Exactly Graham - it was a fun thing. These people were pre Freud. it was a past where they thought differently, felt different and did things very differently.

I think perhaps they saw this stuff as pre-sexual. An aspect of childhood.

There was a great popularity for photographs of scantily clad Africans. You can't help imagining, the Victorians thought sentimentally that these 'savages' didn't have the same measure of sexual maturity as themselves - being naked and unashamed, like children.

Thus another load of sexually charged feelings crept under the wire.