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Sunday, October 15, 2017 - 19:00
(If you’re unfamiliar with the phrase “the uncanny valley” in visual representation, this Wikipedia article is a useful start, especially the section on computer animation.)
I had something of an epiphany the other day when reading Nalo Hopkinson’s The Salt Roads and following discussions online about a recent lesbian romance novel and contemplating other books in my past that have poked at me in uncomfortable ways around the issue of representation. Representation in books is something of a hot topic these days-- the idea that everyone has a right to see the many facets of their own identity represented in the fiction they read, complicated by the nearly infinite number of intersectional combinations those identities can create.
My epiphany is this: sometimes I take more joy in a book that comes nowhere near to representing my own specific identities as long as it clearly shows a world in which I could exist. That is, where the individual points of representation are distributed widely enough across the spectrum of the possible that I can find myself in the interstices. Sometimes this can be more satisfying than a book that comes much closer to representing my own specific intersections and yet erases the possibility of some essential aspect.
The world represented in The Salt Roads is one in which it is an assumed and given fact that women have connections with other women. That those connections will be of widely varying types. And that those types will include a range of romantic, sensual, and erotic connections. The Salt Roads is a book that makes me feel like I exist somewhere within that world even though I have very little in common with the protagonists on the basis of culture, ethnicity, economic status, and life story. It isn’t that the characters represent me--none of them come close to representing my own romantic and sexual experiences--but that the world has a place for me within it.
What do I contrast this with? Books where women live lives of isolation. (Or where women don’t exist as multi-dimensional human beings at all.) Where all their key relationships are to men. Or where women are unremarkably exclusively heterosexual in every emotion and action without ever straying from that path. Books where every single character is driven by motivations that I find incomprehensible, with no indication that other possible motivations exist.
You might think that, as a lesbian, I would find a great deal of inclusion and representation within the field of lesbian fiction, but here’s where the other part of my epiphany kicks in. Contemporary lesbian romance--and that’s the core prototype and dominant market presence in the lesbian fiction industry--depicts a world in which women experience a fairly narrow range of types of relationships, interactions, and expectations. There is, as a rule, an expectation that there will be certain types of attraction, that relationships will progress according to certain types of scripts, and that the eventual goal is taken from a specific set of outcomes.
I can hear people saying, “But wait! There’s an incredibly wide variety of personality types and relationship shapes and plot arcs within lesbian romance,” but that comes from looking from inside that set of expectations. You aren’t comparing it to the possibility of what could be. It’s a bit like being a white American and looking at an entire literary genre and seeing all the diversity in it but failing to notice that all the protagonists are white Americans. Or, for a more frivolous comparison, it’s like being excited about the enormous variety of offerings from See’s Candies and failing to notice that they all have chocolate in common. No they don’t! you protest. There’s that one item in the Nuts & Chews box that’s just peanuts in nougat. I’m sure there’s at least one choice that doesn’t have chocolate. My case rests. You aren't thinking about the existence of fresh peaches. Or tomatoes. Or roast beef. You're still thinking in terms of chocolate and not-quite-but-almost-chocolate.
The discussion that was the other half of the inspiration for these thoughts revolves around a recent contemporary lesbian romance novel with the “shocking revolutionary twist” that one of the protagonists is asexual. Now I think it’s a lovely idea to have asexual protagonists in books, though setting them in a formulaic romance may undermine the point a bit for the reading public. I haven’t read the specific book itself, so I’m not talking about whether the topic was handled well or badly in that specific instance. I may or may not read it--I’m not sure I’d enjoy a novel that treats asexuality as an “afterschool special” educational project, given that contemporary romance isn’t really my thing in the first place.
But what struck me was the significant number of readers within the lesbian fiction community whose response was along the lines of, “Wow, this is fascinating, I never knew that such a thing as asexuality existed! I don’t know any asexual lesbians! This introduces me to people and ideas that I’d never encountered before! Thank you for educating me on this topic! Nobody’s ever written about it before.” (Hint: Yes, people have written novels with asexual and aromantic protagonists before. Please don’t erase their existence.)
Let’s get one thing out of the way. Of course you already knew that asexual lesbians existed. You’ve met them, both online and in real life. You just called them “frigid” or “sexually hung-up” or “full of internalized homophobia” or "repressed" or “emotionally unavailable” or any of the other popular labels for people whose erotic response is radically different from yours.
And the people saying this--that they didn’t know asexual lesbians existed--are saying it in online social spaces where people like me have been participating all along. It means that they’ve never seen me. They’ve never actually listened to any of the things I’ve said in those online communities around the topic of representations of desire and sexuality in fiction. I don’t exist for them. It means that every time I’ve interacted with them, they’ve pasted a picture on top of my existence that’s something other than who I am and interacted with that, because they literally didn’t believe that I existed.
And that’s what I mean by books that create worlds that I could exist in. If an author of lesbian fiction literally doesn’t know that asexuality is a possible thing, they certainly aren’t going to write fictional worlds that represent it, or that have a space in which it could exist. That part of the map of human territory won’t be an empty space labeled “here be sea serpents and mermaids” there won’t even be an empty space on the map it could be penciled into.
