![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrj(I explain the LHMP here and provide a cumulative index.)
This article, while fascinating in its look at changes in popular attitudes toward active female desire, seems to me to suffer from a few blind spots regarding the historic background of its themes. The author's asserts that there was no association in the popular imagination between the use of sex toys or cross-gender behavior in women and sexual activity between women. This appears to ignore the long tradition of associating forbidden erotic activity between women with dildos in, for example, penitential literature, and the many examples of passing women marrying other women while in disguise. I don't know whether this blind spot comes from the focus on popular culture or on the narrow time-span used for comparison. But in any event, these particular conclusions should be read in the context of other articles that contradict them.
* * *
O’Driscoll, Sally. 2010. “A Crisis of Femininity: Re-Making Gender in Popular Discourse” in Lesbian Dames: Sapphism in the Long Eighteenth Century. Beynon, John C. & Caroline Gonda eds. Ashgate, Farnham. ISBN 978-0-7546-7335-4
O' Driscoll looks at changes in attitudes toward female sexuality and same-sex desire through the lens of the dildo in popular culture. She contrasts the later 17th century with its expectation of active female desire (see, e.g., the diagnosis of "green sickness" in girls caused by unfulfilled sexual arousal) accompanied by the portrayal of the dildo as a tool used by women of all types/orientations for fulfillment, with the situation of the mid 18th century when the idealized woman was sexually passive and the dildo had become associated specifically with transgressive illicit sexual activity between women.
O'Driscoll connects this shift with an increasing anxiety around "masculine women" (cross-dressers and passing women) but asserts that cross-gender behavior was not, with rare exceptions, popularly associated with same-sex erotic activity, just as earlier references to dildos had no specific association with same sex activity.
This shift occurs suddenly in the mid 18th century and we begin seeing the motif of the "dangerous and unnatural" masculine-appearing, woman who seduces and satisfies her female lover with the aid of a dildo. Fielding's "The Female Husband" and Bianchi's" Catherine Vizzani" are prominent examples. (See here for the Vizzani case.) After a passing mid-century fashion for these criminalized stories, the "female husband" in popular culture fades to a more pragmatic and less sexual role, for example, providing economic support.
This article, while fascinating in its look at changes in popular attitudes toward active female desire, seems to me to suffer from a few blind spots regarding the historic background of its themes. The author's asserts that there was no association in the popular imagination between the use of sex toys or cross-gender behavior in women and sexual activity between women. This appears to ignore the long tradition of associating forbidden erotic activity between women with dildos in, for example, penitential literature, and the many examples of passing women marrying other women while in disguise. I don't know whether this blind spot comes from the focus on popular culture or on the narrow time-span used for comparison. But in any event, these particular conclusions should be read in the context of other articles that contradict them.
* * *
O’Driscoll, Sally. 2010. “A Crisis of Femininity: Re-Making Gender in Popular Discourse” in Lesbian Dames: Sapphism in the Long Eighteenth Century. Beynon, John C. & Caroline Gonda eds. Ashgate, Farnham. ISBN 978-0-7546-7335-4
O' Driscoll looks at changes in attitudes toward female sexuality and same-sex desire through the lens of the dildo in popular culture. She contrasts the later 17th century with its expectation of active female desire (see, e.g., the diagnosis of "green sickness" in girls caused by unfulfilled sexual arousal) accompanied by the portrayal of the dildo as a tool used by women of all types/orientations for fulfillment, with the situation of the mid 18th century when the idealized woman was sexually passive and the dildo had become associated specifically with transgressive illicit sexual activity between women.
O'Driscoll connects this shift with an increasing anxiety around "masculine women" (cross-dressers and passing women) but asserts that cross-gender behavior was not, with rare exceptions, popularly associated with same-sex erotic activity, just as earlier references to dildos had no specific association with same sex activity.
This shift occurs suddenly in the mid 18th century and we begin seeing the motif of the "dangerous and unnatural" masculine-appearing, woman who seduces and satisfies her female lover with the aid of a dildo. Fielding's "The Female Husband" and Bianchi's" Catherine Vizzani" are prominent examples. (See here for the Vizzani case.) After a passing mid-century fashion for these criminalized stories, the "female husband" in popular culture fades to a more pragmatic and less sexual role, for example, providing economic support.
