53:
response, defining normal and abnormal sex. Heterosexual sex between married couples became the only form of sex socially and morally permissible. Sexual pleasure and desire beyond heterosexual marriage was labelled as deviant, considered to be sinful and sinister. Such deviant forms included masturbation, homosexuality, prostitution and pornography. Procreation was the primary goal of sex, removing it from the public, and placing it in the domestic. Yet, Victorian anti-sexual attitudes were contradictory of genuine
Victorian life, with sex underlying much of the cultural practice. Sex was simultaneously repressed and proliferated. Sex was featured in medical manuals such as
20:
195:
sexual deviant, or wife unable to perform her domestic duties. This woman, whether driven by economic problems or greed, was thought to have fallen from virtue. Social anxieties over the sexuality and independence of women produced the image of the fallen woman. Erotic images and narratives often portrayed these fallen women needing to be rescued from her vices, and to be reformed into the proper position in family life. The fallen woman is featured in much of
Victorian erotic literature, including works by
181:
1442:
304:
Victorian pornography often depicted the rape, abduction, and subordination of women. Cases and trials of sexual misconduct were a class of their own. Castration was also a theme of
Victorian pornography, with it being alluded to the male orgasm. Female characters would threaten to dismember a penis
263:
was a pseudonym for the lesbian couple
Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper. Michael Field was a poet, who it is suggested developed a language of love between women. Lesbian sex and emotions were spoken and explored in Field's work, with their position against worldly discrimination. It is discussed
52:
was a societal concern for the
Victorians, thought to be the cause of famine, disease, and war. To curb the threats of overpopulation (especially of the poor) and to solve other social issues that were arising at the time, sex was socially regulated and controlled. New sexual categories emerged as a
171:
Erotic stimulation was usually implied or suggested. Female erotica was marked through clothing, hairstyles, corseted silhouettes, shoes and headgear. Explicit nudity was rare, with arousal coming from the process of undressing. Rather than the breast or buttocks, legs were a major source of sexual
167:
On the stage, in art, or in literature, women were inscribed with sexuality, positioned as the sexual object. Societal expectations tied women to ideas of purity and virginity. Erotic plot lines and themes sought to shatter these expectations, crafting women as whores, prostitutes, and adulterers.
300:
In the
Victorian period, pornography on the market boomed, and was produced in abundance. Before 1864, pornography was described as "obscenity". Only in 1864 was the word "pornography" placed in the dictionary. Pornography was not a clear-cut genre, but a general category of sexual explicitness.
194:
The fallen woman was a key stereotype for
Victorian erotica. The fallen woman was characterized in opposition to the Victorian moral standard for women. Women were expected to be sexually pure and virtuous, with their role being mothers and domestic caregivers. The fallen woman was a prostitute,
163:
A main component of
Victorian erotica was the female sexual object. Women were increasingly being defined in terms of femininity, subordination, and the object of sexual desire. Aesthetic and medical procedures were targeting women to accentuate their sex appeal. In real Victorian life, female
274:
in Paris, sent letters to her cousin in
England. These letters are erotically descriptive, especially of clothing, and describes her mistress as "handsome". The letters also include an explicit scene in which Blanche had to lie naked on her dorm bed, as an initiation into the school's "lesbian
108:
Art and literature provided
Victorians with an avenue to express transgressive and repressed sexual desire. Sex was a prominent feature in much of Victorian art, especially in theatre and literature. Sex was often illustrated by stories of deviance and scandal. It is argued that some Victorian
47:
emerged as a product of a Victorian sexual culture. The Victorian era was characterized by paradox of rigid morality and anti-sensualism, but also by an obsession with sex. Sex was a main social topic, with progressive and enlightened thought pushing for sexual restriction and repression.
301:
There were political concerns that pornography "corrupted private morality" disturbing social order. For the Victorians, pornography was a medium in which they could illustrate repressed and controlled sexual fantasy and desire.
168:
Women were symbol of vice and temptation. Men were thought to be victims of the female seductress, and were the primary spectators and consumers of female erotica. Themes of same-sex erotica was avoided.
239:, is an explicitly homosexual novel written by an anonymous author in 1881. This novel is inspired by John Saul, an Irish male prostitute who was involved in a homosexual scandal in Dublin in 1884.