The third book I’d like to bring into this discussion is Ellen Kushner’s The Privilege of the Sword. I’ve previously spilled a fair amount of ink over how that book was an emotional flash-point for me, because it came so close to being the perfect book for my emotional core...and then it veered sideways and was a perfect book for someone who was not quite me. Reviewing my reaction in the context of the current topic, I think one of the places where it failed me that I hadn’t been able to articulate properly, is that the female same-sex relations that I’d seen represented in the world of Riverside were fairly narrow in scope--in part because of the relatively small number of examples. Riverside is a world where it seems like half of the men have been in some sort of romantic or sexual relationship with another man, but whatever the author’s intent, we don’t see a similar normalization of women’s relationships. For that matter, we don’t see a full range of women’s relationships at all. To quote my post-review analysis:
“There’s a point in Katherine’s sexual explorations with Marcus where a point is made about ‘having sex with your best friend’ and I think that was when it hit me that The Privilege of the Sword doesn’t seem to show women having serious, genuine friendships with other women. Men have deep and binding friendships with men. Men and women can have genuine friendships as well as relationships based on desire or familial bonds. But women’s friendships are shown as being contingent (“do our husbands get along?”) or as play-acting (Katherine and Artemisia) or as part of power jockeying (the two actresses).”
Here was an excellently-written story of a daring, resourceful, and passionate young woman, and it existed in a world where women don’t seem to have genuine friendships with each other--much less enduring passionate feelings for each other. It came so close to hitting my personal target and then denied the existence of things that are at the core of my being. (Note: the Riverside serial Tremontaine has been a bit better about representing a variety of women’s interpersonal and same-sex romantic interactions.)
So if you’ve ever wondered why my reading habits and my reviews don’t align on a simple “lesbian books good, non-lesbian books less good” axis, it’s because I’m not only a lesbian, and all the other parts of who I am are just as important to me as that one. In the aggregate, they are more important. I’m not interested in reading and praising lesbian novels that nevertheless leave me feeling like an alien from another planet whose existence the author doesn’t quite believe in.
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Friday, October 13, 2017 - 19:40
One of the peculiarities of the podcast is that although the episodes go live on Saturday...that's "Saturday" in South Africa where our fearless leader Sheena lives. Usually it makes for this awkward moment of "do I post the blog the day before?" but since I'm going to be out of the house all day tomorrow, it's a plus this time.
This month's author guest is Caren Werlinger, whose historical stories are often framed by a connection--either mystical or via objects--with a character in modern times. Listen to her talk about how she develops those connections with the past.
And remember that you can find links to all the past episodes of the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast (and to the transcripts, as I get them up) on the Index Page.
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(Transcript commissioned from Jen Zink @Loopdilou who is available for professional podcast transcription work. I am working on adding transcripts of the existing interview shows.)
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast: Episode 23 (previously 15b) - Interview with Caren Werlinger
(originally aired 2017/10/14 - listen here)
Heather Rose Jones: This is Heather Rose Jones with the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast. Today, we’re talking with author Caren Werlinger, who writes a variety of historic takes on fiction with lesbians in it. Or with women who could be interpreted as lesbians. Welcome, Caren.
Caren Werlinger: Thank you, Heather, it’s nice to be here.
H: So, I’ve been going over your very extensive catalog of novels and there are two groups that I’d like to talk to you about. First off, you have a pair of novels, not a pair in a series sense, but they have a similar take on an approach to history where a relatively contemporary character encounters history through some artifact or family connection. That would be Miserere and Neither Present Time. Would you like to talk about what those novels are about and why you took that approach?
C: Miserere is a novel that’s set primarily in the summer of 1968, which was an extremely turbulent period of time in American history and the whole novel was actually inspired by a memory I had of a house that we looked at and my parents thought about buying when I was, maybe, 9 years old. I loved that house, I have a very clear picture of it in my mind. It was weather-beaten, had knee high grass, and it was apparently too much of a fixer-upper for my parents to want to take it on. But that house really caught my imagination and I had always wondered what kind of stories it could tell.
In setting up this novel, my main character is a ten-year-old girl named Connemara Faolain Mitchell. She’s of Irish descent. When her father goes MIA in Vietnam, she and her mom and her little brother pack up and move to the family home in West Virginia. She begins to experience these very vivid dreams that slowly start unspooling the story of her ancestor who came to America at the age of thirteen as an indentured servant with her older sister. It was at the tail-end of the famine, 1850s, and as the story unfolds, we go back to the 1850s and 1860s through Connemara’s dreams to learn what happened to her ancestors when they arrived in America. How the life on the plantation that they were indentured to unfolded, the things that happened as the country was veering into the Civil War, and then dealing with the after-effects of the Civil War. It’s part of what I really, really liked about that particular novel, is that you had these two story-lines that were a century apart but there were so many echoes of continued racial tensions, intolerance, hatred, which, ironically, are now being echoed all over again in this current political climate. That was the basic set-up for Miserere.
In Neither Present Time, that book was inspired by an inscription in an old book that I actually own. I used that inscription, I used that as a jumping off point for this novel. It’s a story of a woman who’s working in a university library, not using her talents and her doctoral degree to the capacity that she should be. She finds an old book with this inscription. It intrigues her, it captivates her imagination, and she begins a search to try and find the people who are mentioned in the inscription; see if she can track them down.
H: I’m interested that you’re talking about the historic settings, so where do the lesbian themes come into this? Are they from the contemporary characters or in the historic settings?
C: Actually, both. In Neither Present Time, the main character, Beryl Gray, this is a contemporary thread to the story, she’s in a relationship with a woman who’s kind of controlling and domineering, but part of her discovery, as the novel progresses, is that she needs to grow into herself. But when she discovers the addressee of the inscription in the old book that she had found, she begins to learn the back-story of a woman who is now in her 90s, who fell passionately in love with another woman in the early 40s, as World War II was dawning.
