1989/10/01 by Tracy C. Davis
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Gender, Feminism, and Media #Gothic Literature and Media Analysis #Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology
paper · doi:10.2307/3208182
openalex publication_date 1989/10/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Decades before the theories of conditioned reflexes and behavior modification were expounded in England, moral reformers recognized that to control passions in the Skinnerian boxes of Victorian theatres passionate stimuli must be checked. The need to control passionate stimuli was a concern limited to a few, for only a few who understood the stimulants and the nature of the passions were willing to eradicate a socially sanctioned source of so much erotic pleasure. If the vast majority of playgoers were indifferent to the sensual marketplace inside the variety theatres' promenades and outside the legitimate theatres' colonnades, they wholeheartedly defended the sensual content of performance and patronized it faithfully.