Heather Rose Jones's Blog, page 118
July 22, 2017
LHMPodcast 13d: Beguines, Boston Marriage, and Bed Death: Historic Archetypes of Asexual Lesbianism
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast
I'm not going to lie: I'm feeling a bit anxious about the reception of this week's podcast. The topic of how erotic desire has been handled with respect to the history of lesbians has the potential for hurtful erasure on every side. Some scholars have approached the history of sexuality from a position that erotic desire and erotic activity are how you define the presence of lesbianism. Even aside from the way in which an eagerness to "claim women for the L team" tends to erase bisexual identity, using sexual activity and sexual desire between women as the sine qua non of lesbian identity erases those for whom romantic attachment, rather than sex, is the key factor. (Although it does encompass aromantic women who enjoy erotic attraction to women.)
In this episode, I look at the patterns of history, not through the question of "how did specific women experience homoerotic and homoromantic attraction?" but through the lens of cultural archetypes. What were some of the prominent cultural archetypes that combined romantic bonds between women with an absence of the expectation of sexual activity? I'll be very curious to hear what people think.
Major category: LHMPTags: LHMPpodcast
LHMPodcast 13c: Book Appreciation with Catherine Lundoff
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast
Author Catherine Lundoff returns to the podcast to share some of her favorite lesbian historical fiction. I hope this series of segments will help people find new (or old) titles that may strike their fancy.
Major category: LHMPTags: LHMPpodcast
LHMPodcast 13b: Interview with Catherine Lundoff
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast
Today the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast interviews author Catherine Lundoff about her historical and historically-inspired fiction featuring women-loving-women. Catherine also writes some great science fiction and fantasy and has started a new publishing house: Queen of Swords Press. Find out more about her projects in the interview!
Major category: LHMPTags: LHMPpodcast
LHMPodcast 13a: Announcing the new format
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast
Starting this month, the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast is expanding from monthly to weekly! Originally I was hesitant to try an expanded schedule because I didn't think I could produce enough new material to match that demand. The key was trying some new episode types. And it all ties in with promoting the general idea of lesbian historical fiction. Basically, I'll be adding author interviews, and people talking about their favorite lesbian historical fiction. And the first episode of every month (like this one) will be a hodge-podge I'm calling "On the Shelf", talking about the publications that I'm covering on the blog, announcing who the month's author guest will be, and having a listener Q&A and feedback segment I'm calling "Ask Sappho". This month's question asks for an overview of the legal status of lesbianism across the centuries.
Has the podcast only been going for a year? There were twelve numbered episodes under the monthly schedule, not including the cross-over October special episode I did with Susie Carr. I've learned a lot about recording and editing, and am beginning to get the hang of recording interviews via Skype. (Now I want to pick the brains of all the multi-person shows I listen to for more tips.)
At this point, I still have the freedom of doing pretty much any sort of show I want, because I don't get much feedback on what people would like to hear. (About the only solid piece of criticism that's been passed on is that I talk too fast! I'm working on it, believe me. Hey, did you know there's an editing effect in Audacity that will decrease the speed of your recording without affecting pitch? Ask me how I know.) But with the expanded format, I need more listener feedback. What sort of random questions would you like me to talk about in the "Ask Sappho" segment? Is there an author you'd like me to try to interview? (No promises, but suggestions are welcome.) Is there a topic you'd like to see in the long-form episodes? I keep a list of prompts to inspire me.
Keep in mind that "free" entertainment online still needs your support if it's going to continue. At the very least, leaving ratings and reviews on your podcast site of choice helps bump the show up in visibility. And if you especially like my history series, please say so, in your reviews or directly to the Lesbian Talk Show management. As in everything I do, my work is about 97 degrees out of sync with the field I'm operating in, so it's important to let people know that you like my work in particular, not just the show as a whole.
Major category: LHMPTags: LHMPpodcast
LHMPodcast 12: Catalina de Erauso
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast
This month's historic podcast as about 17th century Spanish gender outlaw Catalina de Erauso. If you've been reading the LHMP entries recently, you'll know why Catalina's life is so fascinating. The podcast includes autobiography excerpts and a discussion of how Catalina became a fictionalized figure across the Spanish-speaking world.
Major category: LHMPTags: LHMPpodcast
July 17, 2017
Boston Marriages in the Modern Age?
The Lesbian Historic Motif Project
The Monday holiday almost made me lose track of setting this post to go live! Such is the power of habit--my brain is in weekend mode. The next few LHMP entries are chosen to tie in with the August podcast "Beguines, Boston Marriage, and Bed Death: Historic Archetypes of Asexual Lesbianism". This week we look at a study of modern (well, at least 1990s) asexual lesbian relationships with reference to the historic concept of Boston Marriage.
Major category: LHMPTags: LHMP
LHMP #150 Rothblum & Brehony 1993 Boston Marriages: Romantic but Asexual Relationships Among Contemporary Lesbians
About LHMP
Full citation:
Rothblum, Esther D. & Kathleen A. Brehony (eds). 1993. Boston Marriages: Romantic but Asexual Relationships Among Contemporary Lesbians. The University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst. ISBN 0-8723-876-0
Publication summary:
This book is primarily concerned with the dynamics of modern relationships, but it uses the historical concept of the Boston Marriage as a conceptual framework.