So, again, we kind of get these two threads woven together in this story. A lesbian love story that began in the 40s and has never, ever waned, and a more contemporary one where Beryl and the old woman, Corie’s, niece, Aggie, find each other and both of them are in need of healing and moving on. So, there are two lesbian stories there.
In Miserere, Connemara’s ancestor, Catriona, disappeared. Nobody really knew what happened to her. There’s a curse on the family and one of the things that Connemara learns through these dreams is that only one female child has survived from each generation since Catriona disappeared. She learns that she is the one who could finally break this curse. We don’t know immediately why it is that she is the one who can break the curse, but as the story progresses, it becomes apparent that the reason she will be the one to understand what happened in the past and to be able to break the family curse is because she’s the only one who has come along who could understand the love that Catriona had for another girl.
H: Uh huh. I have this note on my interview sheet saying, ‘Never, ever, ever waste peoples’ time by asking, So, why do you write about lesbian characters?’ Because, I kind of assume that’s a given with the people that I’m interviewing. But, so, why write about historic stories? What does that do for you as a writer to pick historic settings?
C: I have always wondered more about… When you read stories as a kid, when you read Robert Louis Stevenson, when you read some of the other classics, unless you’re into the Brontës, you’re not getting any female characters. The adventures were all boy stories, they were all full of men and boys doing these exciting things, but girls and women hardly figured into the stories at all. That always kind of bugged me. Like a lot of us, that’s probably why I devoured all the Nancy Drew stories.
H: Yeah.
C: But it just seemed to me that, when I started writing, we’ve always existed, lesbians have always been around. We may not have called ourselves that, we didn’t have that identity necessarily, but that doesn’t mean that we weren’t there. It just seemed like a natural extension of storytelling to include and find ways of telling lesbian stories set in historic settings.
H: Have you always been interested in history, from way back? Or was there something in particular that started you writing historic stories?
C: I’ve always enjoyed writing stories, but… I grew up in Ohio. When I was in 7th grade, my Ohio history teacher, Mr. Black, gave me a book to read called The Frontiersmen, which is by Allen W. Eckert. It was, I think, the middle book of his Wilderness Empire trilogy, which chronicled the early settling of America so most of the books are set in the 1700s. They’re heavily footnoted at the backs. He did an enormous amount of research. He wrote these books, fictionalizing the parts he needed to as far as conversations and things like that, but set within the known historical context. That, to me, I think that was big jumping off point for my love of historical fiction. His writing was compelling, but the fact that everything was so heavily annotated and footnoted at the back of the books – you could look up as much or as little as you wanted – that he took these characters and filled in the missing bits in between the pieces that we actually knew, from letters, or from diaries, or from whatever other form of documentation. I just was like, ‘You know, that’s… I could do that.’
H: Yeah. That sounds a lot like my early experiences with historic fiction because I found that learning history through the stories of specific people, even fictional people, just anchored all the events so much better in my head.
C: It did. I mean, it makes it come alive in a way that it doesn’t when you just read chronicles.
H: Tell me about the most difficult thing you encountered when research the historic backgrounds for your books.
C: A lot of it is just trying to get the small details right. For Miserere, I’ve lived in West Virginia and Virginia for almost 30 years now, so I live in the middle of a lot of that history. The town I live in currently, in Virginia, changed hands 76 times during the Civil War, so we’re right smack in the middle of Civil War history. Half an hour outside of town is an old stone iron furnace that the early settlers used to smelt and make iron. I’ve been surrounded by a lot of that history for decades. Still, trying to figure out--you know Virginia had one of the earlier canal projects along the James river, but it coincided with the coming of the railroad, so the canal never went as far as it was supposed to, as far as it was originally supposed to. But having to look up if my Irish teenagers sold into indentured servitude were being ferried up the James along this canal system… How far did they go? Where did the canal system stop? What kind of tobacco did they grow in Virginia? Which is different from the kind of tobacco they grew in the Carolinas and Georgia. What kind of crops did they grow here? How did plantations work in terms of the division of various levels of the slaves? There were house slaves and they were field slaves. Even though Catriona and her sister were white and Irish, they basically fell into the same category of having been sold. For that book a lot of it was just trying to get little details right because, as you know, Heather, I’m sure, there’s always somebody out there who knows the subject matter you’re writing about as well, if not better than you do, and if you don’t get those little details right, they’ll call you on it.
H: I try to sign those people up as my sources and beta-readers.
C: (Laughter) That’s a good strategy.
H: What about the lesbian side of things? How did you research how these women in history would have understood their desires and their sexuality?
C: That’s a really interesting question and I don’t know that I have a really good answer to that, except through my own knowledge and self-discovery of, well, not even self-discovery because I’m one of those who has always known, from the time I was very, very young. Before I had language for it, that it was girls that I was attracted to. I never pictured myself married to a man, I never fantasized about any of that kind of stuff like other girls do, I guess. But one of the first, before I started writing lesbian fiction, one of the first lesbian novels that I came across that I thought handled that historical aspect of discovering that you are in love with another woman was the novel Patience and Sarah by Isabell Miller.
H: Yes, I’m very fond of that one.
