Heather Rose Jones's Blog, page 91
December 18, 2018
Tis the Season - A Random Book Give-away
The Lesbian Historic Motif Project
'Tis the season for the giving of gifts. And so, completely randomly, I want to give some person a gift. Comment here with the title of one of the books covered on the Lesbian Historic Motif Project blog that you desperately want to own. I will pick a winner semi-randomly (*) and send it to you. This offer is not limited by geography but applies to either hard-copy or (if available) e-book, as preferred.
(*) The "semi" random aspect is that if the first chosen recipient wants a book that simply can't be had for love or money, I'll move on to the next. But I don't think I've covered any books that are totally unobtainable.
Entries may be commented at any time up through the end of 2018, after which a winner will be announced.
(Yes, this is really a test to see if anyone actually reads this blog.)
Here's the index of books covered by the project, for browsing purposes. Only books, not individual journal articles, because I have no idea how to fulfill those.
Rando porno-bots are not eligible.
Yes, I'm serious about this.
P.S., if you're reading this through the RSS feed (like, on Dreamwidth or something) you have to click through to comment on the blog.
Major category: LHMPTags: LHMPgiveaways
December 17, 2018
A Sampler of Same-Sex Love in India
The Lesbian Historic Motif Project
I wish I had time to go into more detail about the individual readings collected in this volume, rather than simply summarizing the explanatory material. But if you have any interest in finding out more about the rich history of same-sex relations on the subcontinent--especially before the colonial era--it would be worth tracking down this volume. The editors are working from within their own cultures and have personally created many of the translations included here.
I'm particularly happy to cover this book in the week before the podcast presents a story set in 10th century India involving a devdasi and a seamstress. Many of the themes discussed in Vanita & Kidwai's collection are present in the setting of Gurmika Mann's "At the Mouth", which I hope you will take the opportunity to listen to.
In many parts of the world, the cultural experience of same-sex love struggles against both local prejudice and persecution--often a direct consequence of colonialism, and not a "home-grown" attitude"--and against Western constructions of "the homosexual experience" that assume (or even impose) a specific type of cultural understanding, while excluding other ways of understanding same-sex love from the modern "queer" experience. It's a joy and delight to find scholarly work on non-Western histories that is written by academics working within their own cultures, who have managed to navigate around both types of challenges. Too often, that work is being done by a small number of scholar, and too often they are talked over by the Western queer studies establishment while simultaneously being ostracized by institutions in their own cultures who have yet to untangle the legacy of colonial prejudices.
And for me, in identifying publications to cover, the difficulties include identifying those scholars and their works in the first place, and struggling to have enough understanding to present them in the same critical fashion that I do the more euro-centric material. I'm always happy to take recommendations for publications on cultures and regions of the world that I haven't covered yet.
Major category: LHMPTags: LHMP
LHMP #227 Vanita & Kidwai 2000 Same-Sex Love in India
About LHMP
Full citation:
Vanita, Ruth and Saleem Kidwai, eds. 2000. Same-Sex Love in India: Readings from Literature and History. St. Martin’s, New York. ISBN 0-312-22169-X
This is an anthology of literature, rather than an analytic text. The organizing principle for selection is examples of love between men or between women who are not biologically related. Literary texts often don’t overtly show the truth of relationships or how those participating in the relationship understood themselves, but they can show how such relationships were represented and expressed.
The passionate attachments represented in these readings may or may not be sexual, but that applies to similar male-female relationships as well. The focus here is on love, not necessarily sex, and the distinction is not treated as important. It also should be noted that same-sex relationships were considered compatible with participation in male-female marriage and with procreation. (Though, at least in the legendary material, procreation doesn’t always require the former.) Only in modern times has an expectation developed that a heterosexual spouse will also be a person’s primary emotional outlet. This collection is also not concerned with depictions of sex that have no emotional or erotic content, for example, the use of sex in power dynamics or same-sex rape.
For the purpose of this collection, “India” is defined geographically, even though the writers of the material often wouldn’t have seen that as their identity.
Same-sex history is often studied in a gender-segregated way, due to the different experiences of men and women. But some approaches identify common factors, hence the decision to include both in this volume. And some of the included texts support the idea of looking at men’s and women’s same-sex experiences together in the context of Indian history, for example, the Kamasutra’s catalog of sexual practices suggests parallels, and texts involving cross-dressing and gender ambiguity are most usefully considered in a common context.
The editors have found no evidence that same-sex love generated significant disapproval or persecution before the 19th century (i.e., before the colonial period) thought it was often treated as inferior to male-female love, or simply ignored.
All the texts in this collection are translated into English (except those originally written in English, of course) and represent most of India’s major languages. The volume has been arranged roughly chronologically. In order to avoid the problem of bias or bowdlerization, the editors have done their own translations of the Hindi and Urdu texts, as well as most of the Persian ones, and have worked closely with the translators for other languages.
There is a discussion of how sexual terminology is handled, both in the discussion and in translating the texts.
The material is presented in three periods: Ancient, covering ca. 1500 BCE through the 8th century CE; Medieval, covering the 8th century up to the British colonial period (roughly the late 18th century); and Modern, covering the period beginning with British rule. There are some absences and asymmetries in the source material, in part due to differences in availability and in part due to access, based on the editors’ own cultural and linguistic backgrounds.
The collection is aimed at general as well as scholarly readers and tries to challenge the myth that same-sex love is a “Western import” to India.
Ancient Texts
This material tends to focus on the ideals of friendship and the intertwining of same-sex friendships with male-female relationships. Many are stories of divine heroes and their extended families. They deal with the relationship between friendship and marriage, or with asceticism and friendship. A prominent motif is miraculous births, including birth from a single parent (female or male) or from a same-sex couple (of either sex), or with the nurturing of a child by a same-sex couple. A related motif may be group marriages or group parenting where same-sex relations are included. Creation myths in the Rig Veda regularly include dual mothers or a group of mothers. Another motif is pairs of mothers who co-nourish each other’s children.
Same-sex relationships may involve or arise from cross-dressing or sex-change situations. A cross-dressed woman may enter into a relationship with another woman, but commonly there is also an element of supernatural sex-change, especially involving the intercession of a forest spirit. A relationship may begin as the marriage of two women and then subsequently involve one of them becoming a man.
In sex-change stories where women become men, the change is generally permanent, while in those where men become women, it is often temporary (for the purpose of procreation) and then later reversed. These gender-change motifs are treated differently in the medieval period.
In Buddhist texts, sex-change may be a symbol of liberation from the expectation to marry. Religious communities were often gender-segregated and the same-sex attachments that developed within them were felt to be less “worldly” than male-female relationships. Gender may be treated as an illusory construct (in some ways, like the modern idea of gender as performance) but within a system that aligns “male” with “enlightened”. This created a space for allowing non-heterosexual relationships.
Sexual categories in legal and medical literature had a different approach. There was a long tradition of recognizing a “third sex”, primarily for men who desired men. Legal texts about sexual crimes tended to focus on sex with an inappropriate subject or with the loss of virginity, and women’s actions were considered less problematic than men’s. Same-sex acts are treated as a minor issue unless rape or loss of virginity was involved. Most same-sex acts were not treated as criminal. Compare, for example, with cross-caste sex acts which were far more stigmatized.
Pseudomedical theories addressing the causes and consequences of same-sex desire are contradictory and unsystematic. This literature provides some terminology for same-sex topics, but nothing that suggests an established concept. They also reflect a general tolerance for same-sex desire. There is more distinction made between sexual activity and celibacy than between same-sex or male-female relations.
Erotic and medical texts provide some explicit references to same-sex acts. Women are described participating in embraces, oral sex, and gender play.