Introduction – Esther D. Rothblum and Kathleen A. Brehony
This summary will cover only the Introduction and the chapter by Lillian Faderman on the history of Romantic Friendship. The remainder of the book is primarily personal memoirs of psychologists and some of their patients around the topic of non-sexual lesbian relationships.
The term “Boston Marriage” is useful in this context because it discusses asexual relationships in a positive way, in reference to publicly accepted (and even celebrated) female partnerships that were framed as being non-sexual (whatever the individual practices of the partners may have been). This book was written in 1993, well before any inkling that same-sex marriage would be legalized in our lifetimes. So it notes the problem in discussing relationships that—in the absence of a marriage certificate—the existence of a marriage-like partnership (as contrasted with a friendship) tends to be defined by the presence of sex. The authors acknowledge the problem of using sex as a defining characteristic when considering historic relationships, as access to knowledge about it is lacking. In considering the characteristics of “Boston Marriages” today, they note a tendency of the lesbian community to delegitimize partnerships that are known to be asexual.
Nineteenth-century Boston marriage as a possible lesson for today – Lillian Faderman
This chapter is largely a summary and recapitulation of Faderman’s Surpassing the Love of Man. The term Boston Marriage reflects an era when pairs of women, typically feminists and career women, frequently chose to live in long-term devoted relationships. There was an often-unstated assumption that because they were “respectable” women, they did not have sexual relations. Nevertheless, they were perceived by friends and society as the equivalent of a married couple. In Henry James’ The Bostonians (which may have given its name to the phenomenon), he describes a couple of this type as “one of those friendships that are so common in New England.”
A professional woman of that era who wanted to avoid the distraction of repeated pregnancy and running the resulting household did not have the option of having a non-marital romantic relationship with a man, but there was no stigma associated with enjoying a romantic relationship with another woman. Faderman notes similar types of supportive same-sex relationships among women in China, India, and Africa. But when sexologists began conflating same-sex romantic relationships with a pathologized model of lesbianism, the institution of the Boston Marriage was no longer viable.
Faderman repeats her thesis from Surpassing the Love of Men that social expectations regarding female desire most probably were internalized such that women in Romantic Friendships did not participate in genital sexual activity. There is a quotation from the 18th century correspondence of Madame de Staël to Juliette Récamier expressing strongly passionate feelings for her. Such feelings were condoned in women, in part because they were not taken as a serious challenge to heterosexual marriage. Rather, intense passionate relationships between women were seen as an acceptable outlet for emotional needs that might not be satisfied through marriage. Faderman suggests that the stigmatization of female romantic bonds in the 20th century may in part have been driven by social shifts that allowed such relationships to challenge the need for marriage.
Suspicion of female same-sex affection grew in the 1920s, during the era of The Well of Loneliness and the increasing medicalization of homosexuality. The change in attitude can be seen, for example, in how romantic friendships at girls’ schools were treated. Simultaneously, the label “lesbian” provided a framework for women to identify their same-sex relationships as being meaningful and significant, if they were willing to claim that name. But lesbian relationships were expected to be sexual. Lack of interest in a sexual component implied repression and inhibition.
Faderman doesn’t challenge the validity of the theory of “bed death”, but explains it in terms of the historic socialization of women regarding sex drive (i.e., that men are expected to have one, and women are not), the lack of an obvious “on/off” signal of sexual arousal like that present for men, and a willingness to find satisfaction in “non-sexual” expressions of affection. She makes reference to a theory that difference/unfamiliarity are drivers of sexual desire which she sees as a motivation for a pattern of serial monogamy. [Note: the argument that desire between women is “vain” due to excessive similarity is heard in critiques of the possibility of female homoeroticism as early as the Renaissance.] Faderman interprets surveys of long-term lesbian couples with respect to sexual frequency as suggesting that a strong sex drive is incompatible with relationship stability.
[Note: I will reiterate that I often feel that Faderman is carefully defining her terms to make the facts fit her theories. But this is a summary of what the book says.]
Time period: 19th c20th cPlace: USAMisc tags: female co-habitationeconomic independenceemotional /romantic bonds between womenromantic friendshipBoston marriage
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July 11, 2017
Alpennia Blog; Can Devout Alpennians Enjoy the Pleasures of the Flesh?
Alpennia Logo
Today I have a reader question from Andrei, who has kindly allowed me to answer in this blog:
I really enjoy your books. Lately I've been reading a history book on pre-Revolutionary France and it noted that the Christian message that was preached to the masses by the post-Reformation Catholic Church was one of a angry God, a God of vengeance and wrath that demanded penitence and misery. This sermon that Yves Michel Marchais delivered to his congregation in Western France in the 1780s is quite illustrative:
"The joys, the pleasures, the happiness of life are always dangerous and almost always fatal; the games, laughter, and amusements of the world are like the mark of damnation and are given given to us by God in his anger. Whereas tears and suffering are the signs of God's pity and a certain promise of salvation"
With that dully noted, how do characters like Margerit, Barbara, Antuniet and Serafina, who have studied theology (in depth, I presume) in order to work mysteries, reconcile their sexuality with their knowledge of church teaching and dogma? I'm asking because at this time in history, the religious climate seems to have been hostile to legitimate "earthly pleasures", let alone illegitimate ones.