C: It’s set in the early 1800s. It’s definitely set in a period of time where people were not tolerant of any kind of aberration in what they considered to be normal relationships or anything that might have taken them outside the purviews of their very narrow, Christian interpretation of the world. The other thing that fascinated me about that story is that it is based on a real-life couple who apparently did settle in, I think, Western New York, eventually. They were kind of known to be together and it was accepted once they were out in the frontier. That novel was a big influence on my own interpretation and my own writing of women finding each other and falling in love with each other in historic settings.
H: Uh huh. I’d like to jump tracks a little bit here, because your most recent writing project has been very much a history and fantasy cross-over. This is your series The Chronicles of Caymin. You told me that the historic contribution to the setting is 8th century Ireland and then we have dragons and, well, you tell about it.
C: You’re right. I mean, there was a lot happening in Ireland in that era. The Christian monasteries had been established over the prior few hundred years, since St. Patrick started proselytizing in the 400 CE era. But the Vikings were beginning to come on down from the north. They were raiding Britannia and Caledonia, which we know as Scotland. And they were raiding Ireland. We know, from the historical chronicles, that several of the monasteries were raided and sacked several times. I can’t really remember now what gave me the idea of writing a dragon fantasy set in Ireland of this era, but one of the things that fascinated me was realizing that there were such animals in Ireland at one time as the Giant Irish Elk, which are extinct now. Part of the fun of writing this fantasy had been exploring, ‘What if there was a real-life basis for the dragon contribution to Celtic mythology?’
H: What if the dragons just got hunted to death, as it were, you mean.
C: Yeah, exactly. You know, maybe what happened is that we really did have dragons. We know that there was a strong culture of people who believed in magic, maybe practiced magic. You know, a lot of Celtic mythology and folklore is based on those beliefs in things that we would consider magic now, but to them probably were just every day kinds of things. What was happening as Christians tried to force their views against the people who were holding on to the old ways? That was kind of the mix that this fantasy takes place in. Again, from a writing standpoint, one reviewer likened this trilogy to reading a story about the Titanic. We know that the Christians were eventually successful, we know that Ireland became a Christian country, but you had to work within that framework, you know. As I’m writing, there were certain things I couldn’t necessarily violate. I knew I had to end up at a point at the end of the story where the Christians are probably taking over, the people who practice and believe in magic are kind of fading away, so how to write a story that can incorporate all of those elements? That was kind of the fun and the challenge of this trilogy.
H: Setting aside the dragons, because this is the history podcast, what are your three either favorite or most useful, let’s say: what are your three most useful resources for writing the historic aspects of those stories?
C: A lot of it is, as far as the Celtic folklore part, there’s a website and blog kept and run by a woman named Ali Isaacs, who, I mean, she covers almost every aspect of Celtic-Irish folklore that you can imagine, so her blog has been tremendously helpful. A lot of it was flora and fauna kind of research. I mean, what animals and plants. A lot of it was just using the internet, like crazy, to research what plant species were native, what animals were native, you know. At one point I referenced somebody looking like a turtle and then I had to go back to look and yes, there are no turtles native to Ireland, so I had to get rid of that.
H: I know you said that the characters, in terms of the sexuality aspects of these stories, that you have set-up the historic society so that there is not prejudices against particular types of sexuality. Did you try to root those aspects in history or is that part of the fun fantasy side of it?
C: That was more, I think, the fun fantasy side of it.
H: Caren, it’s been lovely to hear about your historic writing and historic fantasy. Why don’t you tell us about your fans and readers can follow you on social media or find out more about you online?
C: Sure. I am on Facebook under Caren Werlinger Author. I can be reached by email at cjwerlingerbooks@yahoo.com. And I have a blog which is cjwerlinger.wordpress.com.
H: Okay, I will include those in the show-notes for people to follow up. It’s been wonderful having on for the interview segment of our show and I hope that you will continue writing wonderful historic stories.
C: Thank you, very much. This has been delightful.
Show Notes
A series of interviews with authors of historically-based fiction featuring queer women.
In this episode we talk about:
- The approach of framing a historic story within a modern character’s interaction with that story. The uses of parallel lives to create reader connection.
- How Caren used dreams and book inscriptions as a way of connecting the present with the past. How present lives can heal past wounds.
- Historic fiction as a way of bringing the past to life and giving women the adventures and stories they’re denied in history books.
- The challenge of researching the small details.
- Using 8th century Ireland as a setting for fantasy adventure. What makes a specific historic context an inviting place for fantastic stories? The “what if” factor. How does history constrain the invention?
- Favourite research sources for early Ireland:
- https://aliisaacstoryteller.com (Irish folklore and myth)
- Internet searches for the flora and fauna of 8th century Ireland
- Books mentioned
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Twitter: @heatherosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Links to Caren Werlinger Online
- Website: CJ Werlinger
- Facebook: Caren Werlinger
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LHMPFriday, October 13, 2017 - 07:00
(I recently did a podcast on the topic of female highwaymen in history and literature, and the motif in the lesbian romance genre. This is one of several reviews resulting from my reading for that podcast.)
Lawrence Hogue’s Daring and Decorum, stands out in the micro-genre of lesbian historic highwaywomen stories for its solid worldbuilding and the deliberation with which it builds the relationship between the two female protagonists, making both their attraction and the obstacles to it believable and solidly grounded in the social history of the times.
