Sexual Perversions, 1670–1890 Also by Julie Peakman
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Sexual Perversions, 1670–1890 Also by Julie Peakman EMMA HAMILTON LASCIVIOUS BODIES A Sexual History of the Eighteenth Century MIGHTY LEWD BOOKS The Development of Pornography in C18th England WHORE BIOGRAPHIES, 1700–1825 (editor) Sexual Perversions, 1670–1890 Edited By Julie Peakman Birkbeck College, University of London Editorial matter, selection and introduction © Julie Peakman 2009 All remaining chapters © their respective authors 2009 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2009 978-0-230-55510-5 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries ISBN 978-1-349-36397-1 ISBN 978-0-230-24468-9 (eBook) DOI 10.105 7/9780230244689 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sexual perversions, 1670–1890 / edited by Julie Peakman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Paraphilias–History–18th century. 2. Paraphilias–History–19th century. 3. Sex customs–History. I. Peakman, Julie, 1957– HQ71.S4126 2009 306.77–dc22 2009013628 10987654321 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 Contents Preface vi List of Illustrations x Contributors’ Details xii 1 Sexual Perversion in History: An Introduction 1 Julie Peakman 2 Staging Perversion: The Restoration’s Sexual Allegory 50 of (Un)civil War Becky McLaughlin 3 Objects of Desire, Identity and Eros in the Writings of 72 Lord Hervey and Charlotte Charke Marilyn Morris 4 The Woman in Man’s Clothes and the Pleasures of 95 Delarivier Manley’s ‘New Cabal’ Jennifer Frangos 5 The Hostile Gaze: Perverting the Female Form, 1688–1800 117 Jenny Skipp 6 Rape in Early Eighteenth-Century London: A Perversion 140 ‘so very perplex’d’ Jennie Mills 7 Morbid Parts: Gender, Seduction and the Necro-Gaze 167 Rebecca E. May 8 Religious Sexual Perversion in Nineteenth-Century 202 Anti-Catholic Literature Diana Peschier 9 Tropics of Sexuality: Sexual Excesses and ‘Oriental Vices’ 221 in the British Raj Pashmina Murthy 10 Chinese Sexuality and the Bound Foot 246 Sandra Adams Index 276 v Preface Books about sexual perversion usually come within the realms of the theo- rizing of philosophers, psychologists or psychiatrists. Rarely do we see the topic of sexual perversion covered in history outside this remit – as a cul- tural and literary history. As a consequence, most of that which has been written on sexual perversion has remained the preserve of the sexologists and post-sexologists. Although there has been a development over the last few decades of the history of sexuality (both hetero and homo) and an emergence of occasional articles of ‘non-normative’ sexual practices and sexualities, the latter has been sporadic. A lacuna in detailed studies in the area of historical studies of sexual perversion still exists. Where studies have been made, they tend to stand within the context of history of sexuality overall rather than specifically examining sexual perversions in history. The intention of this book is therefore to provide the reader with a glimpse into the history of sexual perversions and diversions pre-sexology to see where sexual perversion can be found prior to its categorization by the sexologists. We use the term sexual perversion nowadays to describe all sorts of sexual behaviour we consider deviant, but can we apply it to the period 1670–1890 at all? Semantically, we enter a minefield of historical denials and oppositions, leaving ourselves open to accusations of anachro- nism; some may argue that the phrase ‘sexual perversion’ was not used during the period under investigation; while others might posit that society did not have a concept of ‘sexual perversion’ per se; or that although the term ‘perversion’ was extant, it was not used in the manner of current day usage. This book will attempt to eschew some of those ideas and instead propose that the notion of sexual perversion was already circulating in the period under discussion, albeit in a different form from that of today. The book will examine fetishism, cross-dressing, ‘effeminate’ men and ‘masculinized’ women, sodomy, tribadism, necrophilia, rape, paedophilia, flagellation and sado-masochism (some of these terms recognizably ana- chronisms), as well as sex amongst the clergy, and asks questions about how these sexual inclinations were viewed at a particular time in history. The book takes an interdisciplinary approach and covers the areas of theatre, literature, religion, and science, incorporating tradition, culture, colonialism and the social and sexual construction of images of women and men. It introduces new feminist scholars to the public, as well as new essays by more established ones, working in the arena of the history of sex- uality. The book is for intelligent general readers as well as scholars inter- ested in questions about sexuality, literature, and British culture. vi Preface vii In the introduction, Part I, What is Sexual Perversion? I investigate the broad range of theoretical application to the term and problems arising from its consideration for the period 1670–1890. I analyse the general debates which have emerged around sexual perversion, how they are prob- lematic in terms of sense, terminology, catagorization and descriptions of certain behaviours. How can such a wide ranging subject matter be pinned down and applied to specific sexual practices and why? Part II of the introduction is intended as a brief overview, an intro- duction to the subject of sexual perversion in the time period under obser- vation. Because of its multifarious nature, within such short a space, I concentrate more specifically on the types of ‘perversion’ discussed else- where in this book. Onanism, auto-asphyxiation, urophilia, copraphilia and certain others perceived deviant acts and desires will be left for another time. Various understandings of perversion as dictated by religion, the law and morality are examined, and an assessment made of how pornography often sought to overturn this perception of normality, and acted to distort the delineations imposed upon behaviour in the real world. Some prac- tices were perceived as deviant but not perverse, some seen as merely a bit odd. The book is not, however, just about sexual perversion per se but also about perverting forms, and the construction of the sexually perverse in culture. In Chapter 2, Becky McLaughlin discusses the potential of theatre to pervert. Perversity in the theatre has always had a different meaning from perversity in real life. In 1958, Jean Genet wrote a letter which explained his intention in the creation of the ‘Theatre of the Perverse’, ‘I would thus hope to attain the abolition of characters….and the advance- ment of symbols which are primarily indicative…to attain that by which the characters become on stage no more than the metaphors of what they would represent….’1 This could perhaps be applied to George Etherege’s play and his characters in The Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter (1676) as in it, he creates parodies of characters which become metaphors for other things, and nothing is the way its seems – all is illusionary and intangible. The play was immensely popular in its day, not least because the characters represented notorious people; the effeminate Fopling Flutter was based on Beau Hewit who was known for dining out and managing splendid balls at the bath-rooms at Bath; Dorimant was John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester; Medley was either Etherege himself or the dramatist Charles Sedley.2 1Thomas B. Markus, ‘Jean Genet. Theatre of the Perverse’, Educational Theatre Journal, Vol. 14, No. 3 (October 1962), pp. 209–14. 2Wilmot was a friend of Etherege, so close in fact, that they each had a daughter by the same woman, actress Elizabeth Barry. viii Preface Intimations about sodomy in such effeminized men as Sir Fopling Flutter were more widely disseminated than just the theatre as seen in Marilyn Morris’s Chapter 3 on Lord Hervey. His feminine counterpart was seen in the masculinization of women such as cross-dresser Charlotte Charke. As Morris discusses, there is some difficulty in the placing of people’s sexual orientation in the past, and they frequently refused to be easily pigeon- holed. Jennifer Frangos in Chapter 4 examines the individual cross-dressing identity of sapphists within the realm of an entire community as seen in Mrs Delarivier Manley’s coterie of Cabalists in The New Atalantis (1709). All three chapters point to the possibilities of creating or constructing different types of sexualities for men and women in opposition to the heterosexual ‘ideal’.