Amy Sohn wrote a book aptly titled, “The Man Who Hated Women” (‎Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021). Sohn was referring to Anthony Comstock (1844 – 1916).
Comstock was born in New Canaan, Conn. He was the son of landed gentry and raised a strict Puritan. In adulthood, that religious upbringing led inexorably to a war on women’s rights. How? It took a few steps.
Step One – The Moralizer
Comstock fought in the Civil War and found his calling not in battle, but in the barracks. Comstock wrote in his diary, “As we entered the Barracks a feeling of sadness came over me … when I heard the air resounding with the oaths of wicked men,”
Comstock read aloud a hymn or passage from the Bible and he claims, “as I read … 3 out of 7 [soldiers] pledged themselves to me that they would not swear, drink nor chew tobacco while we were in the army.”
After the War, Comstock returned, not to Connecticut, but to New York City—not to the puritan countryside, but to sin city. There, he joined the Young Men’s Christian Society (YMCA) and settled down to read their literature. It was 1866, and “The Y” had more than a swimming pool. It had a library and a carefully articulated purpose. The purpose of the New York YMCA was “The improvement of the spiritual, mental, social and physical condition of young men.”
The YMCA wrote of “promoting morality” and further explained their intention, “to put Christian values into practice by developing healthy body, mind, and spirit”.
The YMCA conducted a study—in which Comstock apparently assisted—and reported, the “traps of immorality” into which young men could fall were linked to obscene books. Certain books were “the feeders of brothels.”
According to Kat Long in The Forbidden Apple, “while working in a dry-goods shop on Warren Street in lower Manhattan, Comstock was shown a book by a fellow clerk—a book the clerk blamed for his unwelcome contraction of a venereal disease. Outraged that his friend was thus corrupted, Comstock sought out the publisher of the book, one Charles Conroy. After purchasing a similarly outrageous item at Conroy’s shop in the neighboring basement, Comstock brought the police and had Conroy arrested.”
That was not the end, according to his biographers, it was the beginning. “It started Anthony Comstock’s career as the most influential moralizer in American history,” Long wrote.
The whole had a profound impact on Comstock: Men were immoral, but they were not to blame—they were entrapped.
Step Two – The Arm of the Law
By 1873, Comstock established The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (SSV). The first Chairman of the Board was Berkshire Cottager Morris K. Jesup (Belvoir Terrace, Lenox).
SSV attacked all vice, but with special attention to abortion and pornography. Of most importance, Comstock convinced New York State that the Society should be granted limited law enforcement authority. It made SSV a force, more intimidating, and it made it more problematic that SSV believed “social deviancy justified the use of extralegal action” (read: violent acts).
In explaining the extralegal action, this story should not omit Charles Conroy. He was the fellow who published the book that led Comstock’s co-worker into brothels. Comstock saw Conroy as “an unrepentant two-bit pornographer.” Comstock had him arrested six times over the years and beat him up each time. Even the last time, when Conroy was 70, he was thrashed.
Comstock didn’t stop at forcing people to obey the law; he attacked any he felt violated his own sense of decency. Some saw Comstock and his fellows as courageous defenders of morality; others called them “the dastardly do-gooders.”
Comstock took the next step. While he acknowledged men were immoral, they were lured into immorality. It was women who lured them. You know, Eve, Adam, and the forbidden apple. He moved past soldiers and minor publishers, and Comstock took out after the women. He called them “the sex radicals.”
Step Three – The Legislator
The accomplishment for which Comstock is remembered is the Comstock Act of 1873—“An Act for the Suppression of Trade in, and Circulation of, Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use.” In political terms, the Comstock laws were intended to “stem physical, psychological, and moral decay” (remember the purpose of the YMCA). Specifically, the laws were regulatory: “The US Mail will not carry obscene and immoral material and business transactions in such material will be prohibited.” Comstock was appointed special agent of the US Post office.
Obscene literature would not be delivered. Those trying to use the mail to transmit such literature and articles would be arrested. Included in obscene and immoral material were tracts written by doctors for women explaining birth control methods, maintaining health during pregnancy, and preparing for childbirth. Articles of immoral use included sale or even description of condoms and diaphragms.
In order to criminalize pornography, a definition was required. Originally the word pornography (from the Greek) meant images of prostitutes. In 1843 the word was re-defined to mean “ancient obscene painting especially in the Temple of Bacchus.” In 1873, it was broadened to include all sexually explicit images. Comstock broadened the definition again to include that which facilitates or enables sex, and made it was a key element in enforcing the Comstock Act.
The Man Who Hated Women
The story of Comstock is inevitably the story of the women he criminalized and jailed—the women who sought to modernize and improve the lives of women. The women who communicated that most deaths among young women occurred in childbirth. The women who wished other women to have control over their own bodies. The women, without whom, there would be no birth control pill, no Planned Parenthood, no Roe v. Wade and no hospital births. Arguably, the women without whom there would be no right to vote, to work outside the home, and to speak out in public.
Is this history? Is this a story from olden times? You decide in the light of the overturning of Roe v. Wade—in light of threats to legal use of contraception, the morning after pill and other choices for women. You decide recalling—The Comstock Act lasted until 1965.