The motif of re-birth is sometimes used to justify unexpected love or desire, whether same-sex or cross-caste. Attachment in a former life was thought to carry over to persons who, in their current incarnations, would be considered inappropriate partners.
(I won’t be listing the specific texts and their contents in detail.)
Medieval Texts
While the ancient texts are represented only by Sanskrit literature, in the medieval period there are several different cultural traditions to consider, in particular, the introduction of Islamic culture, but there is a general diversity of regional and religious cultures. Arabic, Persian, and Urdu traditions join Sanskrit, and the topics include religious stories, epics, historical chronicles, and devotional poetry. Some specific genres include the Bhakti tradition, involving mystical loving devotion to a specific deity (that is, one selected from a number of options, not a type of monotheism).
The medieval literature includes commentaries on older texts. The Puranas introduce a new pantheon who edge out the Vedic gods, among other religious shifts. The everyday observance of sexual taboos coexist with stories of divinities who exist outside those taboos. There is a re-emergence of veneration of mother goddesses which provides a context of bonds between female divinities.
The literature continues themes of sex change and of the children of same-sex couples (of any gender) as well as same-sex marriage.
The depiction of devotional relationships to divinities is more fluid. For example, the female Janabai mystics envisioned god as a loving female companion. Religious monasticism often took the form of marriage resistance, but did not preclude sexual relations and allowed for same-sex relations. Female devdasis entered into a spiritual marriage to a deity (either male or female) and lived outside the marriage structure. This sometimes resulted in matrilineal religious communities.
The emphasis on procreation in marriage could be used to sanction same-sex marriages that produced offspring (either miraculously or via sex-change). Love between women was also depicted in the context of polygynous marriage, and stories told of female lovers marrying the same man in order to stay together, or love developing between co-wives after the marriage.
Within the Persian/Urdu tradition, there is a significant increase in same-sex material in the later medieval period, but it is overwhelmingly male-oriented and associated with Islamic culture. Islamic legal traditions were officially against same-sex relations but cultural traditions contradicted this and elevated love between men. Islamic communities in India did not adhere to conservative Islam, possibly in part due to being always in a minority position. The Sufi tradition focused on love as the core of spirituality. A common poetic motif was for male poets to use a female voice to address a male beloved.
Modern Texts
A great deal of the introduction to this part of the book covers they ways in which British colonial culture altered attitudes toward same-sex love, as well as discussing recent social and political activism.
One curious genre is that of Rekhti poetry, an Urdu form in which a male poet writing in a female voice addresses love poetry to a female beloved. Scholars disagree on the extent to which this reflects the lives of women in same-sex relationships as opposed to the male imagination, but material from the courtesan tradition of “aliyan” (female friends) suggests that women performed Rekhti poetry for each other, and accounts of female same-sex relationships from colonial reports include terminology that matches the vocabulary of Rekhti poetry. So the tentative conclusion is that the genre has some use for understanding women’s lives.
There is a discussion of sexual techniques as reflected in this literature. Then a long discussion of changes in same-sex culture in India under British rule. Modern fiction has introduced a number of tropes that reflect the realities of same-sex relationships, such as the married woman who yearns for her (female) childhood sweetheart. But western influences have also introduced negative depictions of same-sex relations.
Place: IndiaMisc tags: cross-dressingcross-gender roles/behaviorhomosocial environments/communitiesemotional /romantic bonds between womenfemale comrades/friendslove poetrymarriage between womensex between womenvocabulary (miscellaneous)Event / person: Rekhti poetry
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December 16, 2018
An Introduction to Studying Lesbians in Asia
The Lesbian Historic Motif Project
I've rearranged the order the next several publications come in, because this one seemed like a good one to kick off the sequence of material on Asia. I feel very self-conscious about how thoroughly Euro-centric the majority of the Project is, but at the same time, I have many of the same limitations discussed in this article. In particular, I'm largely limited to material published in English. But I've added half a dozen new items to my to-do list and maybe they'll point me towards some other useful sources.
Major category: LHMPTags: LHMP
LHMP #226 Garber 2005 Where in the World are the Lesbians?
About LHMP
Full citation:
Garber, Linda. 2005. “Where in the World are the Lesbians?” in Journal of the History of Sexuality 14.1-2: 28-50.
Garber details the thought process that went into developing an LGBTQ course for her university’s “global” core requirement, resulting in a course on Asian Gay and Lesbian Cultures. Garber’s academic focus was 20th century US lesbian writers so she worked in collaboration with a colleague with a focus on Asian history and literature.
Developing the curriculum ran into two major challenges: needing to use source material available in English (based on the target student body) and what Garber introduces as “the Woman Problem in Queer Studies”, that is the historic overwhelming focus on men and male issues in both academic and politically-oriented groups addressing issues of sexuality. This has regularly become a viscious circle where male domination of supposedly inclusive groups and fields has resulted in those interested in female topics branching off and forming separate, woman-focused groups, which only intensifies the tendency for the “general” field to be left to men’s issues (which then intensifies the impression that men's experiences are the "default" while women are a special case). These twin issues of participation and representation have shaped the nature of both academic queer studies and political activism. The study of the history of homosexuality too often becomes the study of the history of male homosexuality, with women relegated to footnotes or ignored with a shrug as being a complication. (In the introduction to one author’s book on same-sex sexuality in Japan, he notes that “female-female sexuality in Japan demands a more thoroughgoing treatment than I am able to give it here.” after devoting an entire tome to male-male sexuality.)
This tendency has been recapitulated as queer studies and politics expand into a more global focus, even as many non-western cultures resist the hegemony of specifically western images and understandings of variant sexuality. What Garber found while developing her syllabus was that nearly all book-length studies about queer topics in Asia were written by and about men, and even anthologies favored men over women significantly. The connection between male authors and male topics is not solely one of personal interest: there are often social barriers to men doing sociological research among female homosexual communities.
The authors frequently excuse their exclusive focus by noting that the cultures they study did not view male and female homosexuality as having common factors (and therefore that it doesn't make sense to treat them together), or simply that material on women is scarce (which it is, when you're looking in male-oriented spaces). This last argument, made by Bret Hinsch in Passions of the Cut Sleeve: The Male Homosexual Tradition in China is contradicted by the sources discussed by Sang Tze-lan in The Emerging Lesbian: Female Same-Sex Desire in Modern China.
Another hazard of the field is studying the ways in which non-western approaches to sexuality differ from western ones, as well as how the introduction of western medical and psychological theories changed those regional understandings. Thus, for example, the problem of interpreting Japanese discussions of women’s same-sex or cross-gender behavior without forcing it into English terminology. Another face of this problem is in using Foucault’s approach to the definition of homosexuality, which, when applied in a strict sense, excludes any consideration of sexuality prior to 1870 or outside the West. That is, if one defines the topic of one’s study as “homosexuality” and defines “homosexuality” as a concept of fixed personal orientation specific to post-1870 western culture, then it isn’t possible to research, for example, “homosexuality in pre-modern China.”
There are historic traditions of acceptance of same-sex love in China, Japan, and India, but in all cases these traditions were disrupted by the introduction of western pathologizing of homosexuality, enforced via colonialsm. Or, alternately, by a transfer of association of same-sex love to western influence, which erased the pre-existing tradition of tolerance. The “Foucauldian Orthodoxy” is being challenged by scholars of sexuality working within their own cultures and rediscovering those pre-existing historic traditions, such as work by Ruth Vanita and Gita Thadani on India.
Vanita points out that works such as the Kamasutra treat male and female sexuality in parallel, and work to develop a categorization of identities based on sexual behavior and desires. Other literary traditions from the subcontinent include medieval Perso-Urdu poems in the ghazal (love poem) genre (though usually involving love between men), or the use in Urdu poetry of the term chapti (clining or sticking together) for sex between woman and for women who engage in it.
