Women Who Loved Women

Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Western Europe, the concept of lesbianism did not create much concern in patriarchal societies.  This was because men generally believed that lesbian sex could never be fully satisfying. Patriarchal society produced ideas regarding gender hierarchies, which enabled “lesbianism” to be tolerated, as it implied assuming masculinity, which is inherently acceptable. With that, lesbian sexuality was typically ignored because “women, who were thought to be naturally inferior to men, were merely trying to emulate them: It is better that a woman give herself over to a libidinous desire to do as a man, than that a man make himself effeminate; which makes him out to be less courageous and noble.”[i] This belief placed lesbianism as an attempt to reach a more perfect state of nature, which is inherently acceptable. Considering the male ambivalence to the legitimate possibilities of lesbianism, ideas regarding relationships between women changed over time, which affected the way in which women lived their lives and the way that they identified themselves. Given the patriarchal framework in which lesbianism was situated, women were regarded as hermaphrodites or tribades during the seventeenth century. Furthermore, throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, there was prevalence in cross-dressing and beginning in the 1750s, romantic friendships amongst upper-class women began to flourish. Through examining actual cases of “lesbianism” throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Western Europe, it becomes evident that some women took advantage of societal blindness to pursue other women.

The notion that sex between two women could be fully satisfying was inconceivable during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Western Europe. Patriarchal society assumed that sex was an exclusively heterosexual act, “for which the penis was indispensable.”[ii] With that, it was believed that lesbian sex could not be satisfying without the presence of the penis. Considering that all public discourse during this time revolved around the idea that sexual practice involved penetration and ejaculation, it did not make sense that lesbians could find enjoyment in something seemingly unnatural.[iii] Accordingly, society did not view lesbian sex as a pleasurable alternative to heterosexual sex. In John Cleland’s English novel, Fanny Hill (1749), it becomes evident that he did not expect a woman to be satisfied with another woman for very long. When Fanny is having sex with Phoebe, whose job it is to break young girls into the ways of the whorehouse, Fanny felt pain “where the narrowness of the unbroken passage refused (Phoebe’s fingers) entrance to any depth.”[iv] In this novel, Cleland suggests that two women having sex with each other could not be pleasurable, as female fingers would not be long enough to rupture the hymen. Consequently, lesbian sex in this novel is only seen as a precursor to heterosexual intercourse, as Fanny’s first experience with a woman left her feeling unsatisfied, which went along with the idea that once a man was available, women would no longer be interested in sexual intercourse with other women.[v]

Furthermore, society saw lesbian sex as an aphrodisiac to a male spectator. Giacomo Casanova’s 18th-century French Memoirs describe his experience with his fiancée who was sent off to the same convent that housed another one of his lovers. The two women met inside the convent and ended up engaging in genital sex.[vi] Casanova later decided to watch them have sex. While watching them, he became sexually stimulated and decided to join them. Casanova claimed that not only did the two women experience more pleasure with his presence, but also reaffirmed his beliefs that lesbian sex is unthreatening to men and could also be used to stimulate his own sexual libido.

When women were actually found to enjoy sex with other women and without the presence of man, the terminology “hermaphroditism” was used to attack women who loved women in the seventeenth century. It was understood that a female hermaphrodite or tribade was a woman whose clitoris became enlarged and therefore enabled her to penetrate other women with her clitoris, which implied that the woman was somewhat of a pseudo-man. This theory ultimately served to discourage women from pursuing other women and frightened “women into heterosexual passivity.”[vii] These myths about enlarged clitorises gives reason to believe that there were societal fears regarding the possibility of lesbian sex. With that, some literary texts during this time assumed that anatomy preceded desire and that the anatomy would not allow the woman with an enlarged clitoris to receive as much pleasure as she gave.[viii] However, some texts did allow for the possibility of mutual pleasurable clitoral stimulation, as a poem in A Treatise of Hermaphrodites (1718) reads:

While Sappho, with harmonious Airs,

Her dear Philensis charms,

With equal Joy the Nymph appears,

Dissolving in her Arms.

