Lesbian Historic Motif Project: Guest Contribution – The Comfortable Courtesan

[hrj]

ursule has taken up my challenge for contributions to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project by suggesting another blog that might be of interest to those researching historic sexuality issues.

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The Comfortable Courtesan on dreamwidth, or madame_c_c on livejournal, is the fictional memoir of a Regency-era courtesan, in episodic form. The narrator introduces herself thus:

This narrative sets out to encourage a rational and prudent approach to the profession of harlotry and to dispel the notion that a 'fallen woman' is bound to die in the gutter, penniless and diseased, before her 30th year.

Madame C. is exuberantly & exclusively heterosexual, but her friends and associates have diverse sexual identities. Like a less-respectable and more-effective Emma, Madame C. does her best to help all of them find wealth and happiness. The ongoing story is a tour of early nineteenth-century sexuality, and its intersections with class:

I hear Miss L- say with some bitterness that women such as we are not in a situation to retire into picturesque Welsh seclusion.

Readers of the LHMP will be particularly interested in the saga of Lady J- and her romance with a prominent actress.

Comments

[ursula]

I should add that in the time since I first drafted this post, Mme. C.'s sexual identity has appeared rather more flexible.