Considerations of terminology and the categories they imply are central to any study of this type. Garber notes Judith Halberstram’s discussion in Female Masculinity about how to develop a framework for studying pre-modern cross-gender behavior in a way that doesn’t evaluate individuals against a modern template of the “lesbian”. Issues of anachronistic application of terminology are always present in historical studies, of course, even when working with more everyday concepts like “family, marriage, slave, master, law, woman, or man.”
This approach to historic subjectivity can come in conflict with modern social movements that see the claiming of international identity terms like “lesbian” as a refusal to accept a social tolerance that requires silence and anonymity. But at the same time, the development of a culturally-specific vocabulary for queer sexuality can founder on the rocks of a multitude of nuanced terms with no clear agreement on umbrella terms. (Examples are given from Japan and China.) The study of this vocabulary and its cultural context--even when it fails to align with western concepts of homosexuality--provides a path for the inclusion of women’s lives and voices in studies of sexuality.
Garber closes with a literature review of resources she considered for her syllabus. I’ve included the ones that look relevant and interesting to my readership below (as well as adding them to the “shopping list” for the Project). There is also a catalog of modern (20th century) writers who represented their own love for women in their work, such as Japanese poet Yosano Akiko, feminist Miyamoto Yuriko and her partner jounalist Yuasa Yoshiko. Authors from India include Kamala Das (writing in English and Malayalam), Urdu novelist Ismat Chughtai. Diasporic writers mentioned include Anchee Min’s memoir of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Gail Tsukiyama’s historic novels, and Margaret Topley’s historical essays.
Garber also discusses representations of same-sex love in modern television and cinema in Asia.
Readings mentioned that are of particular interest
Tze-Lan, Sang. 2003. The Emerging Lesbian: Female Same-Sex Desire in Modern China. Chicago. pp.44-45
Robertson, Jennifer. 1998. Takarazuka: Sexual Politics and Popular Culture in Modern Japan. Berkeley. p.68
Vanita, Ruth and Saleem Kidwai, eds. 2000. Same-Sex Love in India: Readings from Literature and History. St. Martin’s, New York.
Vanita, Ruth (ed). 2002. Queering India: Same-Sex Love and Eroticism in Indian Culture and Society. New York.
Thadani, Giti. 1996. Sakhiyani: Lesbian Desire in Ancient and Modern India. Cassell, London. ISBN 0-304-33452-9
Ng, Vivien. 1997. “Looking for Lesbians in Chinese History” in Duberman, Martin (ed) A Queer World. New York.
Robertson, Jennifer. 1999. “Dying to Tell: Sexuality and Suicide in Imperial Japan” in Signs 25, no. 1: 1-35.
Robertson, Jennifer (ed). 2004. Same-Sex Cultures and Sexualities. Malden MA.
Place: ChinaIndiaJapanMisc tags: cross-dressinghomosocial environments/communitiesmarriage resistancesex between womensexual/romantic desire
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December 2, 2018
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 29c - Book Appreciation with Carrie Pack
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 29c - Book Appreciation with Carrie Pack - (no transcript available)
(Originally aired 2018/12/15 - listen here)
In the Book Appreciation segments, our featured authors (or your host) will talk about one or more favorite books with queer female characters in a historic setting.
In this episode Carrie Pack recommends some favorite queer historical novels:
Ash by Malinda Lo (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
Pulp by Robin Talley (Harlequin Teen)
Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters (Riverhead Books)
No transcript is available for this episode
Major category: LHMPTags: LHMPpodcast
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 29b - Interview with Carrie Pack
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 29b - Interview with Carrie Pack - (no transcript available)
(Originally aired 2018/12/08 - listen here)
A series of interviews with authors of historically-based fiction featuring queer women.
In this episode we talk about
The riot girl movement of the 1990s
The importance of girls in zine culture
Writing near-past fiction
Sensitive writing for the contemporary reader
Carrie’s podcast: Bi Sci Fi for queer-friendly speculative fiction
Different experiences with SFF and YA books
Researching the facts of your own past
Publications mentioned:
Grrrls on the Side by Carrie Pack (Duet)
The Riot Grrrl Collection edited by Lisa Darms (The Feminist Press at CUNY)
No transcript is available for this episode
Major category: LHMPTags: LHMPpodcast
November 28, 2018
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 29a - On the Shelf for December 2018
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 29a - On the Shelf for December 2018 - Transcript
(Originally aired 2018/12/01 - listen here)
Welcome to On the Shelf for December 2018.
December starts with a reminder that the podcast will be open for fiction submissions during the month of January. We’re looking for lesbian-themed historic short stories of up to 5000 words. We pay professional rates both for the story and to the narrators. See the link in the show notes for full details and please publicize this call to other venues so we have an even harder time choosing among the wonderful submissions than we did last year.
Conference
If you’re interested in the geekier academic side of researching and writing historical fiction, you might want to know about the Historical Fictions Research Network. They have a website and online journal at historicalfictionsresearch-dot-org and will be holding their fourth annual conference in Manchester England in February 2019. The website says the following about their conference:
“The Historical Fictions Research Network aims to create a place for the discussion of all aspects of the construction of the historical narrative. The focus of the conference is the way we construct history, the narratives and fictions people assemble and how. Recent keynotes have explored the experiences of excavations at Treblinka; the use of DNA to reconstruct historical narratives; explorations of memorial practices at battle fields; cookery as a means to explore the past; new insights resulting from a computer based re-construction of the battle of Trafalgar; and a discussion of new approaches at the Petrie Museum. We welcome both academic and practitioner presentations. We welcome people working on prose, drama, visual art, reception studies, musicology, museum displays, film, tv, gaming, wargaming, graphic novels, transformative works and any other areas engaged in the construction of narratives of the past.”
Publications on the Blog
In November, the blog started off with a mini-theme of classical Greek romance novels, starting with a translation of The Babyloniaka by Iamblichos, discussed in the podcast on sexuality in classical Rome, and a Christian adaptation of the genre for the apocryphal acts of the saints, where the romance arc is mapped onto two Christian women, Xanthippe and Polyxena.
Following this, I began a series of articles about the late 18th century to go along with last month’s essay on sculptor Anne Damer. These included the social and political forces that resulted in the Sex Panic of the 1790s, which precipitated a shift in English images of the feminine ideal to a domestic, sexless maternal figure. Another article looked into the contents of the French Mémoires secrets, a sort of politically-tinged gossip rag about doings at the French court in the time leading up to the Revolution.
Continuing the 18th century theme in December, we have an article on representations of sapphism in 18th century English literature. And as a contrast to sexuality among the middle and upper classes, Theo Van der Meer digs through legal archives in Amsterdam to turn up case histories of women who ran afoul of the law in the context of sexual relations with other women.
Fiction Series
I haven’t settled on what publications to cover at the end of the month, but I have a couple of books on the history of same-sex relations in India that would go nicely with the last of our original fiction series for 2018: “At the Mouth” by Gurmika Mann. Mann has written a delightful, if bittersweet story of young love and making hard choices.
Book Shopping! Oops, Movie Shopping!
I have no new book acquisitions to talk about, so I’ll take the time to talk up a new movie that listeners should definitely track down. The Favourite, starring Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz, and Emma Stone is a costume drama set in the early 18th century about England’s Queen Anne and her romantic friendships with two of her courtiers: the brillliant and politically savvy Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, and Churchill’s protégée and eventual rival for the queen’s affections, Abigail Masham. I can guarantee you at least a bit of homoerotic tension, possibly even more. It’s hard to know without having seen it yet. The movie is likely to have limited distribution in art-house theaters, though it’s already won some major awards, so do your research and track it down before it goes away.