I've stacked the deck for my answer a bit in the title I gave to this post. But the answer can be broken down into several questions:
1. To what extent do the positions of religious extremists affect the self-perception of devoutly religious persons?
2. Do views like the one quoted above reflect the general beliefs about worldly pleasures among the educated classes of the time?
3. Did women who loved women in the early 19th century consider that to be a qualitatively different moral problem than other possible moral lapses in their lives?
For the first, in every age we can find ascetic extremists who feel that suffering is the only moral good and that any sort of non-devotional pleasure (and sometimes even the devotional pleasures) is sinful. And in every age you will find lay people who take those views to heart and lay people who dismiss them. Consider that many of the philosophers that contributed to the Age of Enlightenment and the rise of humanism were Catholic and found no inherent contradiction in that. (Or, in some cases, resolved the contradiction by drifting away from a strong adherence to the religious hierarchy in favor of more general philosophical principles, such as the deists.) I think that if you take issues of sex (much less sexuality) out of the question and ask, "how did people who had studied theology in depth in a philosophical context reconcile the enjoyment of 'joys, pleasures, games, laughter, and amusements of the world' with their knowledge of church teaching and dogma?" I think the simplest answer is that, historically, obviously many of them did, though some could not. So I don't feel the need for special pleading with regard to my characters on that point.
In general, the extent to which extreme religious positions are taken to heart depends a lot on what other theological and philosophical arguments a person or a society can bring to bear in dialectic. And the extent to which people turn away from sensory pleasures to embrace asceticism often reflects the overall tenor of the times: whether people feel hopeful or fearful, optimistic or pessimistic. Pre-revolutionary France was obviously a time of great social unrest and hardship--if it hadn't been, there wouldn't have been a revolution. Some of those factors were specific to the political and social situation in France. Consider also that the church was, to some extent, viewed as part of those hardships, not necessarily as a solace for them. Alpennia is hardly a social or political paradise, but it didn't experience the specific forces and conditions that led to revolution in France in the later 18th century. And therefore the specific religious undercurrents present in France don't necessarily apply either.
Moving on to the more specific topic of moral attitudes towards sex and sexuality, it's important to keep in mind that different ages have different frameworks for thinking about these things. In the specific case of lesbian sexuality, there have been many eras in western history when the dividing line between what counted as non-sexual acts of affection and love and what counted as sexual acts have been drawn in very different places. There's a long history of theological positions that only penetrative sex counts as "fornication" (as well as a long history of contrary arguments, it must be admitted). So it's not only possible, but fairly certain, that many pre-modern women enjoyed what we would consider a sexual relationship without themselves considering what they were enjoying to be "sex" in the context of moral prohibiltions.
I did include one interaction between Margerit and one of the nuns at Saint Orisule's convent where it's clear that the nun specifically disapproves of the nature of Margerit and Barbara's relationship. And Margerit's answer to her is that she considers the love she has with Barbara to be the best means she knows by which she can understand God's love. It isn't necessarily a solid theological argument in the specific form presented, but it does have roots in historic theology regarding the divide between praiseworthy and suspect forms of affection between unmarried individuals (regardless of gender). As a scholar, she would have more access to those arguments than an average person would, so it makes sense that she might bring them to bear on a relationship that she very much wants to feel good about.
Social disapproval of women's romantic relationships in the 18-19th centuries in western Europe more often focused on whether those relationships interfered with women's availability for marriage, rather than on the question of the nature of their physical relationship. Another aspect of disapproval focused on whether a woman appeared to be claiming a masculine role, either in society in general, or specifically in the context of the relationship. Both of these concerns are reasons why Margerit and Barbara experience social disapproval without anyone involved necessarily bringing sexual activity into the question. They accept that there are those who consider their close friendship suspect on the grounds of proper gender roles in society, but that holds true as well for their interest in women's education and for Barbara's eager participation in politics in her own name (rather than marrying and handing off the political duties to a husband). They wouldn't necessarily extrapolate that social disapproval to moral self-doubt.
For another example, consider Antuniet's attitude toward her two different types of sexual experience: the incident in Heidelberg when she traded sex to a man for protection and assistance, and her sexual relationship with Jeanne. It should be clear that she views the first as a moral failing, but her concerns about the second are much more to do with emotional insecurity and her precarious social position at the time of their courtship. Having sex once with Gustaf made her a "fallen woman", having an ongoing sexual relationship with Jeanne makes her an "eccentric".