Thus to themselves alone they are,

What all Mankind can give;

Alternately the happy Pair

All grant, and all receive.[ix]

Even though this poem describes the mutual joy and pleasure received from lesbian sex, it fails to remove the two women from the heterosexual framework regarding sex. He still suggests that the two must alternate and take turns, which ignores the full sexual stimulating potential of the clitoris and thereby reduces the legitimacy of lesbian sex. Furthermore, society could not see this as a threat because lesbian sex does not satisfy requirements of natural penetrative sex, which consists of a penis and insemination. However, one literary text from 1688 takes “society’s ignorance and waves it in its face,”[x] as it reads:

In pity to our sex sure thou wert sent,

That we might love, and yet be innocent

For sure no crime with thee we can commit

Or if we should – thy form excuses it.[xi]

This poem is indicative of the idea that despite society’s ambivalence to the possibilities of lesbian sex, women could take advantage of this and find pleasure with other women. Furthermore, this poem provides an alternative view of hermaphroditism discussed in literary texts of the time.

Another way of interpreting same-sex relations between women was not that of a pseudo-man, as in the ideas regarding hermaphroditism, but as a woman deliberately dressing as a man to gain access to another woman. Cross-dressing, though not only done for romantic motives, offered women who did indeed wish to pursue other women a way to do so. In the early modern period, there were several occasions where it was customary and sometimes even acceptable for women to dress as men, such as in carnival festivities, during riots, while traveling or for the sake of erotic stimulation.[xii] There were 119 documented cases of women living as men in the Netherlands mostly all throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which is reflective of the prevalence of female cross-dressing and even more remarkable considering that not all cases of cross-dressing were taken note of.[xiii] Women were found cross-dressing in times of war, so as to follow male lovers or to make earnest money as soldiers,[xiv] but some also wanted to court other women. Although cross-dressing was rather prevalent on stage, and written about in pamphlets and ballads, women who cross-dressed to pursue other women could be at risk of prosecution.  In the case of an English woman, Catherine Vizzani, her passing as a man to pursue women led to prosecution, but her case also exemplifies a woman who challenged traditional mockery of lesbian impotence.[xv]

The story of Catherine emerged in an autobiography written by Professor Giovanni Bianchi of the University of Siena in 1744, who performed her autopsy. Although many women passed as men for reasons of patriotism, following their husbands to war or preserving chastity, Catherine did this solely for her love and desire for other women. While many women were assumed to practice sex with older women as a prelude to heterosexual sex, Catherine never had sex with any older woman but rather,

“When she came to her fourteenth Year, the Age of Love in our forward Climate, she was reserved and shy towards young Men, but would be continually romping with her own Sex, and some she caressed with all the Eagerness and Transports of a Male Lover[xvi].”

Catherine’s genuine interest in women led her to begin cross-dressing as a means to an end – that is, to seduce women. Catherine assumed the male identity of Giovanni Bordoni and started working in this disguise to make money. Furthermore, Catherine took advantage of the customs of female society and exploited unsupervised sewing lessons to get what she wanted.[xvii] Catherine was considered to be a rather promiscuous woman, as she contracted venereal disease twice and suffered stabbings from men jealous of her many sexual encounters with women. Rumor of her expertise, with the help of her strap-on dildo, spread and eventually created some concern.

Women who appropriated masculine intentions and techniques by ways of cross-dressing and by the use of dildos or other instruments that resembled that of penis caused the most concern amongst early modern England authorities.[xviii] Dildos and strap-ons created the most concern because it more directly replaced the function of the penis, as opposed to merely clitoral stimulation through rubbing. With that, it was planned that Catherine go to court for trying to take on the role of a female husband, but before her case even made it to court, chaplain forces shot Catherine and a passing boy who was with her in the legs and both died of gangrene. While she was in the hospital, doctors discovered her strap-on dildo but more importantly, the autopsy revealed that her clitoris was of a normal size, which banished the myth that tribadism depends on having an enlarged clitoris.[xix] Catherine’s story is important for several reasons, as it disproves common myths regarding lesbian behavior and female anatomy. Moreover, it becomes evident that women sought out other women for purposes of pure sexual stimulation without the presence of a man, which ultimately discredits the notion that women are unable to please another woman as well as a man can. But what Catherine’s case also proves is that societal ambivalence regarding lesbianism essentially enabled women to more easily pursue each other, as Catherine was able to take advantage of all-female situations.