Essay
And because it’s as good an inspiration as any other, I’m going to do the December essay on Queen Anne and the rumors of lesbianism that surrounded her intimate circle of favorites. I’ll have a book recommendation or two that tie in with the topic. And I may possibly rope in a guest to discuss the movie with. No promises, but I’ll do some sort of review to let you know what I thought of it. Would listeners be interested in regular episodes about historic movies of lesbian interest? Let me know--I have quite a collection on video, and if there’s enough interest I could do mini reviews on occasion.
Author Guest
This month’s author guest will be Carrie Pack, whose YA novel Grrrrls on the Side looks back at the riot girl movement of the 1990s and the rise of zine culture. The ‘90s may seem just a blink of an eye ago to some of us, but for the target teenage readership of the book, it’s ancient history. Carrie will also be doing our book appreciation show this month.
[Sponsor break]
Recent Lesbian Historical Fiction
For this month’s list of new and forthcoming historical fiction, I’ve turned up 9 books, starting with several I missed when they came out in October. Because lesbian books often don’t have Amazon listings or advance publicity until they’re actually released, the timing of when I put these shows together means that I may not be able to mention a book until the show two months later. If you know of any upcoming lesbian historical books, or if you have one coming up that has a scheduled release date, drop me an email to make sure I include it. People are starting to get the word that the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast is a go-to resource for information about books, and I’d like to make it as complete as I can.
Back in October, we have book 2 in Olivia Lark’s “The Flowers” series, published by Three Bunny Farm Press. The title is Lavender Inn and it’s an independent story from the first of the series and is set in the 1890s somewhere on the Atlantic Coast. Here’s the blurb.
As Lavender Inn shakes under the hurricane's onslaught, other storms whirl within. Clara Winslow's struggling seaside inn needs a successful society wedding, but a big storm will take it out of her hands. Wedding guest Tillie Walker is stylish and kind, but she is harboring secrets, secrets that could get in the way of the growing fascination between her and glorious, windswept Clara. Can a catastrophe be the salvation of two women near ruin? Lavender Inn is a standalone romance set in 1890, with the kind of tender happily-ever-after readers enjoyed in Daisy Crown.
October also saw a couple of stories about hard-riding western women in male-coded professions.
Naomi Muse’s self-published Whiskey and Cinnamon has the following description:
Sloan had a hard enough time being a female bounty hunter in the West. With only her trusty steed Whiskey by her side, she went through town after town righting wrongs. Her methods worked well until she encountered the Franklin brothers terrorizing the women in a small town. Sloan always had a soft spot for women, and she will not let these ruffians have their way with them. Will enlisting the help of a local legend be enough to defeat her new foes?
Red Hope brought out The Triple L published by Little Red Wings.
In 1878, Landen Morrison is a wandering cowgirl with an ugly past that keeps finding her, even when she rides into Texas. She goes to the town of Paris, looking for work, alcohol, and sex but she accidentally lets her guard slip around Raleigh Baylor, the only female Ranger in Paris, Texas. Despite her attempts, Raleigh watches Landen leave Paris but is later shocked to learn Landen has suddenly joined the infamous Sam Bass Gang. Several train robberies later, a war ensues between the rangers and the Bass Gang, one that includes a personal battle of justice and betrayal between the two opposing women. As the conflict comes to a bloody end, the truth of Landen's lies is revealed. Can Raleigh's love conquer Landen's dark past, or has she lost her forever?
Author Emilie Blondel has two self-published erotic stories either out or just coming out. They appear to be in the short story range and look to have a fairly high heat rating.
In “Her Royal Servant” beautiful blonde Anne-Marie was born into a lowly life, working on a small market in the city of Paris. She dreams of one day escaping, and although she knows she can make an extra livre or two by giving the young men of Paris her favours, she has never felt interested in the company of men. When she buys herself a flirtatious new outfit one day, spending all her meagre savings, she is surprised to discover that it is not just men who seem interested in her now. In fact, she attracts the interest of one of the wealthiest, most beautiful women in the whole of France. When she is taken back to the Palace of Versailles, in order to be this gentlewoman's special servant, she is amazed how good it feels to finally find someone worth serving. Her world, from now on, is full of majesty.
And coming out in December from the same author is “Bellatrix's Slave”
When innocent eighteen-year-old Aurelia is told by her father that she must attend the Colosseum with him, to watch a gladiator fight, she is not pleased. Until, that is, she discovers that the gladiators are hot, strong, powerful women... The winning gladiator, a muscular and dominating warrior named Bellatrix is told that she may choose a man from the audience to be her slave for the night. But she chooses a woman. She chooses Aurelia. Aurelia soon learns what it is like to be completely under her Mistress' control...
November releases include another erotic short story, “The Queen's Gift” by Lara Zielinsky, published by LZ Media.
The brief blurb tells us: “Pirate Captain "Bloody Mary" Flint diverts Lady Anne Coleridge from her fate as a lady in waiting to the English Queen. A lesbian romantic adventure on the 18th century high seas.”
Hard on the heels of Vanda’s third book in the Juliana series is book 4 Heaven is to your Left published by Sans Merci Press. Here’s the blurb:
It’s 1956. In Heaven is to Your Left Alice (Al) and Juliana arrive home from a successful run at Le Lido in Paris, only to be greeted by Dan Schuyler who has threatened to reveal to the world the nature of their “immoral” relationship. Under this threat Schuyler has gotten Juliana to sign a contract with him to be in a Broadway play. Now, the control and manipulation begins. Al seeks a way to free Juliana from this man’s clutches. She turns to Max, accomplished businessman, owner of two night clubs, to help her. There must be something he can do; he has friends who are gangsters. Still, Max does nothing. Or does he? Al knows she has to act. She knows gangsters too.
There are two December releases in addition to the short story previously mentioned. Lily Maxon offers a novella that sounds like it has either a Regency or Victorian setting, the self-published A Lady’s Desire.
Lady Sarah Lark has never had much interest in any of the suitors that surround her. She’s decided that, instead of choosing a husband, she’ll save her pin money and travel like she’s always wanted to. However, her plans are interrupted when her family invites her cousin’s widow, Winifred Wakefield, to stay with them.
S. D. Simper offers us a re-imagining of Sheridan LeFanu’s classic lesbian vampire tale, in Carmilla and Laura published by Endless Night Publications. Here’s the blurb:
In the late 19th century, Laura lives a lonely life in a schloss by the forest, Styria, with only her doting father and two governesses for company. A chance accident brings a new companion, however – the eccentric and beautiful Carmilla. With charm unparalleled and habits as mysterious as her history, Carmilla’s allure is undeniable, drawing Laura closer with every affectionate touch and word. Attraction blossoms into a temptation Laura fears to name, a tantalizing passion burning brighter than the fires of hell. But when a mysterious plague begins stealing the lives of young women in her home and the village beyond, Laura wrestles to reconcile the truth – that the gentle, fragile woman she loves may be a monster cast out of heaven. Carmilla, the classic vampire novella written by J Sheridan LeFanu, receives new life in this gorgeous retelling, centered on the provocative, controversial leads of the original, Carmilla and Laura.
Ask Sappho
For this month’s Ask Sappho segment, I thought I’d pass on an interesting archaeological find that might spark some story ideas. I got this story from the website Ancient Origins, who cite articles in Discovery News and Mail Online among their sources.