And as an overall consideration, all of my central characters are living lives of comfort and pleasure, within the scope of their individual means. In the case of Margerit and Barbara, those means are considerable and they enjoy a luxurious lifestyle. If their theological studies led them to question the pursuit of earthly pleasures, there would be a lot more of those pleasures to consider rejecting than just the erotic ones.
Now, as it happens, Margerit is due for something of a crisis of faith in the aftermath of the events in Floodtide (the book I'm currently writing), as well as certain other events. That crisis won't be specifically about her sexuality, but her general uncertainty about whether she's chosen the right paths in life will probably end up touching on that aspect as well. So stay tuned to see how she works through that crisis and what her conclusions are about living a moral and ethical life that includes both magic and the pleasures of the flesh.
Major category: Writing ProcessPublications: Daughter of MysteryThe Mystic MarriageMother of SoulsTags: ResearchwritingAlpennia
July 9, 2017
A Vast Wealth of Detail of Spanish Lesbian Lives
The Lesbian Historic Motif Project
Using the records of court cases to research lesbian lives in history is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, they often present a wealth of detail not found in any other type of record unless--by miraculous luck--a personal diary or set of candid correspondence is unearthed. But conversely, court cases, by their nature, present a skewed view of people's lives. They show people in conflict and distress. They arise when relationships go bad, or were never particularly good in the first place. They are typcially the records of only those classes of people who aren't able to conceal their activities through priviledge, or to evade legal penalties if concealment is impossible. It would be all too easy, when looking at the trials of criminal lesbians, to conclude that lesbianism inherently leads to criminality. (Consider as a parallel how early psychiatrists studying homosexuality in their patients--patients who had come to them for help with severe problems--concluded that homosexuality was an inherently deranged condition. Because, after all, all the homosexuals they knew were people with serious emotional problems!) With that caveat, the court records studied here provide a rich and extensive (sometimes very extensive) record of the details of how some women lived together in romantic and sexual partnerships. Of what some of their sexual practices were. And how their relationships were sometimes viewed by the neighbors and family members who were aware of them.
One interesting take-away is that these romantic relationships between women were sometimes public knowledge in their communities, and sometimes apparently accepted by their families. (At least, that's the implication when they are living as a couple in a family member's house.) And although the cases that came before the law demonstrate that any sort of sexual activity between women was considered worthy of punishment, the severity of that punishment depended strongly on the specific sex acts involved. Reading between the lines, there seems to be plenty of scope to imagine lesbian relationships that never came to the interest of the law for the simple fact that they never turned sour enough to disrupt the community, and where the women lived openly as a couple with at least tolerance from family and neighbors.
Major category: LHMPTags: LHMP
LHMP #149c Velasco 2011 Lesbians in Early Modern Spain Chapter 3
About LHMP
Full citation:
Velasco, Sherry. 2011. Lesbians in Early Modern Spain. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville. ISBN 978-0-8265-1750-0
Publication summary:
A study of the evidence and social context for women who loved women in early modern Spain, covering generally the 16-17th centuries and including some material from colonial Spanish America.
Chapter 3: Criminal Lesbians
This chapter looks at evidence regarding lesbian activity that can be found in specific court cases, as well as perceptions of the role of lesbian relations in criminal activities and contexts. The point here is not that lesbians were inherently criminal in early modern Spain (though some official opinions were that one type of deviant behavior was expected to lead to other types), but that the nature of legal records can provide a wealth of detail that is not available for other contexts.
The conflicting professional opinions on female sodomy in Spain played out in criminal prosecutions. The outcome of trials could depend both on the specific nature of the behavior and situation as well as on how successful the accused woman was in contesting the charges. The summary of this chapter will largely be brief outlines of the cases.
Ca. 1400 a woman dressed as a man served as a judicial official and married two women (presumably sequentially). She was convicted of sodomy because she used a penetrative instrument for sex, but recognition of her government service resulted in leniency. Specifically, she was hanged rather than the prescribed sentence of being burnt to death. The accusation had come from her second wife.
In 1502 in Valencia a woman passed as a man and married a woman, using an artificial penis made of lambskin for sex. She had also had sex in that way with other women. Her gender was discovered in the context of an accusation of theft. She was sentenced to hang but was pardoned on the basis of a legal technicality with regard to how the trial was handled. In a number of these cases, it is an open question whether the “femme” partner was truly ignorant of the sex of the passing woman or whether she was relying on the legal tendency to focus on gender transgressions rather than the sexual relationship per se.
In 1503, two women--Catalina de Belunçe and Matiche de Oyarzún--were accused of having sex “like a man and a woman”. No other specifics of the offence were given and there was no mention of the use of an instrument. Only one of the pair was sentenced to banishment and confiscation of her belongings, but with capital punishment if she returned from banishment. But rather than accepting this leniency, she appealed to the royal court, claiming innocence and that no evidence had been offered. The charge had been based on “public reputation” of her activities. She impugned the witness and accused the prosecutor (the local mayor) of a profit motive in pursuing the case. She was pardoned, the sentence reversed, and her possessions were returned to her. The true story behind the case is hard to decipher. Why was her partner not also accused (given that there doesn’t appear to have been a “butch-femme” dynamic in the accused behavior)? Who was the witness?
