The Mosher survey: Sexual attitudes of 45 Victorian women, edited by James Mahood and Kristine Wenburg.

The only known survey of the sexual habits of Victorian women, published for the first time nearly 100 years after the survey was initiated. Moser, an American physician, began the survey in 1892 as an undergraduate when preparing to lecture on the "Marital Relation" before the Mother's Club of the University of Wisconsin, and continued it for the duration of her career. The survey was initially controversial because of its frankness, and the overwhelmingly sex-positive views of the participants, even including the use of "male sheaths" (now called condoms) and "rubber cap over the uterus" (either a diaphragm or cervical cap) birth control. All this stood in high contrast to other existing historical literature of the time, which held that women have no sexual desires, and sex should only be used for reproduction. One theory is because the researcher was a woman gathering data from women that knew the results would only be put forth before a purely female audience, the normal strictures of propriety of that time were let down, and more realistic data was actually gathered.