The find comes from the latrine of an 18th century school of swordsmanship in the Baltic city of Gdańsk now part of Poland. Among finds such as wooden practice swords, broken pottery, and jewelry, they found a well-preserved leather dildo. It is about 8 inches long, is stuffed with hair, and has a carved wooden tip. The archaeologists suggest that given the location of the find and the construction of the object it was more likely “used for personal pleasure than for ...ritual.” The article has a more extensive discussion of the history of dildos both as ritual objects and as sex toys, if you’re interested in following the link in the show notes.
But when I read this article, I immediately thought of various historic records of female-bodied persons using an artificial penis as part of living a male role, including for having sexual relations with a woman. People like Katherina Hetzeldorfer in 15th century Germany, Eleno de Céspedes in 16th century Spain, Catherine Vizzani in 18th century Italy, and Catharina Margaretha Lincken in 18th century Germany. My imagination went spinning off into a gender-disguise story: a young woman who aspires to be a swordswoman masquerades as a man to enter the school, and then...
Well, someone will have to take up the tale and tell us the rest of it. 18th century Gdańsk was quite a happening place, with plenty of opportunity for adventure and peril, as well as the challenges of disguise and--dare we hope it--romance? In fact, there’s still time for someone to give it a try for next year’s fiction series!
* * *
Books Mentioned
Lavender Inn by Olivia Lark (Three Bunny Farm Press)
Whiskey and Cinnamon by Naomi Muse (self-published)
The Triple L by Red Hope (Little Red Wings)
“Her Royal Servant” by Emilie Blondel (self-published, short story)
“Bellatrix's Slave” by Emilie Blondel (self-published, short story)
“The Queen's Gift” by Lara Zielinsky (LZ Media)
Heaven is to your Left (Juliana book 4) by Vanda (Sans Merci Press)
A Lady’s Desire by Lily Maxon (self-published)
Carmilla and Laura by S.D. Simper (Endless Night Publications)
Major category: LHMPTags: LHMPpodcast
November 27, 2018
Interview on the BiSciFi Podcast
Alpennia Logo
It wasn't quite meant as a direct exchange, but December's LHMPodcast guest is going to be Carrie Pack, and I'm appearing on her podcast show BiSciFi. Check it out!
Major category: PromotionTags: podcast
November 25, 2018
Social Disruption in 18th c Amsterdam
The Lesbian Historic Motif Project
This is the article that Donoghue references with respect to possible evidence of 18th century women in Amsterdam having meeting places for engaging in same-sex activities. The evidence is fairly tenuous but at least indicates that there may have been clusters of women who came together around this shared interest. But in considering the women discussed in this article one needs to keep in mind the nature of the record. When you’re looking at evidence for sexual behavior from trial records, one is necessarily going to be considering the lives of people who have done something they’ve been put on trial for. And in the way of the world, the question of who gets put on trial for transgressive sexual behavior is not neutral with respect to things like class and occupation. All of these women were poor, had marginal roles in society, and had a history of socially disruptive behavior.
Van der Meer comes to a tentative conclusion that there was a tradition of sex between women that was strongly associated with socially disruptive behaviors (e.g., drunkenness) and with prostitution. But I think he fails to consider the extent to which most women whose lives were detailed in court records had similar backgrounds, even when the offenses didn’t involve same-sex activities. These records certainly indicate that there was a general awareness of the possibilities (and techniques) of sex between women, and that people of that time don’t seem to have considered homosexual acts to require a specific and restricted interest in women as partners. But I don’t think that this set of data necessarily gives us an accurate picture of all sexual possibilities between women in that time and place, any more than the theories of late 19th century physicians about their homosexual patients did. A "respectable" middle-class woman who did not engage in public drunkenness or brawling wasn't going to end up in a court record discussing her sex life regardless of what went on in her bed. So a thoery of the development of lesbian identity in the Netherlands that looks narrowly at the evidence of trial records is going to come up with flawed conclusions.
But the larger historical picture is made up of small, specific individual topics like this. Then to see the whole, we need to put them together and take a few steps back.
Major category: LHMPTags: LHMP
LHMP #225 Van der Meer 1991 Tribades on Trial: Female Same-Sex Offenders in Late Eighteenth-Century Amsterdam
About LHMP
Full citation:
Van der Meer, Theo. 1991. “Tribades on Trial: Female Same-Sex Offenders in Late Eighteenth-Century Amsterdam” in Journal of the History of Sexuality 1:3 424-445.
Van der Meer presents the details and circumstances of trial records from several late 18th century cases in Amsterdam, Netherlands of women arrested for events involving sexual activity with women. Sodomy trials of men were not uncommon in this context, often occurring in “waves” when some particularly eager administration pursued the cases. But the conviction and exile in 1792 of Bets Wiebes for lying upon another woman “in the way a man is used to do when he has carnal conversation with his wife” appears to be the first case of that type known from records.
The trial of Bets Wiebes falls just before one of the periods of prosecutions for sodomy, and given that there were also three other trials for “tribadism” in the following years, they seem to have been part of a general uptick in pursuing moral offenses. One of the judges involved in the cases kept a private journal in which he describes the accused of engaging in “caresses and filthy things”, “sodomitical filthiness” or “evil malignities”.
In all, Van der Meer identified cases involving 12 women, out of a total of about 600 total people prosecuted for same-sex offenses in the Netherlands in the 18th century. Such prosecutions ended in 1811 with the introduction of the French penal code in Holland, which did not criminalize same-sex acts.
Prior to the 1792 prosecution of Wiebes, there were certainly references to women having sex with women, as in the following observation from 1750 by the former landlady of two Amsterdam women (age 50 and 60). They were “living as if they were man and wife...feeling and touching one another under their skirts and at their bosoms....yes, she had even seen how in broad daylight while committing several brutalities Mooije Marijtje lay down on Dirkje Vis, having both of them lifted their skirts and their front bodies being completely naked, Marijtje made movements as if she were a male person having to do with a female.”
Van der Meer also refers the reader to the cases involving both cross-dressing and same-sex acts in Dekker and van de Pol 1989. In particular, the famous case of Hendrikje Verschuur “the heroine of Breda” who joined the army as a man and took part in the siege of Breda in 1637. Hendrikje had sexual relations with several women, including Trijntje Barends about whom it was said “they had been so besotted with one another that they would have liked to marry if it had been possible.”
But the 18th c. cases described in the present article did not involve cross-dressing and the women involved were prosecuted specifically for sexual activity, though in some cases it came to light in the context of a different charge. As in the trial records of male sodomites, the sexual acts are recorded in explicit detail (providing a type of data that is otherwise rare for women). In general, reports of women’s same-sex activities come from popular literature or pornography and focus on the motif of unusually large clitorises or the use of dildoes.
The following are summaries of the trial evidence and background. In circumstances, the cases were all fairly different from each other apart from the sexual accusations. Although physical acts were discussed, the emotional relationships between the women were generally not noted unless used as leverage to persuade testimony.
Bets Wiebes & Martha Schuurman
Bets Wiebes was involved in a romantic and sexual triangle with two other women: Catharina de Haan and Bartha Schuurman. Wiebes and Schuurman lived together and had a sexual relationship, but Wiebes had begun a separate covert relationship with de Haan. Schuurman, in a jealous rage, murdered de Haan. Initially Schuurman accused Wiebes of the murder (and so was released) at which Wiebes went into hiding dressed as a man and with cropped hair in order to avoid testifying against Schuurman. When finally arrested, Wiebes claimed she was too drunk to remember what happened on the night in question, but Schuurman was arrested again for further interrogation and three months later Wiebes changed her testimony to accuse Schuurman, after which Schuurman confessed. (There were various threats of torture involved in these interrogations and confessions but torture was never actually used.) When asked about her shifting testimony, Wiebes indicated she was trying to protect Schuurman who had a child to care for.