In 1560, the Inquisition in Aragon debated whether a case involving several women fell under the category of sodomy as no sexual instrument had been used, though there was genital contact (which was described in heterocentric terms). They ended up not prosecuting.
In 1656, the Inquisition in Aragon judged a case against a 28 year old widow Ana Aler and a 22 year old laundress Mariana López who were accused of sodomy by nosy neighbors (two men and three women). The specific behaviors involved were hugging, kissing, putting a hand under the skirt to touch the genitals, expressions of jealousy followed by protestations of loyalty and pledges of love. The women were said to follow each other around. It was claimed that Ana boasted of having sex with “the best woman in Zaragoza” who was willing to pay her for it, but it’s unclear if this was an actual reference to female same-sex prostitution or just boasting. The neighbors testified they overheard the sounds of passion and sex talk , “Give it to me, I can’t wait any longer!” as well as to seeing the women lying on top of each other and evidence of “emission of semen” (i.e., orgasm). Although there was no evidence of a penetrative instrument being used, the verdict was still labeled “sodomy” but the sentence was limited to whipping and exile and the women were forbidden to live in the same location in the future.
Inés de Santa Cruz and Catalina Ledesma were arrested in 1603 in Salamanca as “bujarronas” (female sodomites). They had previous sodomy convictions in Valladolid. A complex background story emerged from the trial. Inés had at one point claimed to be a nun and was soliciting donations and assembling a group of “wayward” young women to take them to a convent (the implication being a house of penitence for reformed prostitutes). The suspicion was that instead she was recruiting for the sex trade. The sexual accusations against Inés and Catalina included use of a penetrative instrument and they were given a death sentence which was appealed and reduced to whipping and banishment.
Among the details of the testimony it emerged that the two women had enjoyed a long term domestic partnership “eating at the same table and sleeping in the same bed.” Their love for each other was public knowledge. Catalina had left her husband to live with Inés. Among the witnesses was a maid from Catalina’s father’s house where the two lived for a time. The detailed testimony reveals the witnesses’ fantasies as well as facts. The existence of sexual activity was assumed from overheard activity including panting and grunting and comments like, “Does that feel good?” as well as love talk.
The defendants admitted to the sex but each tried to frame her own role as less culpable based on minor technicalities such as who was lying on top. The sexual acts they admitted to included rubbing vulvas together and manual stimulation. They were inconsistent with regard to the use of an instrument. (Witnesses said they had used an instrument made of cane, but Inés described one made of leather that they stopped using because it was painful.)
During one temporary separation, they may have had sex with other women and there was reported discussion of the advantages of lesbian sex: no pregnancy, it was more pleasurable than heterosexual sex, they found men repulsive. In this context, Catalina reported on knowing of other female couples in the convent where she stayed for a time. Much of the evidence may have come out during fights between the women. Catalina felt that Inés was stalking and harassing her to renew the relationship, though witnesses said their relationship ran hot and cold and was not one-sided. Inés seems to have been the more jealous and controlling. Neighbors described them as being so close a couple “like man and woman” that all attempts to break them up failed. All this happened over an extended period of time during which their relationship was public knowledge. The neighbors would insult them (and they each other) with terms like bujarronas (female sodomites), puta bellaca (cheating whore), somética (fem. sodomite), bellaca baldresera (dildo-wielding scoundrel). Velasco compares their reported behavior to modern patterns of domestic violence among lesbians. Inés was significantly older, more economically stable, and was the more aggressive and controlling. The trial was instigated when Catalina went to the authorities to complain about Inés’s violent behavior.
Despite the admitted use of a penetrating instrument, they were not given the death penalty and had received similarly lenient treatment in a previous trial. Velaso notes that these trial records contradict the idea that sexual relationships between women were invisible but also contradict the idea that they were tolerated or considered insignificant.
In 1745 in Colombia, two mestiza seamstresses named Margarita Valenzuela and Gregoria Franco had a long-term public romance that was disrupted by the reappearance of the father of Margarita’s child. This resulted in a conflict that came to the attention of the law. Gregoria was banished for a short term and warned not to reinitiate the relationship on penalty of permanent banishment.
In 1597, the Inquisition in Mallorca found a 30 year old single woman Esperanza de Rojas guilty of various offences, including practicing love magic to re-attract the passion of two women she’d been sexually involved with while all three were at a home for fallen women. She was sentenced to whipping and exile with the mitigating factor that she had acted in anger. The major concern was the accusation of demonic magic and the recorded testimony included specifics of the rituals. These included claims that she used Jewish and Muslim prayers as well as using a demonic statuette as a focus. The nature of the rituals was consistent with descriptions of heterosexual love magic at the time. Esperanza claimed she had learned the rituals from another woman while traveling to Rome and Naples.
Further investigations by the Inquisition at the institution where the three women had lived that took place in 1597-8 turned up other accusations of same-sex activity. Catalina Lebrés was accused of “illicit relations with other female residents.”