What can be concluded from the prevalence of female cross-dressing is that although the reasons differed, women who wished to pursue other women began to dress as men and emulated masculine qualities to give them the psychological freedom to enter actual sexual relations. It has been argued that “in the process of changing their external appearance, cross-dressers were adopting a role which allowed them to pursue women.”[xx] Despite the fact that Catherine Vizzani was discovered cross-dressing, many women were not caught in the nineteenth century, but they were also not praised for it.[xxi] Another important element of cross-dressing was its prevalence mostly among lower-class women. Amongst upper-class women, a different category in which lesbians could place themselves became available in the late 1750s.

While cross-dressing existed within a heterosexual framework, with women adopting masculine qualities in order to pursue women, romantic friendship offered a different outlook on lesbian relationships, in which women pursued other women for what society saw as emotional and not sexually physical reasons. But while Catherine Vizzani’s cases shows the possibility of love coupled with sexual stimulation, as she attempted to actually marry a woman and have sex with her, cases of romantic friendship offer a less sexual take on passionate relationships between women. These romantic friendships imply the transition from female imitation of men in order to carry out their love for women to the imitation of a “normal” married heterosexual couple. Romantic friendships described by Lillian Faderman do not take into account the possibility of genital stimulation, but rather focus on these relationships between women as a means to seek refuge from an unhappy heterosexual marriage or to remain pure and retain ones chastity. With that, society actually accepted these relationships between women, as they assumed these women were not having sex and hence, living virtuously. Considering that society thought these relationships between women were harmless, it ensured that lesbianism would remain “an acceptable facet of female society.”  Society’s blind acceptance of these relationships allowed upper-class women to actually express love for each other, which provided a fairly unrestrictive way to engage in lesbianism.

Elizabeth Carter and Elizabeth Montagu were two women in eighteenth-century England who shared a romantic friendship and while they loved and cared about each other, Ms. Montagu was unhappily married to man and therefore “her romantic friendship gave her the emotional sustenance to live through a disagreeable marriage.”[xxii] Romantic friendship in this instance offered Ms. Montagu a way to be emotionally happy in an unsatisfying heterosexual marriage, which society was okay with since it still allowed a patriarchal society to flourish as well as still enable the husband to have sex with his wife and raise a family, as society essentially required. Considering that heterosexual marriage followed by reproduction were expected facets during the eighteenth century and arranged based on economics and familial desires, love was not a common element in heterosexual relationships, as “eighteenth-century English heterosexual marriage among the upper classes was so often an affair of the purse rather than of the heart.”[xxiii] With that, Ms. Montagu was most likely with her husband out of duty and not out of love. Although these two women never lived together, they “thought about each other constantly, cared always for the amount of affection in the other’s heart, reminded each other at every opportunity that they were first in the other’s emotions.”[xxiv] It could be argued that these relationships between women were more legitimate than heterosexual marriages as only true love would be a factor. While heterosexual marriages at this time were based on money and title, “all the language and sentiments of romantic friendship – vows to love eternally; and to live and die together; wishes to elope together to sweet retirement; constant reassurances of the crucial, even central role these women played in each other’s lives – are found in actual letters and journals of the time,” which suggests the realities of their strong bonds. Society, therefore, enabled women to be together and even allowed their relationships to flourish.

While Elizabeth Carter and Elizabeth Montagu’s story arose from the framework that romantic friendship served as an outlet from an unhappy heterosexual marriage, Sarah Ponsonby and Eleanor Butler’s story is indicative of a relationship that consisted of a love in which neither had the desire nor the will to be with a man. Sarah and Eleanor were two upper-class Irishwomen who had a 53-year-long relationship until one of them died. These romantic friendships imply that life-long faithfulness in the heart was not uncommon in the late eighteenth century.[xxv] In Sarah and Eleanor’s case, they dressed in men’s clothing for their marriage while on the road to be less conspicuous. Although their families pursued them the first time, their endeavors proved successful the second time because their relatives knew that nothing would change their minds.[xxvi] Their relationship was considered to be socially permissible and even desirable due to the fact that society could not imagine any sexual activity between them. Men assumed that the two women were so obedient to the patriarchal order that they wanted to forever retain their chastity and remain pure by committing themselves to each other and not allowing their bodies to be tainted by men. With that, women envied them because they felt that Sarah and Eleanor were left unbothered by the burden of sex and men admired their choices to live seemingly virtuously. Considering that there were two basic types of sexual behavior during this time, with the first being “marital and was practiced in the service of procreation” and “the second was governed by amorous passion and sensual pleasure, its outcome malformed or illegitimate, its logic that of sterility,”[xxvii] living in a romantic friendship discarded the task of needing to find a husband of an appropriate title and estate, and were not at risk of being deemed a whore by having pre-marital sex with men. As a result, Sarah and Eleanor received stipends from their families to live a pure lifestyle. Documentation from journals expresses their genuine love for each other, and never hints at anything that would be considered not pure: “My Sally, my Tender, my Sweet Love, lay beside me holding and supporting my head.”[xxviii] This journal entry referred to Sarah taking care of Eleanor while she was sick in bed and like this entry, no entries went into detail about any sexual experiences.