Schuurman testified that she had been jealous of de Haan because of the “dirty lusts” that Wiebes had engaged in with both of them. She described how “during the time they had lived together, Bets Wiebes many a time had lain upon her in the way a man is used to do withen he had carnal conversation with this wife and that they had known one another in this way.” Wiebes denied the sexual relationship, even when neighbors testified that “she used to caress Schuurman’s breasts and put her head in her lap.”
Schuurman was executed (for the murder) and Wiebes was exiled from the city for 6 years (for the sexual offense).
There is more information about the backstory of these women. Wiebes seems to have had long-term behavioral problems. Her mother had her committed to a workhouse for habitual drunkenness and theft. On her release, her mother had re-married, so Wiebes needed a new place to live. Schuurman offered her lodgings, and when Schuurman’s husband died at sea, the two relocated to a cheaper place together and set up in business selling news broadsides.
Wiebes had met de Haan in the workhouse and paid her regular visits after they both got out, which made Schuurman jealous. Schuurman burst into de Haan’s house to find the two of them drinking together and began quarreling. The upset continued for several days, with Schuurman shouting that she’d “make short work of this.” Schuurman again showed up at de Haan’s house when Weibes was there, but in a more friendly mood, which made the other two suspicious. But Weibes left them together. Later, Weibes returned to the home she shared with Schuurman only to find both Schuurman and de Haan there. At the moment of her entrance, Schuurman stabbed de Haan to death.
A possible complication? The coroner later described de Haan as being naked from the waist up. And why was de Haan at Schuurman’s place at all? Might the final side of the “triangle” have been completed?
The extent to which Weibes was willing to protect Schuurman, even to her own peril, suggests a strong emotional attachment.
Gesina Dekker, Willemijntje van der Steen, Pietertje Groenhof, Engeltje Blauwpaard
These four women, who apparently shared a house, were arrested in 1796 but the circumstances of their accusation were unclear. The house was rumored to be “a place where disreputable people gathered” possibly a brothel. The house was said to be one where women came to caress and kiss one another and feel under each other’s skirts. Gesina Dekker admitted that she lay on the floor with Engeltje Blauwpaard who performed digital stimulation in her vagina. Groenhof admitted to taking part in the caressing “after having been seduced with coffee and alcohol”. Blauwpaard, though she denied the accusations, was said to be very jealous over Dekker.
Other authors have interpreted these events as possibly indicating that the house was a known meeting place for women to have sex with each other.
Anna Grabou
Arrested in 1979 after her neighbors complained about verbal aggression. Grabou seems to have been generally bad-tempered, but also prone to making indecent proposals to her female neighbors. To one she suggested that they should hook up for sex when Grabou’s husband was away from home, with additional comments that she wanted to see her naked. To another she made comments about what she looked like “below your skirt.” To a third, she said, “you have something in your being that attracts both male and female” and expressed her love. To a fourth, Grabou boasted that she had sex every morning with her maid and that the maid preferred her to a man.
Christina Knip
Arrested in 1797 for raping a 14-year-old girl with a dildo. She invited the girl into her home, threw her on the bed, and forcibly penetrated her with a dildo tied around her body.
Anna Schreuder, Anna de Reus, Catrina Mantels, Anna Schierboom, Maria Smit
Arrested in 1798 for their own protection from a mob. Neighbors had suspected Schreuder and Smit of unspecified activities for some time and spied on them through a hole from a neighboring room while they were engaging in sex. The neighbors later testified that the two had lain together with their lower bodies naked, had kissed and caressed each other “like a man is used to do to a woman”, had moved up and down on each other, and finally that one had lifted her leg over the other’s shoulder who had then performed oral sex on her.
Evidently the peeping went on for several hours, with other neighbors being invited to watch, until finally one of the watchers yelled accusations at them. Schreuder and Smit left the room but the neighbors assembled a mob outside the house until the constables came and took all five women to the police station. Schreuer at first confessed to the neighbors’ accusations but later recanted claiming the police had threatened her with mutilation. The neighbors also accused the women of singing banned political songs but this does not appear to have been converted into a legal charge.
A regular theme across the trials appears to have been requests from the prosecution to be allowed to torture the women for confessions, which permission was never granted. Few of the women confessed to anything and most were released with a warning.
Susanna Marrevelt
This case never went to trial, but in a deposition, her husband’s uncle said he’d found Marrevelt and her maid embracing each other with “unnatural movements”, and one of the uncle’s servants said she’d seen Marrevelt and her maid touching each other’s genitals. Marrevelt's maid was also accused of fondling the other servant against her will, and took exception to this and pushed the other woman down the stairs, injuring her.
General observations
Many of the women in these accusations were married (as were many of the men prosecuted as sodomites) and in some cases had children. Most of them were impoverished, with marginal jobs, if any. Several had spent time in a workhouse for drunkenness or anti-social behavior. Some had worked as prostitutes, and in some cases their eventual sentence was for heterosexual sex work rather than homosexual acts. Unlike the men prosecuted for sodomy, the women don’t seem to have had a pattern of participating in a homosexual network, or having other behavioral characteristics suggesting a sexuality-related identity. The exception being van der Steen’s house, which may have been a regular meeting place for lesbian encounters.
Looking at the timeline of prosecutions of sodomites (including women), when the first wave occurred in 1730 there was a lack of public interest in the issue. People didn’t perceive sodomy as criminal and weren’t eager to turn their neighbors in to the authorities for it, even when they’d been aware of their habits for years. Generally the law was invoked when there was also verbal or physical aggression. But in some cases extra-legal punishments were committed by those same neighbors.
The women involved in these cases were often considered a bit crazy by their neighbors, though examples given of this may seem sane to us, as when Knip’s neighbor asked why she hadn’t married and her response was, “Just to fuck? I can do that myself.” The mob peeping at Schreuder and her partner may not have intended to involve the authorities at all, but that became unavoidable when a riot broke out. When Susanna Marrevelt’s husband was complained to by his uncle, he replied it was none of the uncle's business.
But that doesn’t mean that the women’s sexual activities were treated as of no consequence by their families. While Gersina Dekker was in prison, her husband began separation proceedings. Anna Grabou’s husband used the trial evidence to initiate a divorce. Overall, though, sex between women was treated less severely than sex between men with sentences being about half the length and often reduced further.
But as the century progressed, both law and religion began to develop a framing of sodomy as being part of an expected progression of moral failing. Once one had fallen into drunkenness, gambling, swearing, etc., sodomy was sure to follow. It represented “the world turned upside down” and in the last quarter of the century, stereotypical ideas of “manliness” became equated with the health of the state. This made sodomites a social hazard. Sex between women was not viewed as presenting this same social hazard.
There is a review of vocabulary associated with sex between women (including the mistaken claim that the word “lesbian” didn’t exist in the 18th century). In addition to the usual Latin terms (tribades, fricatrices, subigatrices) that were generally restricted to legal or theological contexts, the court records discussed here used vernacular terms translated as “tribadism”, “evil malignities”, “sodomitical filthiness” and two Dutch terms are mentioned: sodomieterije (sodomy) only once used in reference to a woman, and terms derived from the verb lollen (to foul) which the article notes as “no longer existing” evidently meaning in the modern language.
The verb stem lol- appears in a number of sex-related compounds with a sense of disapproval: lolhoeren (foul whores), lolder (sodomite, but apparently only for men?), lolhuis (literally “foul house”, brothel). Possibly by the 19th century, certainly in the 20th, the compound lollepot was used for lesbians and in contemporary word pot is used similarly to “dyke”. (Van der Meer suggests that like the origin of “bugger” in a reference to a specific religious heresy, lollen may have its roots from the medieval Lollard heretical sect.) While references to male sodomites tended to treat them as an identifiable behavior-based category, tribadism was viewed as part of a general pattern of female misbehavior associated with drunkenness and prostitution.
