Over the years I've read the received wisdom that Victorians were very prudish... I wonder ?

Wikipedia
Female hysteria was a once-common medical diagnosis, made exclusively in women, which is today no longer recognized by modern medical authorities as a medical disorder. Its diagnosis and treatment was routine for many hundreds of years in Western Europe. Hysteria was widely discussed in the medical literature of the Victorian era. Women considered to be suffering from it exhibited a wide array of symptoms including...

Rachael P. Maines, author of The Technology of Orgasm: "Hysteria," the Vibrator, and Women's Sexual Satisfaction, has observed that such cases were quite profitable for physicians, since the patients were at no risk of death but needed constant treatment. The only problem was that physicians did not enjoy the tedious task of vaginal massage (generally referred to as 'pelvic massage'): The technique was difficult for a physician to master and could take hours to achieve "hysterical paroxysm." Referral to midwives, which had been common practice, meant a loss of business for the physician.
And today's story:
Daily Telegraph

Victorian lovesickness treated with sex
Victorian doctors recognised love sickness as a medical illness and prescribed sex as a treatment, research has shown.

However, doctors believed that the most successful remedy was simply to have sex.
She said: "Love sickness was often quite a 'class crossed' love when a rich person was in love with a servant or a poor girl but they weren't allowed to express that."
Dr Dawson, whose results are published in the book 'Lovesickness and Gender in Early Modern English Literature' said that the best cure was seen to be sex - and this would often be recommended to the patient's family.
I wonder... have we actually progressed or regressed on how we deal with sex? Were the Victorians more liberal in some regards ?

cYp