Extraordinary Satisfactions: Lesbian Visibility in Seventeenth-Century Pornography in England

This article analyses seventeenth–century pornographic literature and popular ballads to explore alternative representations, and hence interpretations, of female same–sex desire than those presented by either early modern legal, medical and religious discourse in which the image of the tribade pred...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inGender & history Vol. 15; no. 1; pp. 50 - 68
Main Author Toulalan, Sarah
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford, UK and Boston, USA Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.04.2003
Subjects
England
Females
Lesbianism
Literature
Pornography
Seventeenth Century
Sexuality
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Summary:This article analyses seventeenth–century pornographic literature and popular ballads to explore alternative representations, and hence interpretations, of female same–sex desire than those presented by either early modern legal, medical and religious discourse in which the image of the tribade predominates, or the homoerotic prose and poetry of female writers. It argues that early modern culture was not limited to interpreting sexual acts between women as the result of either a physical abnormality (clitoral hypertrophy) or the desire to live as a man, and thence to take on his sexual as well as social role.
Bibliography:ark:/67375/WNG-VGN8J9LL-8
ArticleID:GEND289
istex:5971695B472743E7C7123E111DC7D7CA287C1A93
ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:0953-5233
1468-0424
DOI:10.1111/1468-0424.00289