Velasco spends some time discussing the nature and context of female penitential institutions in early modern Spain. Their general purpose was to control women who were not successfully under patriarchal authority. There were concerns about women’s misbehavior inside the institutions, but that concern might either focus on, or be oblivious to, the possibility of lesbian sex. Overcrowding was a regular concern, as well as the potential for women to learn new forms of criminality from the other inmates.
Concerns regarding the potential for sexual relations between women were shared by religious penitential institutions and regular convents. Convent rules often proscribed sleeping together or forbade two nuns to be alone together behind closed doors. The code word for the concern was “special friendships”. Specific behaviors that were considered a sign of danger were talking together at night, sleeping together, hugging, “joining their faces together.”
Another intersection of concern is the long historic association between lesbianism and prostitution, dating as early as Roman times (Lucian, Alciphron). Velasco notes the contrast laid out in a 16th century Italian text on women’s friendships by Firenzuola, that contrasts the “chaste” love between Laudomia Forteguerra and Duchess Margaret of Austria with the lascivious love of Sappho and of “the great prostitute Cecilia Venetiana.” But within the same century, Brantôme in France imputed a more sexual relationship to Margaret and Laudomia, and grouped them with a noted Spanish prostitute in Rome, Isabella de Luna, who kept a mistress. Moving our attention back to Spain, there were conflicting opinions whether the existence of legal brothels successfully kept men away from sodomy (by making women available) or whether one sin would breed other sins and thus men who frequented brothels were more likely to move on to sodomy.
The intersection of prostitution, love magic, and “medical” manual stimulation, as well as the possibilities of sex between women appear in Fernando de Rojas’ La Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea more commonly known as La Celestina. Velasco spends some time reviewing the details and implications of this work.
There was an association of witchcraft and lesbian desire, along with aspects of heresy. Several authors repeat a description from Leo Africanus of North African sahacat witches, who seduce or pleasure other women under the guise of medical treatment. (It isn’t clear whether the repetition of this motif is in reference to Africa or gives the appearance of generalizing it to Spain. Note that sahacat is from the Arabic root sahq with the same general meaning of rubbing as fricatrix.)
The chapter concludes with one last case study in Mexico of an accusation of lesbian seduction (or predation) by a female couple of their female boarder, who then used witchcraft to try to take revenge on the couple.
Time period: 15th c16th c17th c18th cPlace: SpainColombiaMexicoItalyMisc tags: bed-sharingcourt casecourtesanscross-dressingcross-gender roles/behaviordildoembracingfemale co-habitationfemale sodomygender disguise f>mkissingmonastic communitiesMoroccan witchespenetrationprostitutessahqsex between womensexual techniquestribadismEvent / person: Catalina de Belunçe & Matiche de OyarzúnAna Aler & Mariana LópezInés de Santa Cruz & Catalina LedesmaMargarita Valenzuela & Gregoria FrancoEsperanza de RojasCatalina LebrésLaudomia ForteguerriMargaret Duchess of Austria/ParmaOn the Beauty of Women (Agnolo Firenzuola)Lives of Gallant Ladies (Pierre de Bourdeille seigneur de Brantôme)Cecilia VenetianaSapphoIsabella de LunaLa Celestina (Fernando de Rojas)Leo Africanus
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The Professions Weigh In on Early Modern Spanish Lesbians
The Lesbian Historic Motif Project
The full picture of what life was like comes not just from individual details nor from the "official" opinions of professionals, but from an interaction between the two. The legal theories of what constitutes "sodomy" for a woman won't tell you what women were actually doing, but it will help us understand what the potential consequences were for them, depending on the nature of their activities. Similarly, a learned physician's opinion about whether lesbianism was a moral or a medical matter could inform what arguments could be brought to bear on how such women should be treated. This chapter lays the groundwork for those formal, professional opinions into which women fit their lives.
Major category: LHMPTags: LHMP
LHMP #149b Velasco 2011 Lesbians in Early Modern Spain Chapter 2
About LHMP
Full citation:
Velasco, Sherry. 2011. Lesbians in Early Modern Spain. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville. ISBN 978-0-8265-1750-0
Publication summary:
A study of the evidence and social context for women who loved women in early modern Spain, covering generally the 16-17th centuries and including some material from colonial Spanish America.
Chapter 2: Legal, Medical, and Religious Approaches to Lesbians in Early Modern Spain
This chapter looks at the context of non-normative sexuality as discussed in “professional” texts (legal, medical, theological). They show the variety of practices considered to be present and of concern. A great deal of this chapter is something of a “review of the field” and concerns not only texts specific to early modern Spain, but ones that would have formed part of the background understanding of the time.
Religious prohibitions included interpretations of Romans 1:26 that more clearly positioned the text as referring to “female with female” vice, as in Aquinas. Some texts straddle the divide between law and theology, such as Cino da Pistoia’s interpretation of 3rd century Roman law as condemning both “active” and “passive” participants in sex between women, or the recommendation by Bartholomaeus de Saliceto in the 15th century of the death penalty for female sodomy.
