A comparison of the popular reactions in 18th century English literature to “sapphists” as contrasted with male homosexual institutions like molly houses gives the appearance of unconcern about women’s relationships, as does the absence of English laws against sex between women. When women in same-sex relationships ran afoul of the law, they were typically charged with fraud. Nor were women who cross-dressed as men treated with the same public scorn as effeminate men.
Reputed Lesbian
Historic cases of women who had documented sexual relationships with women, or whose contemporaries are recorded as believing they did. This group collects cases that don't fall in a more specific category.
LHMP entry
This article is an examination of the intersection of private and public morality within the ancien régime of France (i.e., the monarchy prior to the Revolution), and how the image of the family as a “miniature kingdom” created parallels such that transgressions against the state and transgressions against family members could be considered parallel.
A number of historians have concluded that there was a major shift in attitudes toward sex in western Europe in the last decade of the 18th century. Binhammer lays out some of the underlying forces and manifestations of that shift. Although the article largely concerns English attitudes (and any unmarked references can be assumed to concern England) the shift can also be observed in France and other western European cultures.
Introduction by Marilyn B. Skinner
This is an invaluable book that collects all manner of classical Greek and Roman texts relevant to homosexuality in a single volume. I doubt that it’s exhaustive, especially with regard to male homosexuality, but Hubbard seems to have made special efforts to include female-oriented material. The material is organized chronologically and by literary genre, with an introductory discussion in each section to provide historic context.
Krantz primarily focuses on the character of Moll Cutpurse in The Roaring Girl, with a secondary consideration of how that image relates to the historic Mary Frith. [Note: to keep the two clear with the least effort, in this summary I’ll use “Moll” for the dramatic character and “Frith” for the historic person.] She examines Moll’s ambiguous identity through three framings: prostitute, hermaphrodite, and bisexual ideal.
It was hard to escape two underlying themes in this article, neither of them speaking directly to the scholarship: the author appears to have something of a personal grudge against Elizabeth Spearing’s edition of Frith’s biography, and he seems determined to conclude that there was nothing particularly queer or transgressive about Frith’s life—she just thought dressing in men’s clothing was a useful career move.
This book is a study and edition of two 17th century “real life memoirs” of women who attracted mythologizing stories due to their unusual lives and criminal contexts. The label “counterfeit” women would seem to apply more obviously in the case of Mary Carleton, who passed herself off as a foreign noblewoman and used that image to acquire financial support and attract advantageous suitors. As there are no overt queer elements to her story, I won’t be discussing that part of the book in detail.
The chapter opens with a tantalizing personal history that suggests, but never clearly demonstrates, lesbian possibilities. In 1722, Ann Carrack, a 30-year-old spinster set up in business as a milliner in London with Mary Erick. They rented a shop together and lived together above the shop. Several years later, they moved together to another location. After 7 years sharing a business and living quarters, they parted: Ann to work as a needlewoman and Mary to set up a shop in Chelsea. But 10 years after that, Ann resumed the partnership, moving in with Mary in Chesea.
Two figures provide a lens for the complexity of British systems of gender and sexuality in the mid 18th century: John Cleland (most famous for his novel Fanny Hill, or The Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) and Mary Wortley Montagu (poet and correspondent, most commonly mentioned in the LHMP for her descriptions of life in Ottoman Turkey as the wife of the British ambassador there).
Pages