The plot follows what seems to be an obligatory formula for the micro-genre: a respectable young woman (though one with a yearning for something beyond her foreseeable fate) is one of the victims of a highwayman’s robbery, protesting the loss of a piece of jewelry that has deep sentimental meaning. The highwayman, in a change of heart, returns the jewelry, prompting (or encouraging) an inexplicable attraction between the two, and the highwayman is (eventually) revealed to be a woman who took to an outlaw life due to a tragic backstory. They, of course, fall in love, struggle with the personal, social, and legal barriers to their relationship, and eventually work their way through to a happy ending. This is actually the generic formula that applies to nearly every lesbian highwayman story I’ve encountered. What Hogue does is flesh it out into a well-written period piece.
The pacing--especially of the middle section where we learn the backstory of our second protagonist--was just on the edge of leisurely, but only because the adventures are being related to another character rather than being experienced in real time. Hogue notes in the introductory material that he was inspired in part by the Alfred Noyes poem “The Highwayman”, which may add a bit of tension for readers familiar with that work. Certain details of the book’s plot seemed a bit forced to fit the poem’s structure, but possibly not in a way that those unfamiliar with it would notice. Unlike some other similar books, the climax of the story was neither too rushed nor too pat and felt historically plausible as long as one accepts the motivations and actions of a certain third character.
Hogue has a solid grasp of the flavor of early 19th century novels without resulting in any stilted awkwardness of language. His familiarity with the historic and social background raises the book above the “erotic encounter in costume” level that is too common in lesbian historical romance. I’m not a good judge of erotic scenes in books, but those in Daring and Decorum didn’t seem any more awkward or inherently ridiculous than in any other story I’ve read. (Confession: I’m really not a fan of sex scenes in my historic fiction, so I’m not a good judge.)
Content warning: Unfortunately the book got off to a bad start for me with a sexual assault in the opening scene (although it didn’t go beyond groping) which was framed as inspiring the heroine’s erotic desire for the highwayman (much later revealed to be a highwaywoman). Given how much I liked the book overall, I don’t consider that one stumble a fatal flaw, but it’s certainly worth a content warning.
It wasn’t the gender perception issue in the assault scene that bothered me--to some extent when you’re dealing with historic gender-disguise plots in lesbian fiction, it really helps to view the characters as solidly bisexual, because any other framing tends to lead you down some sort of weird telepathic/gender-essentialism road. (The sort that was popular in medieval and Renaissance gender-disguise plots: “It’s ok that she fell in love with someone who she thought was a woman because it was really a man in disguise and she somehow unconsciously intuited this.”) But I digress.
No, what bothered me was invoking the trope that a woman will naturally overlook being forcibly assaulted and will find herself enjoying the assault and later fall in love with the person who assaulted her. Not only did I think that the story could have been made to work perfectly well with a different--or at least much less offensive--interaction, but the assault felt extremely out of character for the highwaywoman, as we later come to know her. It felt like cheap titillation. And given that the reader has no clue yet that this particular highwayman is our love interest (there are several people involved in the robbery), it felt like a slap in the face to readers who came to the book for some escapist woman-centered reading.
That said, most stories in this genre involve a requisite amount of fairly dubious consent, or at least of secretly enjoying a forced erotic encounter. The overall writing quality definitely makes this book worth checking out if you enjoy swashbuckling lesbian romantic adventure.
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ReviewsWednesday, October 11, 2017 - 07:00
The Salt Roads is a beautiful, brutal, crystalline and ambiguous novel tracing the lives of three women of the African diaspora and one mystical spirit. The principal characters are: Mer, an enslaved woman who is a healer and worker on a sugar cane plantation on Saint Domingue during the early stages of the slave rebellion of the late 18th century; Jeanne Duval, the Creole mistress of 19th century French decadent poet Charles Baudelaire; and Thaïs (or Meritet) a sex worker in early Christian-era Alexandria, who in this story inadvertently becomes Saint Mary of Egypt (combining the legends of two early desert saints). They are tied together in this story not only in sharing a cultural and racial heritage, and by the experience of not having ownership over their own bodies--whether in a formal sense in the case of Thaïs and Mer, or due to economic necessity, in the case of Jeanne. But they also share the hosting of an entity--call her a goddess perhaps, although it takes a while for her to come (back?) to that understanding of herself--who shares their experiences and can sometimes guide or control their actions, using the imagery of a Vodou deity riding them (although I don’t think that word is used). Thaïs and Mer are open to understanding these visits as a religious experience, though Jeanne seems largely unaware of her guest.
But that’s just the bare bones of the structure. I would say that this novel defies plot summarization--it doesn’t have that kind of arc, being unmoored in time with the sequence of scenes for each of the three human characters being interleaved across the ages representing how their spirit guest experiences them, moving back and forth as she’s able. And she has her own quest of discovery and self-awareness whose goal is the making of those connections across time. I call this a “brutal” novel and it’s one where the concept of “happy ending” has no meaning, except to the extent that each individual may succeed in making choices that she won’t regret and taking what measure of autonomy over her life that she’s able to grasp.
The prose and exposition is the sort that delights me, where the reader is plunged into an unfamiliar world and acquainted with it through the immediate experiences of the characters. Though, to be fair, I’m not going to discount the usefulness of having at least a passing familiarity with the history of Saint Dominque, with the French decadent poets, and with early Christian hagiography. It’s a novel that rewards coming to it with a broad historical literacy and it won’t hold your hand if you don’t meet it halfway.
