Victorians were extremely sexually repressed and prudish, avoiding discussion of sexuality entirely.
While Victorian society maintained public propriety and formal morality, underground sexual culture flourished with brothels, pornography, fetish networks, and explicit literature. Letters and diaries reveal complex sexual lives among the respectable middle classes. The image of Victorian repression reflects the era's public facade rather than private reality. This contradiction, outward propriety masking vibrant hidden sexual culture, characterised the period. Modern historians emphasise Victorians were deeply interested in sexuality, even as they policed its public expression. The 'repressed Victorian' stereotype serves contemporary narratives about sexual liberation without reflecting actual historical complexity.