215:
Art and literature allowed the expression of a homosexual identity. Art and literature were the primary mode in which positive images of homosexuality could be produced. Homosexual artists such as
1358:
861:
Nord, Deborah Epstein (July 2004). "Book Review: Ellen Bayuk Rosenman. Unauthorized Pleasures: Accounts Of Victorian Erotic Experience. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2003".
172:
arousal. Veiling and silhouetting were popular modes of titillation, with brief uncovering of legs, or silhouetted outlines of naked women creating voyeuristic arousal.
264:
that lesbian vocabulary and discourse was not available to Field, so language inherent to heterosexuality such as "marriage", was used as metaphors to describe Field's love.
1229:
252:
The Shaftesbury memorial by Alfred Gilbert caused moral scandal and outrage, as the sculpture was deemed subversive of heterosexual standards of the time.
55:
1353:
1315:
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83:. Sex was popular in entertainment, with much of Victorian theatre, art and literature including and expressing sexual and sensual themes.
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1332:
1300:
1363:
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1010:
White, Christine (June 1990). "'Poets and lovers evermore': Interpreting female love in the poetry and journals of Michael Field".
1194:
1139:"Eroticizing female and male bodies: a linguistic investigation of a pornographic novel from the Victorian magazine The Pearl"
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1275:
91:
Historian Peter Webb writes that there are two categories of Victorian erotica: on the one hand the expressive writings of
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235:
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erotica rests on techniques of implication and allusion to sexual desires and activity, such as in the works of
1285:
589:
288:
24:
321:
1408:
185:
1187:
270:, (1897). This is a book made from a compilation of letters from a young British girl, who boarding at a
101:
1476:
1420:
96:
1094:
Joudrey (2015). "Penetrating Boundaries: An Ethics of Anti-Perfectionism in Victorian Pornography".
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137:
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118:
99:, and on the other hand the "coldly calculated indulgence in male fantasy" such as is found in
68:
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327:
122:
49:
8:
1413:
1388:
1255:
395:
O'Neill, John H.; Bouce, Paul-Gabriel (1984). "Sexuality in Eighteenth-Century Britain".
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131:
1403:
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1119:
810:
562:
483:
450:
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204:
73:
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129:, in which the books describe sex in much erotic detail. Such Victorian works include
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sexuality was problematic, and was only to be expressed in terms of domestic life.
148:
1054:
Frederickson, Kathleen (May 2011). "Victorian Pornography and the Laws of Genre".
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Forbidden books of the Victorians Henry Spencer Ashbee's bibliographies of erotica
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466:
19:
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1154:
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114:
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prohibited the distribution and sale of pornography, though not its possession.
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245:, written by Robert Holloway in 1813, is based on experiences from the famous
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152:
143:
40:
915:
739:
Davis, Tracy C. (1989). "Sexual Language in Victorian Society and Theatre".
674:
Gay, Peter (1980). "Victorian sexuality : old texts and new insights".
624:
365:
1214:
785:
Nochlin, Linda (March 1978). "Lost and Found: Once More the Fallen Woman".
451:"The Facts of Life: The Creation of Sexual Knowledge in Britain, 1650–1950"
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Victorian legislation was passed in an attempt to deal with the issue. The
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200:
196:
837:
706:
1280:
220:
110:
92:
79:
537:
Davis, Tracy C. (October 1989). "The Actress in Victorian Pornography".
236:
The Sins of the Cities of the Plain; or, The Recollections of a Mary-Ann
814:
752:
566:
424:
317:
was a pornographic magazine published in London in the Victorian era.
930:
After the Pre-Raphaelites: art and aestheticism in Victorian England
798:
550:
408:
155:), and, of course, many literary and artistic works by "Anonymous."
231:, threaded homosexual themes and identities through their work.
44:
1172:
580:
Webb, Peter (1982). "Victorian Erotica". In Bold, Alan (ed.).
121:. Yet there are also explicitly sexual works, as compiled in
39:
is a genre of sexual art and literature which emerged in the
32:. His paintings were enormously popular during his lifetime.
643:
Sex scandal : the private parts of Victorian fiction
330:
is the first bibliographer of pornographic literature.
315:
The Pearl: A Journal of Facetiae and Voluptuous Reading
898:
The Victorian nude : sexuality, morality, and art
981:
449:
Porter, Roy; Hall, Leslie; Robson, Ann (July 1995).