One thing I always appreciate in stories that are woman-centered like this is the easy and unremarkable inclusion of the wide variety of affectional and erotic bonds that women can have with each other, even while participating in the obligatory heterosexuality of the dominant culture. All three women have a rich variety of bonds with other women that include, without not necessarily focusing on, romantic and sensual relations. (I had something of an epiphany with regards to this element in the context of representation in fiction that is going to turn into a separate essay.)
The Salt Roads is a deep and powerful story about surviving and thriving and connecting with personal and cultural roots (the essence of the quest that the unifying divine spirit comes to understand). It explores exciting structural territory and narrative rhythms, not only in the non-temporality, but in the use of interleaved voices and shifts of mode. This book left me thoroughly satisfied as a reading experience.
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ReviewsMonday, October 9, 2017 - 20:31
The Lesbian Historic Motif Project - Episode 15a - On the Shelf
(Originally aired 2017/10/07 - listen here)
Welcome to On the Shelf for October 2017.
When I recorded last month’s On the Shelf, the new expanded format hadn’t actually gone live yet. So I’m still working with the format and getting a sense of what listeners would like to hear.
The September blog entries for the Lesbian Historic Motif Project were supposed to all tie in with the theme of Boston and Boston marriages, but when I scoured my bookshelves I only came up with two publications that were relevant. One was a museum exhibition catalog on the history of LGBTQ Boston. I loved browsing through it and seeing all the photographs we have of 19th century female couples that we know to have been in romantic life partnerships. Each photo is a story waiting to be explored. I also covered a book that looks at some modern lesbian relationships through the lens of the concept of the Boston Marriage, although interpreting that term specifically as an asexual romantic relationship.
I filled in the rest of September and continue on into October with books relating to September’s week 4 episode on documentary evidence for lesbian sexual techniques in the European middle ages and Renaissance. This included a collection of penitential manuals (books providing guidance for confessors on how to classify sinful acts), as well as several general works on sexuality in the middle ages. While these books typically have much more information on male homosexuality than female topics, it’s exciting to have some solid new publications bringing together the state of the historical research.
Ruth Karras’ Sexuality in Medieval Europe is a very accessible introductory text on the subject. Tom Linkinen’s Same-sex Sexuality in Later Medieval English Culture is heavily focused on men and looks at ways that popular attitudes toward same-sex relationships were created and reflected in popular culture, as well as how accusations of sodomy were used for political purposes. I haven’t finalized the rest of the books for October yet, but since I plan another medieval topic for the end of the month I’ll probably be sticking to relatively early material. Possibilities include the collections Premodern Sexualities edited by Louise Fradenburg and Carla Freccero, The Lesbian Premodern edited by Noreen Giffney, Michelle M. Sauer, and Diane Watt, and Valerie Traub’s monograph Thinking Sex with the Early Moderns, for which I suspect the relevant material will largely be a rehash of her book The Renaissance of Lesbianism in Early Modern England.
The October essay is planned to continue the medieval theme with a discussion of cross-dressed female knights in medieval literature. Cross-dressing was always a context in which accidental love between women was a possibility. And while the ways it was acted out didn’t always have happy endings, they always provide inspiration for possible new stories.
This month’s author guest will be Caren Werlinger who often uses connections between the present and the past to frame her historic stories, either via the discovery of historic documents about past relationships or involving psychic connections across the centuries.
I have two questions for the Ask Sappho segment this month.
The first is from an anonymous listener who says, “This isn’t really a historic question, but a question about the podcast. I’m used to podcasts including credits for the music at the beginning and end of the show. I was wondering why you didn’t include that information.”
The answer makes me a little bit self-conscious, though maybe not in the way you’d think. People who listened to last week’s show may already guess. You see, the simplest way to deal with broadcast rights for intro music was to use something I wrote and performed myself. The excerpts that frame this podcast are from a piece I call “Planxty Oncia” which I wrote as a wedding present for some friends. It used to be a habit of mine to always write harp tunes for wedding presents. I don’t mention that specifically in the show credits because it felt too much like showing off, not because I was using someone else’s work without credit!
The second Ask Sappho question is from Amy Herman-Pall, who is very active on the facebook groups for the Lesbian Talk Show and the Lesbian Review. She asks: “I've heard vague stories and rumors about rulers who have been lesbians, for example Queen Christina of Sweden. What is the response of the people they rule to this? I'd love to know what the reactions of not only the common people were, but also of those courtiers and advisors that surrounded her.”
Now, that’s a great question with some surprising answers.
We can’t always know for certain whether the rumors about a historic individual having homosexual relations were true, or if they were only put about for political purposes. And if they were true, they would certainly be likely to be used by political enemies. But it’s important to keep in mind that cultures in history didn’t necessarily have the same very black and white attitudes towards homosexuality that modern cultures do. There are ways in which 20th century attitudes towards lesbians and gay men are the anomaly, and the rest of history, before and after, are a lot fuzzier.
Rulers in history almost never married for love. So it was often the case that a monarch’s lovers would have as much or more power than their legal spouse. This was the case no matter what gender they were. And while the language used about them might be sexually charged, what people were worried about was influence.
Take for example, English royal politics of the early 14th century. King Edward the Second married Isabella, affectionately known as “the she-wolf of France” which tells you something about how she was viewed. Edward had a sequence of close male friends that it was rumored were his lovers. Those men were hated--and eventually killed--by the English barons--not so much because of the rumored homosexual relationships, but because they had enormous influence over King Edward’s decisions and influenced him to make some very bad ones. Queen Isabella, in turn, turned on her husband the king, and took as an ally and lover Roger Mortimer. Together they overthrew and--according to rumor--murdered King Edward. But Mortimer in turn was executed by Isabella’s son King Edward the Third in large part for the influence he’d gained through being Isabella’s lover.