However, there is reason to question the lack of genital stimulation in their relationship. While Faderman argues that “since they had no sexual duty to a husband, who, as they would have seen it, would be “driven” by his male nature to initiate the sex act, they were probably happy to be oblivious to their genitals,”[xxix] other scholars have explored the sexual desires of women in the English context that do not coincide with Faderman’s assumptions. Even though women were educated and taught to be passionless, English men in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw women as “possessing a powerful and potentially destructive sexuality which made them naturally lascivious, predatory and, most serious of all, once their desire was fully aroused, insatiable…they needed sex urgently following the menarche.”[xxx] With that, considering that men assumed women to be sexually aggressive and insatiable, it seems rather premature to jump to a conclusion that Sarah and Eleanor, as well as other women who partook in romantic friendships in the eighteenth century, did not have sexual relations with each other. Furthermore, although it might be premature to assume that just because women are living together that they are having sex together, “it is likewise difficult to believe that a proportion of the female population didn’t progress from the almost mandatory hug and kiss at night to more profound forms of sexual satisfaction.”[xxxi] Although Sarah and Eleanor did not explicitly state that they had sex, it is important to also keep in mind that they did not explicitly state that they did not have sex. Furthermore, considering that they had a high public profile, as newspapers frequently mentioned and praised them, any admission to sex between them would have caused uproar and their relationship would most likely not have survived.

The category of romantic friendship available to women allowed them to experience genital stimulation with other women under the radar of men if they wanted to do so. While there is no evidence of any sexual relations between Sarah and Eleanor, the journals of Anne Lister are indicative of the possibilities of genital sex amongst upper-class English women before 1900. Although Anne was not born until 1791, in which she would not have experienced much sex of any sort until the early 1800s, her story reveals the possibility of sexually aware and alive women.”[xxxii] While Faderman described romantic friendship on a platonic basis, Anne Lister’s story provides an alternative image of relations between women shortly following the rise of romantic friendships, which was accepted solely because it was assumed that genital sex was not a possibility. Anne’s journals disclose details of sexual encounters with women in her close circle of friends, as well as with women throughout Paris. While Faderman describes women living together as retaining their chastity, Anne Lister’s story reveals that within the upper-class world, there were women “who flirt and seduce each other, and who at least occasionally dedicate themselves to the exclusive love of women.”[xxxiii] Furthermore, her story reflects that other women were accepting of her advances, which could imply that her desires were not uncommon. Although Anne Lister’s story only reflects her individual experiences, her lifestyle disproves the overwhelming idea that romantic friendships did not involve genital sex, as without her journals, her “relationships would look very much like ‘romantic friendships.’”[xxxiv] With that, romantic friendships provided a framework in which lesbians could place themselves. Moreover, these women could easily exploit the dominating societal ideal that women were not engaging in sex and in fact, live together and also engage in genital sex if they desired to without fearing punishment.

Given the patriarchal framework in which lesbianism existed, identifying as a hermaphrodite, cross-dressing or pursuing romantic friendships offered women who wished to pursue other women during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries a means to do so. The categories available to women during this time are indicative of the ways in which patterns of tolerance and sexual assumption began to change. Hermaphrodites and tribades were seemingly normal, as they implied unsuccessfully mimicking heterosexual sex. Cross-dressing provided women an intellectual category to pursue other women and although the use of a dildo created some concern, very few people noticed and very few people were upset about it.[xxxv] By the 1750s, romantic friendship emerged and created a category in which upper-class women who loved women could place themselves. The emphasis on the lack of genital sex present in romantic relationships enabled such relationships to flourish. This history suggests a transition from mock-heterosexual lovemaking to non-genital romantic forms. Moreover, what is important to be derived from this is that societal ambivalence to accept that sex between two women could be pleasurable allowed such categories of identity to flourish.

