 1942 Allied servicemen began to arrive in Britain and, over the next three years, several million Allied troops passed through Britain en route to other battlefields or to man supply bases in this country (Longmate 1975, p. 472). Their presence presented a dilemma for British men for their occupancy was likely to open up new opportunities for women. These fears led to attempts to control women through a variety of means.