SEX AND SEXUALITY, 1640-1940
Literary, Medical and Sociological Perspectives

Part 2: Romantic Friendships and Lesbian Relationships in Literature and History

Sample Extracts

REEL 1

Classical Works

The works of Anacreon and Sappho, 1713 translated by A Philips
Douce A 151

Describing Anacreon:

As to the other part of his Profession, Love: He appears to have been equally enamour’d of both Sexes; and to have shown as great a Veneration for Cupid, as he did for Venus. Aelian indeed is very angry, if we suspect Anacreon of any Dishonesty towards the Train of fine Boys whom he admir’d. But the general Cry runs so loud against the Poet in this Point…. He loved his Minions on no better account than he did his Mistresses….

Describing Sappho:

Of her own Sex, her three intimate Friends and Companions, were Attis, Telefilla and Megara; on the Account of whom her Character suffer’d so much, from the Charge of Dishonest and Unnatural Pleasure. It being a constant Tradition that her Amorous Humour was not satisfied with the Addresses of Men; but that she was willing to have her Mistresses too, as well as her Gallants….

Sappho and Phaeon, 1796 by Mary Robinson
280 n.416

Sonnet VI

Is it to love, to fix the tender gaze,
To hide the timid blush, and steal away;
To shun the busy world, and waste the day
In some rude mountain’s solitary maze?
Is it to chant one name in ceaseless lays,
To hear no words that other tongues can say,
To watch the pale moon’s melancholy ray,
To chide in fondness, and in folly praise?
Is to to pour th’ involuntary sigh,
To dream of bliss, and wake new pangs to rove;
To talk, in fancy, with the speaking eye,
Then start with jealousy, and wildly rove;
Is it to loathe the light, and wish to die?
For these I feel, - and feel that they are Love.

REEL 2

Classical Works

Ovid; the History of Love, 1695 translated by Charles Hopkins
2799 e. 406

Thou darling of my Youth, my Lifes’s delight,
By day my Vision, and my Dream by night.
Thou, who alone dost all my thoughts infuse,
And art at once, my Mistress and my Muse.
Inspir’d from thee, flows every sacred line,
Thine is the Poetry, the Poet thine.
Thy Service shall my only business be,
And all my life employ’d in pleasing thee.

REEL 3

Historical Accounts

The Present State of the Ottoman Empire, 1668 by Paul Rycaut
Bliss A 311

Chap VII

….The Doctrine of Platonick love hath found Disciples in the Schools of the Turks, that they call it a passion very laudable and virtuous and a step to that perfect love of God….Nor is this passion only amongst the young men to each other; but persons of eminent degree in the Seraglio become inveigled in this sort of love…. The Grand Signiors themselves have also been slaves to this inordinate passion….this passion likewise reigns in the Society of Women; they die with amorous affections one to the other; especially the old Women court the young, present them with rich garments, jewels, money, even to their own impoverishment and ruine, and these darts of Cupid are shot through all the empire, especially Constantinople, the Seraglio of the Grand Signior and the apartments of the Sultans...

REEL 5

Historical Accounts

The Intersexes: A History of Similisexualism, 1908 by Xavier Mayne
? d 122

From the Preface

The present book … is addressed particularly to the individual layman….Nature constantly demands of us why we have endowed our ideals of the two sexes with only such or such qualities…. Why have we set up masculinity and femininity as processes that have not perfectly logical and respectable inter-steps? We have established, we have decked out, to our own ideas, just two sexes. Where presently we are confronted by what appear an abnormality in their expression we have said that that expression is imperfect and to be repudiated.

Thus become clear the inference, the conviction, the logical truth that cyclic Nature has always maintained in the human species a series of graduated and necessary Intersexes…. These Intersexes are not physically obvious in the franck degree that we have foolishly expected such natural differences would be expressed…. Their subtle separation from their Over-sex begins at a deeper plane, on that alone, constantly – the psychological, not physical.

