"Suggestions for Friends on Choosing Mistresses" was a letter by Benjamin Franklin on June 25, 1745, in which Franklin counseled a young man about the distribution of sexual urges. Due to its immoral nature, the letter was not published in a collection of Franklin papers in the United States during the 19th century. The federal court's decision from mid- to late-20th century cited the document as an excuse to overrule obscenity laws.
Video Advice to a Friend on Choosing a Mistress
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Franklin begins by counseling a young man that the cure for sexual urges is unknown, and the right solution is to take a wife. Then, expressing doubts that the intended audience would actually get married, Franklin mentioned some of the benefits of marriage. As an additional suggestion if the recipient rejects all previous arguments, Franklin lists seven reasons why an older lady is preferred over the young. Advantages include better conversation, unwanted pregnancy risk, and more prudent intrigue.
According to John Richard Stevens, the unnamed correspondent is a friend of Franklin named Cadwaller Colton, and it is still unknown whether Franklin is serious or whether the letter was ever delivered. Whether serious or funny, the letter is really sexual:
The first face grows thin and wrinkled; then the Neck; then Breasts and Arms; The bottom continues to be the last one ever so: So covering all the above with the Basket, and just about what lies beneath the Girdle, it is impossible for two Women to know the old from the young. And as in the dark all cats are gray, The pleasure of physical pleasure with an old Woman is at least the same, and often superior, every Skill is with Reputable Practices.
Maps Advice to a Friend on Choosing a Mistress
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Mistress letters are not the only document by Franklin which is then censored by the next generation. The filthy part of Franklin's writing was accepted in his own day. Although Mistress letters were not published during his lifetime, Franklin's public works included an essay called "Festive Proud". A section of his Autobiography describes an unsuccessful attempt to seduce a friend's mistress. As John Semonche observes in Censorship of Sex: The Journey of History Through American Media, autobiographies were widely read during the nineteenth century because of his moral lessons, but parts of failed seduction have been altered or deleted entirely.. The letters were omitted from Franklin's 19th-century publication, and by some accounts were chosen for repression.
This censorship takes place both informally and under the law. The first country to enact obscenity laws was Vermont in 1821. Over the next decades every state except New Mexico adopted a similar law. Then the Comstock Act of 1873 made it a federal crime to disseminate "obscene, obscene, and/or nasty" material by post.
Although Franklin had concubines throughout his life (including an unknown concubine who gave birth to his only son William Franklin), such circumstances did not match the patriotic sensitivity of a century after. Amy Beth Werbel has the outspoken opposition:
At a time when America was a hundred years old, Benjamin Franklin was an important part of the myth of its founding. Some Americans feel that their patriotic duty to hide the fact that electric conquerors and members of the continental congress are also obscene (and perhaps unfaithful) people.
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In the mid-20th century, US federal judges cited letters in the original reason for annuling obscenity laws. Jerome Frank's 1957 appeal was named "A Counsel for a Young Person on Choosing a Lady" along with "Polly Baker's Speech" as two examples that would punish one of the nation's foremost fathers for allegations of federal obscenity if they had been written and sent by the next law.
The most important of these quotations occurs in the case of the United States Supreme Court, United States v. 12 200-ft. Film Roll . In a different opinion, Justice William O. Douglas states:
The First Amendment is the product of a strong man, not a wise man, age... This is the time when Benjamin Franklin wrote "Advice to a Young Man about Choosing Lady" and "Letter to the Royal Academy in Brussels". When the United States became a nation, none of the country's fathers cared more than Franklin with pornographic questions... The Anthony Comstocks, Thomas Bowdlers and Victorian hypocrisy - the forerunner of our current obscenity laws - have not come to the stage.
The letter was also referenced during a conversation with Benjamin Franklin in the 2012 video game Assassin's Creed III during a cutscene at a general store.
See also
- Censorship in the United States
- Famous Proud
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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