So the point here is that being the non-spousal lover of a monarch could attract you a lot of negative attention if it was felt that you were abusing that influence, regardless of sexuality and gender.
Another thing to keep in mind is that close emotional relationships between people of the same sex were not necessarily inherently suspect before the 20th century. In fact, to a large extent it was expected that your close emotional relationships would be with same-sex friends, not with the person you were married to.
So it can be hard to disentangle whether people took issue with a monarch’s same-sex lover because of the sexual aspect, or because they would have had issues with anyone who was perceived to have undue influence. That said, let’s look at some of the cases where lesbianism was brought up as an issue.
Queen Christina of Sweden lived in the mid 17th century and was the only surviving child of King Gustav the Second. She succeeded to the throne at age 6 and began ruling in her own right at age 18. She was renowned for her intelligence, education, and scholarship, being nicknamed the “Minerva of the North”. She founded the oldest newspaper still in continuous publication in Europe. She was a notable patroness of scholars and philosophers such as René Descartes. But most troublesome to her staunchly Lutheran people and ministers, as early as nine years old, she began a flirtation with...Catholicism.
Christina never married. She recorded in her autobiography that she felt "an insurmountable distaste for marriage." When pressured, she told her advisors, “I do not intend to give you reasons, [I am] simply not suited to marriage.”
She had a close intimate friendship with one of her ladies in waiting, Ebba Sparre. Even after Christina left Sweden--and we’ll get to that in a moment--she wrote passionate love letters to Ebba Sparre, saying she would always love her. She introduced Ebba to an ambassador as her bed-fellow. And while I don’t want to discount the likelihood that the two were lovers, it’s important to keep in mind that using romantic language and sharing a bed were things that same-sex romantic friends were expected to do in the 17th century. It’s not that these things weren’t romantic, or weren’t erotic, but that they were normal. And being normal, these practices would not have attracted negative attention by themselves.
Having a female favorite would not have been an issue for Queen Christina on its own. Nor would the accusations of wasteful spending have been an issue on their own. But her deep attraction to Catholicism was incompatible with keeping the crown of Lutheran Sweden, and in 1654, when she was 27 years old and had been queen for 22 years, she abdicated in favor of her cousin and left Sweden forever.
Christina left Sweden, traveling in disguise for safety, wearing men’s clothing and assuming the name Count Dohna. At the end of the year, she officially converted to Catholicism. Her religious advisors in Sweden had been Spanish, and the Spanish court made plans to welcome her as a visitor in triumph. But Christina envisioned herself as mediator in the hostilities between Spain and France and to get to Spain, she had to travel through France first. She never did make it to Spain.
In terms of gender roles, the French court viewed her as something of a curiosity. One of the noble ladies of the French court described Christina as “masculine” saying of her presence at the opera that she "surprised me very much – applauding the parts which pleased her, taking God to witness, throwing herself back in her chair, crossing her legs, resting them on the arms of her chair, and assuming other postures... She was in all respects a most extraordinary creature." Rumors of Christina’s lesbianism abounded in France. But there’s an interesting contrast in Spain.
When they could boast of having inspired Christina to convert, and looked forward to her lending her influence on their side in the conflict with France, Spanish writers and diplomatic correspondence had nothing but praise for her. When she threw her lot in with France, suddenly her morals were called into question--but in heterosexual terms. She was accused of having had illicit affairs with various men, and even of having had a secret pregnancy from one of them.
It wasn’t that people in Spain were unaware of Christina’s reputation with women. In a satirical play, a character named Christerna de Suevia (that is, Christina of Sweden) who was clearly intended to represent her, was given a maid named Lesbia and depicted as agreeing to enter into a same-sex marriage with the sister of her political rival.
Given Christina’s very complicated life history, it’s hard to untangle the question of how people would have reacted to her romantic relationships with women in the absence of other factors. Her own people seem to have approved of almost everything she did except for the whole Catholicism thing. Her contacts in Spain where on her cheering squad up to the point where she threw them over for France. She had powerful friends in France, like Cardinal Mazarin (of the Musketteers fame) and although people in Paris thought her energetic and forthright ways were a bit uncultured, the only thing that really got their noses out of joint was when she murdered a popular diplomat who was part of her household. She had both friends and enemies in Rome, but since the friends included multiple cardinals and a pope, it seems that whatever they thought of her personal life, it wasn’t a deal-breaker.
As a comparison, let’s look at three other royal figures.
In the early 15th century, Queen Catalina of Lancaster, who was serving as co-regent of Castile for her young son, had a close friend and advisor named Leonor López de Córdoba. Leonor was not a member of the aristocracy but rose in the world largely due to the patronage of a wealthy aunt. She appears in the historic record as a close confidante and advisor of the queen, beset by personal enemies that included the other co-regent, the queen’s brother in law. These enemies felt Leonor had undue influence over the queen due to the love and trust the queen had for her.
But Leonor’s precipitous fall from favor, resulting in exile from the court, wasn’t due to her political enemies but appears to have been driven by a more personal rival. Inés de Torres came to the court as Leonor’s protege but seems to have supplanted her in the queen’s affections. The break up was rapid and stormy, with Queen Catalina making violent threats to keep Leonor away from her.