….That special error is the idea that sex is to be determined by the physique. Physique is not, and never should be, determinative of sex in man or woman or intersex. No – the one determinative is the sexual instinct… by the desire physical and psychical of one human being for another….

Intersexes partake of the natures and temperaments and physiques of both the male and the female, now to one extent, now to another. Departing from the first sex a man, we establish a second and “intersexual” sex, known as …the Urning, or Uranian sex…. We next establish…a third sex or intersex, called the Uraniad, which refers to the feminine, but the feminine sexually masculinised; of which sex many “women-seeing” women are members. Last we place the perfectly feminine sex, its extreme, the woman as we have long recognised her.

Historical Accounts

A Problem in Greek Ethics being an enquiry into the phenomenon of Sexual Aversion, 1908
by John Addington Symonds
? d 240

Chapter XIX

Sexual inversion among Greek women offers more difficulties than we met with in the study of paiderastia. This is due, not to the absence of the phenomenon, but to the fact that feminine homosexual passions were never worked into the social system, never became educational and military agents. The Greeks accepted the fact that certain females are congenitally indifferent to the male sex, and appetitive of their own sex….

…Lesbian passion, as the Greeks called it, never obtained the same social sanction as boy love….. We have no recorded example, so far as I can remember, of noble friendships between women rising into political and historical prominence….It is true that Sappho and the Lesbian poetesses gave this female passion an eminent place in Greek literature. But the Aeolian women did not found a glorious tradition corresponding to that of the Dorian men….Later Greeks, while tolerating, regarded it rather as an eccentricity of nature, or a vice, than as an honourable and socially useful emotion…..Consequently, while the Greeks utilised and ennobled boy-love, they left Lesbian love to follow the same course of degeneracy as it pursues in modern times…

REEL 7

Literary Treatments

Venus in the Cloister, or The Nun in her Smock, 1683
Don. f.537

Ang. It shall so, without doubt, My Dear, and thou wilt afterwards find, that there is nothing more delightful in this World, than to have a true Friend, who can be the depositary of our Secrets, of our Thoughts, and of our very Afflictions. Ah how Easing and Comfortable are those disclosings of ones mind, in such like Occasions. Speak then: Prethee, My Dear speak. I will sit down by thee upon thy Bed: ‘Tis not necessary that thou dress thy self; the Season allows thee, to continue as thou art, Methinks! Thou art so much the more lovely, and the more thou approachest the Estate wherein Nature brought thee into the World, the more Charms and Beauty dost thou appear with. Hug me, my Dear Agnes, before thou beginnest, and confirm by thy kisses the mutual Protestations… Ah! how Pure and Innocent are these Kisses! Ah how full of Tenderness and Sweetness! Ah how they tickle me with Delight! Hold a little my Pretty Heart, I am all of a Flame, these Caresses have brought me into a Panting condition; Ah God! How powerful is Love….

Poetical Recreations, 1688 by Jane Barker
12 ? 1207

On the Death of my Dear Friend and Play-fellow, Mrs E D having Dream’d the night before I heard thereof, that I had lost a Pearl

I Dream’d I lost a Pearl, and so it prov’d;
I lost a Friend much above Pearls belov’d:
A Pearl perhaps adorns some outward part,
But Friendship decks each corner of the heart:
Friendship’s a Gem, whose Lustre do’s out-shine
All that’s below the heav’nly Crystaline:
Friendship is that mysterious thing alone,
Which can unite, and make two Hearts but one;
It purifies our Love, and makes it flow,
I’th’ clearest stream that’s found in Love below;
It sublimates the Soul, and makes it move
Towards Perfection and Celestial Love.