147:. Additional Victorian artists and authors include
105:, where women are depicted merely as sex objects.
356:Weeks, Jeffrey (2017), "The theorisation of sex",
830:Women and Sexuality in the Novels of Thomas Hardy
1458:
1359:Mathematics, science, technology and engineering
949:, Cambridge University Press, pp. 265–272,
640:
448:
394:
500:Understanding Foucault, Understanding Modernism
947:The Cambridge Companion to the Pre-Raphaelites
65:Functions and Disorders of Reproductive Organs
16:19th-century British sexual art and literature
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895:
1053:
1333:United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
699:Romantic Friendship in Victorian Literature
158:
1195:
1181:
944:
697:Oulton, Carolyn W. de la L. (2016-04-08).
482:
1137:Virdis, Daniela Francesca (2015-01-02).
179:
18:
1093:
945:Prettejohn, Elizabeth (2012), "Envoi",
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604:
584:. Barnes & Noble. pp. 90–121.
498:"Foucault's The History of Sexuality",
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607:Sex and death in Victorian literature
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278:Other Lesbian erotic works include
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190:(1858) depicting the "Fallen Woman"
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43:of 19th-century Britain. Victorian
13:
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767:
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690:
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582:The Sexual Dimension in Literature
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1108:10.2979/victorianstudies.57.3.423
741:The American Journal of Semiotics
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431:
381:
340:
127:Forbidden Books of the Victorians
71:, and in cultural magazines like
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1440:
1068:10.1111/j.1741-4113.2011.00800.x
828:Morgan, Rosemarie (2006-04-07).
1130:
900:. Manchester University Press.
821:
360:, Routledge, pp. 155–174,
305:in the height of orgasm, as in
1342:Economy, society and knowledge
982:Ashbee, Henry Spencer (1970).
932:. Manchester University Press.
928:Prettejohn, E. (Ed.). (1999).
667:
598:
491:
295:
289:The Mysteries of Verbena House
25:Actaea, the Nymph of the Shore
1:
955:10.1017/ccol9780521895156.020
502:, Bloomsbury Academic, 2017,
467:10.1080/03612759.1995.9949173
455:History: Reviews of New Books
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322:Obscene Publications Act 1857
1354:Economy, industry, and trade
1155:10.1080/23268743.2014.984924
609:. Indiana University Press.
508:10.5040/9781501323621.ch-006
151:(the illustrator of Wilde's
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102:The Memoirs of Dolly Morton
28:(1868), an oil painting by
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397:Eighteenth-Century Studies
255:
86:
1431:
1341:
1316:The Marquess of Salisbury
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1210:
1024:10.1080/09502369008582086
875:10.2979/vic.2004.46.4.707
645:. Duke University Press.
641:Cohen William A. (1996).
605:Regina., Barreca (1990).
358:Sex, Politics and Society
159:The female sexual object
1311:William Ewart Gladstone
1301:The Viscount Palmerston
366:10.4324/9781315161525-8
247:The Vere Street Coterie
1276:The Viscount Melbourne
1230:Politics and diplomacy
896:Smith, Alison (1996).
191:
33:
838:10.4324/9780203193365
707:10.4324/9781315606934
183:
22:
1321:The Earl of Rosebery
1296:The Earl of Aberdeen
328:Henry Spencer Ashbee
268:School Life in Paris
243:The Phoenix of Sodom
123:Henry Spencer Ashbee
1364:Society and culture
132:The Romance of Lust
1056:Literature Compass
753:10.5840/ajs1989643
284:Astrid Cane (1891)
205:William Bell Scott
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74:The Penny Magazine
56:The Sexual Impulse
34:
1477:Victorian culture
1454:
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1306:Benjamin Disraeli
1291:The Earl of Derby
1286:Lord John Russell
1096:Victorian Studies
986:. Odyssey Press.
863:Victorian Studies
280:The Nunnery Tales
37:Victorian erotica
30:Frederic Leighton
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211:Same-sex erotica
187:Past and Present
176:The fallen woman
149:Aubrey Beardsley
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1247:By location
1238:British Army
1149:(1): 19–34.
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747:(4): 33–49.
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334:References
1414:Burlesque
1389:Jewellery
1369:Cosmetics
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