Although Dutch laws of the 18th century did not specifically include women under the topic of sodomy, commentary on the law indicated that individuals prosecutors considered that sex between women was covered. But although the prescribed penalty for sodomy was death, this was rarely the sentence unless anal intercourse was involved, which may explain why the women’s sentences were fairly lenient. Furthermore, all the cases that went to trial involved some sort of public nuisance beyond simple sexual behavior. There may also have been personal discretion on the part of individual prosecutors whether they chose to pursue women under the sodomy statute. After the French invasion of 1795 there was a period of increased prosecution of same-sex acts which seems to have been driven by the zeal of a specific official. Another aspect of the distribution of prosecutions was the large proportion of women’s charges that were for moral offenses, with a substantial increase in the last decade of the 18th century. These were frequently driven by the request of family or community that a person be confined for “immoral behavior” that was felt to be disruptive.
This increased focus on the role of individual morality in the context of social welfare and good citizenship was occurring throughout western Europe at the end of the 18th century. For men, the pressure was to avoid the appearance of effeminacy, for women, to avoid any association with prostitution. Because of the popular association of tribadism with prostitution, it came in for scrutiny as a general marker of immorality.
Lesbian Identity?
The final part of the article considers whether any of the court cases provide evidence for the existence of something recognizable as a “lesbian identity” in the modern sense, proposing a genealogy rooted separately in the traditions of romantic friendship and female transvestism that then developed a stage of butch/femme roles in the 19th century and eventually produced the modern lesbian identity. [Note: I’m going to go ahead and say that I think this is a flawed question to begin with and assumes a linear and teleological development of modern identity.]
The romantic friendship tradition in the Netherlands is represented by authors Betje Wolff and Aagje Deken who lived together in the last quarter of the 18th century and also courted other women both before and during their cohabitation. They were not perceived as having a sexual relationship or having any conceptual connection to the sort of women being prosecuted for tribadism. (The zealous prosecutor of the 1790s was a personal friend of theirs.)
The article also points to the long tradition of female cross-dressers documented by Dekker and van de Pol. But van der Meer accepts the claim of those authors that cross-dressing women who engaged in relationships with other women would necessarily have perceived themselves to be “male” and that this could only be considered a precursor to the development of a concept of lesbianism, rather than a type of lesbian identity itself. [Note: Van der Meer doesn't seem to consider the parallel question of the development of a concept of transgender identity.]
But the women being prosecuted in the 18th century don’t fit neatly into either the romantic friendship tradition nor the cross-dressing tradition. Van der Meer suggests that this third tradition should be considered: one organized around generalized lewd behavior and association with prostitution. He compares the interpretations of Faderman and Trumbach with regard to the various factors at play around 1800, and with regard to women’s sexual identities, and leans toward a suggestion that if the sexual component of lesbian identity is considered the most important, above romantic bonds or butch/femme-type partnerships, then his “third category” may be the actual true precursor for modern lesbian identity. [Note: there are so many flaws in this line of reasoning I hardly know where to start, so I’ll just end.]
Time period: 18th cPlace: NetherlandsMisc tags: court caseemotional /romantic bonds between womenfemale co-habitationfemale sodomypenetrationprostitutessex between womenoral sexsexual techniquessexual/romantic desiretribadismlollepot (Dutch term)vocabulary (miscellaneous)Event / person: Bets Wiebes & Martha SchuurmanMooije Marijtje & Dirkje VisTrijntje Barents & Hendrickje LambertsDe Bredashe HeldinneGesina Dekker & Engeltje BlauwpaardAnna GrabouChristina KnipAnna Schreuder & Maria SmitSusanna Marrevelt
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November 23, 2018
A Brief Note on the Podcast
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast
For those who follow the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast, you may be aware that our umbrella organization, The Lesbian Talk Show, has begun using an sponsorship (i.e., ad-insertion) service (to help cover hosting costs and other overhead). The various shows are still fine-tuning how to set up our episodes to play well with the sponsor messages. It should all run more smoothly after some minor format changes. Apologies for any unexpected listening experiences.
Major category: LHMPTags: LHMPpodcast
November 22, 2018
Looking for a Third Gender on the Indian Subcontinent
The Lesbian Historic Motif Project
As I note at the beginning of this entry, I'm a bit uncertain about the viewpoint of this article. That's one of the reasons why I placed it at the end of the series on Indian topics, after several by authors working within their own cultural context. In general, I try to be careful about using sources for non-western cultures because of the colonial legacy even when western academics are studying gender and sexuality from a positive point of view. In practice, this has often meant that the Project has included embarrassingly little material from outside Europe, the Mediterranean, and Euro-American cultures. I try to keep my eyes open for promising sources to counter that imbalance but not at the expense of the quality of the contents. This one was a bit on the edge for me, though I'm a little more comfortable with it after reviewing Thadani's work.
Major category: LHMPTags: LHMP
LHMP #229 Penrose 2001 Hidden in History: Female Homoeroticism and Women of a ‘Third Nature’ in the South Asian Past
About LHMP
Full citation:
Penrose, Walter. 2001. “Hidden in History: Female Homoeroticism and Women of a ‘Third Nature’ in the South Asian Past” in Journal of the History of Sexuality 10:3-39.
[Note: I have some reservations about this article because it feels very much like a western outsider using primarily western/translated sources to try to say big-picture things about gender and sexuality in South Asia. There is a fair amount of speculative language (“such women could have...”) and conflation of historic evidence from wildly disparate times and places whose primary common theme is “not part of western Christian culture.” Take it for what it’s worth.]
Penrose looks at a variety of evidence to see if he can reconstruct a picture of variant gender and sexuality roles for women in South Asia (primarily the Indian subcontinent) in the pre-colonial past. In modern India, colonial attitudes (to some extent, reinforced by the interests of Hindu nationalism) have suppressed traditional roles falling outside a gender binary. Traditional roles such as hijras have been re-framed as falling into western concepts of transgender rather than being seen as distinct and independent from male or female.
Modern Indian society has no role parallel to hijras for women (or to be more precise, for persons assigned female at birth “AFAB”) and modern Indian women who identify as lesbians come into conflict with strongly patriarchal cultural imperatives toward marriage. But Penrose traces historic remnants and suggestions of “third gender” and gender-variant roles for Indian women in the past, starting with anthropological data from isolated traditional societies, references in ancient Sanskrit texts, and later historical documents.
Penrose begins by reviewing a theoretical framework for studying third/fourth-gender roles in indigenous North American societies which can be defined by the following characteristics: economic specialization (that is, specific economic roles apart from those associated with men or women), special ritual/religious functions, and gender difference or same-sex relations associated with non-procreation. Within Native American societies there are a variety of gender role systems that may include either a third gender or both a third and fourth gender, depending on whether AMAB and AFAB non-binary people are treated as a single category or two different categories. When considering third/fourth gender categories worldwide, it becomes clear that the development of variant gender categories is not related to the degree of gender difference within the society as both highly patriarchal and more gender-egalitarian societies may have them. Further, non-binary gender roles do not automatically correlate with non-heterosexual activity, as variant genders may include the renunciation of sexual activity.
The first category under consideration for India, and the one with the strongest surviving tradition, is the hijra, most typically involving AMAB (assigned male at birth) people who typically undergo castration, but can also include intersex people or non-menstruating women. Hijras typically dress in female-coded clothing or a mixture of male and female garments and engage in special ceremonial roles associated with births and weddings, as well as in prostitution (with men). Social attitudes towards hijras have changed under colonial influence and hijras themselves may be redefining their understanding of their identity. Historically, the role was an accepted part of society in part because it was viewed as a group identity rather than an individual one, and in part because it was viewed as being part of individual spiritual evolution within the cycle of reincarnation.