REEL 8

Literary Treatments

The British Recluse: or, The Secret History of Cleomira, 1722
by Eliza Haywood
Vet A4 e.979

….There grew so entire Friendship between these Ladies, that they were scarce a Moment asunder. Belinda quitted her chamber, being desir’d by the RECLUSE to take part of her bed…. The RECLUSE and she took a House about seventy miles distant of London, where they still live in perfect Tranquillity, happy in the real Friendship of each other, despising the uncertain Pleasures, and free from all the Hurries and Disquiets which attend the Gaieties of the Town….

REEL 10

Literary Treatments

The Dictionary of Love, 1753 by John Cleland
Vet A5 f.3201

Fribble

This word signifies one of those ambiguous animals, who are neither male nor female; disclaimed by his own sex, and the scorn of both. There is ever a silly insipid simper in their countenances. Without any of the good qualities of their own sex, they affect all the bad ones, all the impertinencies and follies of the other….

Memoirs of Fanny Hill, 1888 by John Cleland
PHI e.437

No sooner then was this precious substitute of my mistress lain down, but she, who was never out of her way when any occasion of lewdness presented itself, turned to me, embraced and kiss’d me with great eagerness. This was new, this was odd; but imputing it to nothing but pure kindness; which, for ought I knew, it might be the London way to express in that manner, I was determined not to be behind-hand with her, and returned her the kiss and embrace, with all the fervour that perfect innocence knew.

Encouraged by this, her hands became extremely free, and wandered over my whole body, with touches, squeezes, pressures, that rather warmed and surprised me with their novelty, than they either shocked or alarmed me.

….I lay then all tame and passive as she could wish, whilst her freedom raised no other emotion but those of a strange, and, till then, unfelt pleasure. Every part of me was open and exposed to the licentious courses of her hands, which, like a lambent fire, ran over my whole body, and thawed all coldness as they went….

….In the meantime, the extension of my limbs, languid stretching, sighs, short heavings, all conspired to assure that experienced wanton, that I was more pleased than offended at her proceedings, which she seasoned with repeated kisses and exclamations, such as “Oh! What a charming creature thou art!… What a happy man will he be that first makes a woman of you!,,, Oh! That I were a man for your sake!…” ….

For my part, I was transported, confused, and out of myself; feelings so new were too much for me. My heated and alarmed senses were in a tumult that robbed me of all liberty of thought; tears of pleasure gushed from my eyes, and somewhat assuaged the fire that raged all over me….

REEL 12

Literary Treatments

Marina and Amelia: or, The history of Two Female Friends, 1808
by Eliza Jeary
2537 e.1093

….The continual close conversations between the friends, began to rouse some suspicions in the minds of Mrs Percy; but she said nothing; well aware that the confidence which is purchased, seldom deserves to be appreciated. Her curiosity, however was satisfied by Amelia, who, though she would have scorned betraying the secrets of another, even when no bond of secrecy had been exacted, yet felt herself a little perplexed, almost doubting whether she had acted properly in the countenance given to her friend, though assured that every step Marina had taken would bear the most impartial scrutiny….

REEL 15

Literary Treatments

Euphemia, 1790 by Charlotte Lennox
256 e. 15421-15424

Letter I – Miss Harley, to Mrs Neville

One of the greatest pleasures I proposed to myself, on my return to England, was to meet my dear Euphemia; to bind, if possible, in faster bands, that tender friendship which has united us from our earliest years; to live in sweet society together: to suffer only short absences; rendered tolerable by frequent letters, and the dear hope of meeting soon again. But how are these expectations destroyed! You are going to leave me; and, too probably, for ever! Long tracts of land, and an immeasurable ocean, will soon divide us. I shall hear from you once or twice in a year, perhaps: my dear Euphemia will be lost to me; and all that now remains of that friendship, which was the pride and happiness of my life, will be the sad remembrance of a good I once enjoyed, but which is fled for ever!

How shall I teach my heart to forget you! How shall I bear the conversation of other young women of our age and condition, after being used to yours!….I must lose you! There is no remedy! My tears efface my letter as I write! I cannot, I would not, restrain them!….

<back