8 | The Manic Thought Publication | Philosophy
“Just as morality and religion did not interfere in the methods of cookery, so they should not interfere in the modes of sexual gratification. This is quite extraordinary, given that it was written in 1818.” To date, 29 volumes have appeared in the new authoritative edition of The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham. There will eventually be about 70 volumes in total. New discoveries are being made all the time in Bentham studies, thanks to the work of the Bentham Project. At the moment, work is being undertaken, for instance, on Bentham’s writings on sexual morality, in which he condemned the asceticism he associated with the Mosaic law and St Paul, and called for sexual liberty, going so far as to suggest that there was Biblical evidence that Jesus himself engaged in homosexual activity. Bentham argued that ‘the pleasures of the bed’ should be treated with the same ‘indifference’ as ‘the pleasures of the table’. Just as with the table, individuals were left free to choose not only the ‘crude material’ that they ate but ‘the mode of cooking, seasoning and serving up’, so with the bed they should be left free to choose: ‘with or without a partner—if with a partner, whether with a partner of the same species or with a partner of another species: if of the same species, whether of the correspondent and opposite sex or of the same sex: number of partners, two only or more than two’. In every instance, the ‘portions and parts of the body employed’ should be left to the free choice of the individuals concerned. Just as morality and religion did not interfere in the methods of cookery, so they should not interfere in the modes of sexual gratification. This is quite extraordinary, given that it was written in 1818.
Anyone who wishes to do so may now contribute to the new Bentham edition by registering with Transcribe Bentham at http:// www.ucl.ac.uk/Bentham- Project/ transcribe_bentham. Transcribe Bentham is an award-winning scholarly crowdsourcing initiative. Manuscripts that have never before been transcribed are being made available online. You go to the Transcription Desk, choose a manuscript image, transcribe it, and submit it to the Bentham Project moderator. The efforts of successful transcribers will be acknowledged in the volumes in which their transcripts are subsequently used. There are still about 45,000 untranscribed manuscripts, and so there is plenty of work for everyone!