Carmen M. Mangion, Catholic Nuns and Sisters in a Secular Age: Britain 1945–90, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020, pp. vii + 344, £80.00, ISBN: 9781526140463

couples reach mutual orgasm, it did little to alleviate the spiritual and bodily tensions associated with NFP. Geiringer illuminates the tactics devised by Catholic women to release these sexual and marital tensions, such as masturbation, oral sex, and anal sex. Ultimately, it was these physical and emotional struggles that brought about a change in contraceptive behaviours. At times, Geiringer’s analysis could have been pushed further. Studies on reproductive behaviours have shown the plethora of factors that could influence birth control decision-making. For instance, the author does not consider the desire and necessity to limit family size for the well-being of children. Besides the well-analysed emotional and sexual strains posed by the NFP, interviewees’ definition of good parenthood, as well as gendered notions of femininity and masculinity could also have played a role in the advent of a ‘liberal self’. The final chapter explores the acquisition of sexual knowledge in early life. Geiringer argues that early life and premarital sexuality was constitutive rather than determinative in women’s understanding and experience of sexuality. The bigger rupture, this book suggests, could be seen between the interviewee’s upbringing and the upbringing of their own children. Religious ideals and norms informed the interviewees’ sexual development. When the time came to handle this issue with their own children, however, many considered religious codes an ‘obstruction to young people’s “natural” sexual development’ (p. 180). Despite the need to integrate a wider range of sources to situate these Catholic experiences within a broader social and cultural context, Geiringer offers a fascinating account that goes some ways to shed light on hitherto hidden experiences. By putting testimonies centre stage, Geiringer gives voices, for the first time, to the emotional struggles Catholic women experienced in post-war Britain.