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[i] Judith Brown,“Lesbian Sexuality in Medieval and Early Modern Europe,” in Hidden From History: Reclaiming the Gay & Lesbian Past, ed. Martin Duberman, Martha Vicinus and George Chauncey, Jr. (New York: New American Library, 1989), 71.

[ii] Rudolf M. Dekker and Lotte C. Van de Pol, “Sexuality” in The Tradition of Female Transvestism in Early Modern Europe (London: Macmillan Press, 1989), 69.

[iii] Tim Hitchcock, “Tribades, Cross-dressers and Romantic Friendship,” in English Sexualities 1700-1800 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 80.

[iv] John Cleland, Fanny Hill (London: Penguin Books, 1985), 49.

[v] Lillian Faderman, “Lesbianism and the Libertines,” in Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present (New York: William Morrow, 1981), 25.

[vi] Faderman, “Lesbianism and the Libertines,” 26.

[vii] Emma Donoghue, “Female Hermaphrodites,” in Passions Between Women, British Lesbian Culture 1668-1801 (London: Harper Collins, 1996), 28.

[viii] Donoghue, “Female Hermaphrodites,” 45.

[ix] Donoghue, “Female Hermaphrodites,” 46-47.

[x] Donoghue, “Female Hermaphrodites,”  58.

[xi] Donoghue, “Female Hermaphrodites,” 57.

[xii] Rudolf M. Dekker and Lotte C. Van de Pol, “Women Who Lived as Men,” in The Tradition of Female Transvestism in Early Modern Europe (London: Macmillan Press, 1989), 6.

[xiii] Rudolf M. Dekker and Lotte C. Van de Pol, “Introduction,” in The Tradition of Female Transvestism in Early Modern Europe (London: Macmillan Press, 1989), 1.

[xiv] Rudolf M. Dekker and Lotte C. Van de Pol, “Motives and Tradition,” in The Tradition of Female Transvestism in Early Modern Europe (London: Macmillan Press, 1989), 31.

[xv] Emma Donoghue, “Female Husbands,” in Passions Between Women, British Lesbian Culture 1668-1801 (London: Harper Collins, 1996), 82.

[xvi] Donoghue, “Female Husbands,” 81.

[xvii] Emma Donoghue, “Female Husbands,” 81.

[xviii] Valeria Traub, “Setting the stage behind the scene: performing lesbian history,” in The Renaissance of Lesbianism in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 44.

[xix] Donoghue, “Female Husbands,” 84.

[xx] Rudolf M. Dekker and Lotte C. Van de Pol, “Condemnation and Praise” in The Tradition of Female Transvestism in Early Modern Europe (London: Macmillan Press, 1989), 90.

[xxi] Hitchcock, 90.

[xxii] Lillian Faderman, “Romantic Friendship in Eighteenth-Century Life,” in Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present (New York: William Morrow, 1981), 131-132.

[xxiii] Faderman, “Romantic Friendship in Eighteenth-Century Life,” 130.

[xxiv] Faderman, “Romantic Friendship in Eighteenth-Century Life,” 130.

[xxv] Faderman, “Romantic Friendship in Eighteenth-Century Life,” 120.

[xxvi] Faderman, “Romantic Friendship in Eighteenth-Century Life,” 121.

[xxvii] Sarah Matthews-Grieco, “The Body, Appearance and Sexuality” ed. Georges Duby and Michelle Perrot, in A History of Women in the West, vol. III, ed. Natalie Zemon Davis and Arlette Farge (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1983), 67.

[xxviii] Faderman, “Romantic Friendship in Eighteenth-Century Life,” 123.

[xxix] Faderman, “Romantic Friendship in Eighteenth-Century Life,” 123.

[xxx] Anthony Fletcher, “Prologue: Men’s Dilemmas,” in Gender, Sex & Subordination in England, 1500-1800 (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1995), 5.

[xxxi] Hitchcock,  86.

[xxxii] Hitchcock, 85.

[xxxiii] Hitchcock, 85.

[xxxiv] Hitchcock, 87.

[xxxv] Dekker and  Van de Pol, “Condemnation and Praise,”  90.