When looking for parallel or equivalent female (or AFAB) roles, one encounters the strong pressure on women to marry and the negative social implications of refusing or failing to do so. But there are remnants of established roles for non-married women in some isolated traditional societies, such as the sadhins among the Gaddhi people in the Himalayan foothills. The root of the word means “a holy person” but unlike the masculine sadhu it doesn’t identify someone with religious obligations but rather a “sworn celibate woman.” Such women renounce marriage but continue to live with their families, retain female names, and are referred to with feminine language. They may socialize as women but may also on occasion socialize as men. The renunciation must occur at puberty, in contrast to other female ascetics who may change their status later in life after marriage or widowhood. A sadhu who later changes her mind and has sex with men is stigmatized.
The more common form of Hindu female aseticism involves a renunciation of the material world performed later in life, which does not follow the usual understanding of a separate gender role.
There are records in the 1890s of a category of Hindu women called basivis who would be given male privileges and be allowed to wear male clothing in order to bury their parents and pass on the family name, which by definition also involved being permitted to have sexual relations and bear children. (It isn’t clear whether this would be a life-long role or a temporary one.)
The sadhins don’t meet the three-part framework for a “third gender” established above as they take on male economic roles (rather than a specialized separate economic position), do not perform ritual functions, and are not associated with same-sex activity.
A different context is associated with a group of “transvestite” men and women in southern India associated with devotion to the goddess Yellamma who change gender presentation in terms of clothing and are considered to have changed sex (rather than being a distinct and separate gender category), and are known respectively as jagappa (for those AMAB) and jagamma (for those AFAB). Membership in this group is considered to be divinely mandated and is signaled by a set of conventional physical symptoms. On accepting membership, a jagamma will typically change to wearing male garments, but they do not typically adopt male names, use male pronouns, or take on male professions. Both jagammas and jagappas participate in public ritual functions associated with membership.
Leaving the possible modern examples, Penrose looks for deep historic roots for third-gender functions, starting with physical artifacts from the Indus Valley civilization and then looking for potential connections with Mesopotamian and Sumerian traditions from the Bronze Age. [Note: In my opinion, this is reaching a bit and smacks of “all ancient civilizations can be equated with each other. Penrose suggests similarities between hijras and the galli associated with various mother goddess cults in the Mediterranean region. Like I say, I think he’s stretching here.]
Early legendary material from India includes divinely mediated change of sex, in contexts where the change is motivated by misogynist or heteronormative imperatives. A queen who had given birth to seven daughters and no sons was told her next child must be a son. The resulting daughter, Amba, was raised as a boy. When she married, her true sex was discovered but she was able to become physically male by exchanging sex with a supernatural creature. In various stories, a princess is disguised as a prince and changes sex (by entering a body of water) in order to marry another woman. [Note: if I were reaching widely across cultures and time periods for thematic connections, I might note the motif of the bath in the context of magical sex-change in the story of Yde and Olive.]
Sanskrit religious and medical texts provide ambiguous and confusing hints at possible third-gender roles for women. The confusion is increased when western translations of the works impose ill-fitting categories on them via vocabulary choice. References to a tritiya prakriti (third nature) “one with neither masculine or feminine nature” have been interpreted as applying only to AMAB people who may take on female clothing or may undergo castration, but other interpretations suggest it includes cross-gender roles for both sexes. As the term appears in the context of sexual texts (the Kama Sutra), the term may be concerned specifically with roles associated with sexual activity. Within this context, the female term purushupini for a “third nature” may be connected with terms discussing “virile behavior in women” or women who take a “masculine role” in sex (e.g., penetration of either male and female partners). But much of the ambiguity comes from the focus in the text on male sexual activity and appropriate sexual partners for men, thus the possible implications of female same-sex relations are not explored.
The Kama Sutra does explicitly discuss female same-sex activity as a situational behavior when men are not available (e.g., in sex-segregated environments), but this doesn’t invoke a distinct gender category.
Another social category with sexual implications is sanvahika “women who do arduous work, women who carry burdens” but it isn’t clear that this is a gender category rather than an economic/class one.
The sexual role of svairini (who can take on a penetrative role) is problematic in translated works, which generally try to shoehorn it into meaning “lesbian”. Contextual examples seem to imply a meaning more like “a woman who operates sexually outside the normative female role.” For example the svairini is listed as a type of prostitute (or, at least, a type of woman with whom it’s permitted to engage in certain sex acts). But elsewhere it’s noted “Svairini are independent women who frequent their own kind or others.” (But does the “own kind/others” distinction mean “other svairini / non-svairini women” or “women/men”?) In another passage, “The svairini is one who refuses a husband and has relations in her own home or in other houses,” which could imply simple marriage resistance while rejecting celibacy. And elsewhere the svairini is specifically described as engaging in sex with women, but specifically in a penetrative role. So is the svairini a gender role or a sexual one?
Sanskrit medical literature touches on categories of variant women who may be infertile or who lack sexual desire (treated as functionally equivalent) due to actions by the parents during conception or before birth. But these are not consistent with a concept of a distinct gender role.
Penrose follows this with a long discussion of various gender-linked occupations that contradict traditional gender roles, such as female bodyguards and warriors, or “wandering nuns” who were not bound by traditional restrictions of female movement and association. The various passages on female guards/warriors are fascinating, but fall more in the category of occupation than gender category, despite the masculine coding of the underlying activities. There is, however, a passing reference to an Indian tradition of a (legendary) Amazon society known as Strirajya whose members engaged in same-sex erotics.
Women entering various ascetic religions traditions often left behind feminine-coded behaviors, e.g., by cutting their hair and no longer being considered sexual objects (though not necessarily renouncing sex).
The next section of the article discusses same-sex relations within homosocial environments such as harems and other sex-segregated palace arrangements. These institutions might recognize (and in some cases try to regulate) sex between women and might have institutionalized systems for women to educate each other in sexual techniques (either for their own satisfaction or for the benefit of their husbands). This might include some of the women or their female attendants dressing in male garments as part of sexual relations. (Which is the tenuous connection with the theme of the article, i.e., variant gender roles.) Examples are brought in from similar social arrangements in the Mediterranean Islamic world (of questionable relevance). This section includes a lot of speculative language regarding sex between women in harems that I’m skipping over.
Under British colonial rule, many of the social structures around variant gender roles were deliberately eliminated and traditions disrupted to the point where modern Indians often consider female same-sex relationships to be a Western import. This suppression on western “moral” grounds has, to some extent, been continued in the interests of Hindu nationalist identity, emphasizing hyper-masculine identity for men and an image of self-sacrifice and chastity for women.
But there is enough evidence to support an understanding of a variety of “separate gender” roles for AFAB people in the past, some with religious functions, some with economic basis, and some associated with specific sexual interests. The degree to which these roles were self-chosen may have varied. While the concept of a “third nature” was viewed, in some circumstances, as an inherent trait, there is no clear unifying single model, nor do the Indian examples clearly align with “third gender” roles in other traditional societies worldwide. The Indian subcontinent was settled by successive waves of invasion or migration across a long period and the disparate “third gender” roles may represent the remnants of many different traditions (and tend to be geographically localized). Even before the effects of colonialism, cultural influences that resulted in the decline of Buddhism and those associated with the Muslim invasions altered the nature and understanding of third-gender roles.
Place: IndiaMisc tags: cross-dressingcross-gender roles/behaviortransgender identityhomosocial environments/communitiesamazonsmartial activityprostitutessex between womensexual techniquesvocabulary (miscellaneous)
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