Der gelüftete Vorhang oder Lauras Erziehung

Published in 1786, the novel Le rideau levé, ou l'éducation de Laure is one of the most revealing erotic books of the Enlightenment. It is more than a voluptuous morality tale: it is a call for casual coexistence and tolerance, inventive and frank in its depiction of sexual acts. The fantastic combinatorics of love games avoids any coquettish sidelong glance at morality; it does not hypocritically call for renunciation of the depicted vices in their name, as was common in relevant works of the time, but pleads for sexual freedom and self-determination.