Spanish law saw an increase in intolerance for unorthodox sex in the 16-17th centuries. Under Ferdinand and Isabella, the recommended punishment for male sodomites increased from castration to death by burning, as for heretics. The increasing association of sodomy with heresy motivated transferring jurisdiction for sodomy cases to the Inquisition beginning in the early 16th century. But there was an active debate regarding whether what women could do together could be classified as “sodomy”. A 1532 edict by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V explicitly included women under sodomy laws. This interpretation was also confirmed by a 1555 opinion discussing the medieval law code Las siete partidas. But competing legal opinions held that sex between women was inherently less of a transgression than male sodomy and recommended leniency on this basis. Technical decisions often focused on whether a dildo had been used. This question could feature in testimony against specific defendants and affect the resulting sentence.
The chapter offers a brief summary of classical medieval theories of lesbian desire, including Islamic and Jewish writers such as Avicenna and Maimonides. These sources, while disapproving of sex between women, did not necessarily prescribe legal penalties. Arabic sexual texts discuss a variety of sexual practices between women, or generally on non-heterosexual practices that focused on women’s sexual fulfilment. There is a brief discussion of theories of physiognomy and astrology regarding sexual orientation. Pseudo-medical theories about innate sexual orientation include humoral theories or attribute it to the results of prenatal (maternal) experiences. These approaches tend to be strongly gender-essentialist, seeing lesbian desire as a type of masculinity.
Velasco reviews literature on the Renaissance “rediscovery of the clitoris” and theories of the relationship between lesbianism and an enlarged clitoris. There is a medical acceptance of the possibility of spontaneous sex change from female to male, situated within a general fascination for “monstrosity”. A detailed Spanish case history of such a transformation in mid life is offered. (Note: I’m once again disappointed that the author omits any discussion of the possibility of intersex interpretations of this topic.) In 1700, the medical writer Sinistrari puts forth the opinion that women cannot commit sodomy, apparently defining sodomy narrowly in terms of penetration by a natural organ and the “transmission of seed”, but he makes a possible allowance for women with an enlarged clitoris and considers this phenomenon to be the basis of “spontaneous sex change” stories. The discussion notes the racist strain in discussions of the “enlarged clitoris” phenomenon. Clitoridectomy is noted as a treatment for an enlarged clitoris, though Sinistrari deprecates it due to the risk of fatal consequences.
Thus lesbianism could be seen as a medical issue due to abnormal anatomy, rather than a legal or moral one. But if two women were known to have lain together and one was found to have what was considered to be an enlarged clitoris, then the law considered that sodomy could be presumed to have happened.
Theological sources of information include guidelines for confessors, listing possible questions to elicit details of sins. These, like many of the other “professional” texts discussed in this chapter have a heterocentric bias, assuming that sex between women will be an imitation of heterosexual (penetrative) sex.
Time period: 15th c16th c17th c18th cPlace: SpainMisc tags: clitoridectomy (as treatment for sexual deviance)enlarged clitorisfemale sodomysex between womenessentialismmedical treatisesastrological textsEvent / person: Ludovico Sinistrari
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Beyond England, France, and Italy
The Lesbian Historic Motif Project
One of the regular challenges to understanding the history of lesbians, even in as defined a scope as Europe, is the accessibility of the literature--not just the languages of the primary sources, but the languages in which research is published. I will freely confess that my own access is largely limited to material published in English, though I can work my way through a German article if need be. This means that every once in a while, I can be surprised by the wealth of information covering a topic that falls outside the usual England-France-Italy focus of English language publications, when I've previously only seen bits and cross-references that hint at what's out there.
I knew of Sherry Velasco's work on Catalina de Erauso in popular culture, but only stumbled across this title by chance when searching for something else online. This is one reason why I hunt through bibliographies to see what other publications might be out there waiting for me. (And, of course, why I spend a lot of time in the book sales room at the annual Kalamazoo medieval studies conference.) If you have an image of early modern Spain--the era of the Inquisition and the Armada and Spanish dominance throughout much of Catholic Europe--as being an unlikely place to find lesbians, this books should open your eyes as it did mine.
Major category: LHMPTags: LHMP
LHMP #149a Velasco 2011 Lesbians in Early Modern Spain Chapter 1
About LHMP
Full citation:
Velasco, Sherry. 2011. Lesbians in Early Modern Spain. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville. ISBN 978-0-8265-1750-0
Publication summary:
A study of the evidence and social context for women who loved women in early modern Spain, covering generally the 16-17th centuries and including some material from colonial Spanish America.
Chapter 1: Introduction
The identification of forbidden female homoerotic activity in early modern Spain is hampered by the deliberately vague language with which it is identified. When a “miraculous” crucifix supposedly tattled on two trysting nuns in the early 17th century, the phrase put into its voice was simply that the two were “offending me.” Similarly, in 1603 when Inés de Santa Cruz and Catalina Ledesma were arrested for female sodomy in Salamanca, the accusations came in descriptions of the sounds of passion heard through a wall and not a declaration of specific acts.
Representations of female homoeroticism in this era range from the publicly notorious, such as Catalina de Erauso and Queen Christina of Sweden [*], to those treated as criminal, as with Inés and Catalina Ledesma. That range of representations is the topic of this study.
[*] It may seem odd to treat Queen Christina of Sweden as relevant to a discussion of Spain, but she had strong ties to several Spanish individuals, especially in the context of her abdication and conversion to Catholicism, and was consequently a figure of interest there.
The historic texts under study here often focus on the presence or absence of specific acts. But the picture that emerges is not a simple “acts vs. identity” dichotomy, as Foucault would have it. Velasco chooses to use the word “lesbian” in this book, not only because of evidence for a concept of specific romantic/erotic interests, but because it is less anachronistic than “homosexual” or “homoerotic”. In 16th century France, Brantôme was using “lesbian” in a homoerotic sense, just as Chorier was in the 17th century. When playwright Pedro Calderón de la Barca wrote a play based on the life of Queen Christina, he named her lady in waiting “Lesbia” with a wink and nod to Christina’s reputation, and included a motif of proposed same-sex marriage. Velasco spends a couple of pages rehearsing the usual debate over terminology in books on this history of gender and sexuality, and points out the markedness with which only non-heterosexual concepts have their terminology hedged about and policed.
Within historic documents, the absence of mention of lesbian-related topics can itself suggest meaning, as when writers such as Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and María de Zayas omit mention of Sappho as a literary antecedent in contexts where such an omission is notable. The absence suggests the possibility that they were anxious about how their own same-sex relations with friends and mentors were viewed.
Even when the topic of lesbianism is danced around with vagueness, the texts being studied here have no lack of language to convey female homoerotic activities. Velasco list the following: somética (sodomite), bujarrona (female sodomite), cañita (little cane), donna con donna (woman with woman), marimacho (butch), medio hombre y mujer (half man-half woman), incuba (partner who lies on top), succuba (partner who lies underneath), subigatrice (dominator, one who bounces up and down), bellaca baldresera (dildo-wearing scoundrel), terms equivalent to “tribade”, “fricatrice”, “rubster”, “Sahacat” (originally from Arabic), “Lesbian”, as well as more allusive phrases such as amistades particulares (particular friendships), “fruitless love”, “love without reward”, “not the marrying type”, “like man and woman”, “[women] making themselves into roosters”, and so forth. One somewhat telling term was the Latin peccatum mutum “silent sin”, specifically highlighting the approach of erasure by un-naming.
Velasco’s work seeks to demonstrate that representations both of romantic and erotic love between women were visible and accessible to all types of women in early modern Spain. These works not only discussed specific acts, but assumed a “type” of woman who participated in them, whether in fictional works or real life. Early modern Spanish legal writers were considered to be the “experts” in Europe on female homoerotic activity. The evidence suggests that this expertise was not merely a theoretical exercise but existed within a culture with an open interest in the topic.
Examples of this interest can be seen in the 16th century novel La Celestina in which lesbian acts are seen as part of the initiation of a prostitute, works that include erotic encounters between women, such as the pastoral novel La Diana and the chivalric romance Tirant lo Blanc, or the novellas of María de Zayas. Popular plays went beyond the erotic implications of cross-dressed women to include female homoerotic desire outside that context. And real life “celebrity” could be conferred by individuals who challenged categories of gender and sexuality, such as Catalina de Erauso “the Lieutenant Nun” and the physician Elena/Eleno de Céspedes who was charged with sodomy and bigamy after marrying while living as a man. Saint Teresa of Avila warned of the erotic potential of “particular friendships” in convents, and the truth of this concern can be found in correspondence between nuns as well as personal memoirs of convent life. Court records of prosecutions reflect a complex understanding of lesbian potentials that went beyond a simple division between legal and illegal acts.
Within all this, there is often an ignorance demonstrated by male writers of “what women can do together” apart from a vague understanding of mutual masturbation or an assumption of the imitation of heterosexual penetrative sex. It isn’t always clear whether this is genuine ignorance or a deliberate avoidance of specifics to avoid “giving women ideas” (an avoidance that is sometimes explicit in penitential manuals). But clearly the absence of such detail shouldn’t be presumed to imply an absence of activity.
The remainder of this chapter provides an overview of the topics covered in the remaining chapters.
Time period: 16th c17th cPlace: SpainMexicoMisc tags: court casecross-gender roles/behaviordonna con donnafemale sodomymonastic communitiespenitentialssahqsex between womensexual techniquessexual/romantic desirelesbianEvent / person: Inés de Santa Cruz & Catalina LedesmaCatalina de ErausoQueen Christina of SwedenLives of Gallant Ladies (Pierre de Bourdeille seigneur de Brantôme)The Academy of Women (L'Academie des dames) (Nicolas Chorier)Afectos de odio y amor (Pedro Calderón de la Barca)Juana Inés de la CruzLa Celestina (Fernando de Rojas)Diana (Jorge de Montemayor)María de ZayasElena/Eleno de Céspedes
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