Queen Catalina’s court featured a group of strong, capable women who had close personal bonds with each other. Leonor did not in any way stand out as an unusual personality in this context, nor were the previous expressions of affection between her and the queen unusual in this context. The position of personal advisor to royalty was an established role, and one that was a magnet for accusations of undue influence and favoritism. It was also a role that regularly attracted accusations of sexual impropriety. Queen Catalina’s son, when he was later grown up, had a relationship with a male personal advisor that led to accusations of sodomy. The recorded references to Leonor never raised similar sexual accusations. Given that lack of evidence was rarely a bar to accusing your enemies of anything that might stick, one likely interpretation is that no one considered a sexual relationship between the women to be something that anyone would care about.
Such accusations were made against the personal favorites of Queen Anne of England in the 18th century. Anne inherited a very complicated political legacy and I’m going to skip over it entirely to cut to the chase. When she was a child of six, the future Queen Anne met Sarah Jennings, later to become Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, who for most of her life would be her closest friend and most influential advisor. Sarah was a little older when they met, around eleven years old. But Sarah was not Anne’s only childhood crush--there are regular records throughout her early adulthood of her passionate feelings for women in her circles. And we should remember that Anne grew up among the sexual license of the Restoration court, where sexual affairs between women were no secret.
By the time Anne came to the throne thirty years later, Sarah not only had enormous influence with the queen, but had become so knowledgeable and canny about the structures of government and how to wield political power that she was the go-to person for anyone with requests to the queen. She was a powerful friend and a dangerous enemy. When her husband, the Duke of Marlborough came to head the government, it was largely due to Sarah’s influence, intelligence, and energy. And it should be noted that whatever the nature of Sarah’s relationship with Anne, she was equally devoted to her husband and his career.
Anne’s devotion to Sarah was equally strong, and at various times before she became queen, she risked a great deal to keep Sarah with her as friend and advisor. After Anne’s coronation, Sarah was appointed to a number of offices of political, economic, and symbolic importance, while similar honors were heaped upon the Duke of Marlborough, and more gifts of land and offices followed. Anne and Sarah had affectionate pet names that they’d called each other since childhood and continued to use them in private. Anne cherished the knowledge that Sarah would always tell her exactly what she thought and never offer her false flattery.
But speaking truth to queens is a delicate matter, and Anne found herself wanting more in the way of support and friendship and less in the way of lobbying and being ordered around. They had a falling out over differing support of political parties and grew gradually apart as Sarah spent more and more time away from Queen Anne’s side. This left an opening for Abigail Masham, who was a cousin of Sarah’s who had introduced her to the court. Abigail was kind, flattering, and attentive to the queen--all the things that Sarah was not. Sarah’s intense jealousy of Abigail became tangled up with their political differences. And here comes the possibly unexpected part of the story.
When Queen Anne refused outright to dismiss Abigail from her service, Sarah accused them of having a lesbian affair. But the Marlborough’s influence was taking an irrevocable downward turn at this point. Soon Anne was refusing to see or speak to Sarah at all. But let’s get back to that accusation. Is Sarah’s accusation that Anne and Abigail were having a lesbian affair proof that Sarah’s relationship with her was not sexual? Or does it mean that Sarah was well aware of the truth that Anne’s interests in women were more than platonic, but thought that she was safe from a similar accusation? Was it simply the worst thing Sarah could think of to say, in the heat of what can only be called a messy break-up? Can we take it seriously as a homophobic accusation when sparked by what is certainly alienation of affections by the other woman?
Let’s step back and look at this in the context of the original question: when a queen had romantic and most likely erotic relationships with other women, what did the people around her think about it and what did they do about it? It is, perhaps, telling that for all the enemies that Sarah Churchill made in her career, although the possibility that she and the queen were lovers must certainly have crossed people’s minds, the accusation does not appear to have been used as a weapon against either of them. The only context in which an overt charge of lesbianism is made is from a jilted and brokenhearted favorite against a woman who had originally been her protege and had supplanted her in the queen’s affections.
But let’s take note of another aspect of this tangle. All of the women involved were also married to men. Anne failed to produce an heir, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. Sarah had several children. Whatever the nature of the relationship between them it coexisted with the personal relationships that their society expected them to enter into. So we come to another consideration: people may be more indifferent to a queen’s affairs with women if they don’t get in the way of her royal obligations. And yet, recall that Queen Christina outright refused to marry and explicitly told people she wasn’t suited for marriage. So there’s that.
The last queen I’d like to consider is one who was publicly accused of lesbian relations, and where it was part of a much larger wave of hostility against her. And this is Queen Marie Antoinette of France. Again, there is an enormous social, political, and economic background to the issue that transcends one woman’s possible sexuality. We can be certain that the French Revolution wasn’t fought over who Marie Antoinette was sleeping with. But among the accusations that she was lavishly spendthrift, was indifferent to the plight of the French poor, and that she used her political influence to benefit foreign powers, there were also accusations that Marie and her favored ladies in waiting were involved in secret societies to engage in lesbian orgies.
The image of the secret lesbian sex club had been growing in French popular culture for some time and in some ways it stood in for a general anxiety about secret societies such as the Masons and political clubs that eventually led to revolution, combined with the growing motif of lesbian sex as the ultimate in decadent pornographic entertainment. Let us be clear: it is highly unlikely that Queen Marie Antoinette was part of a secret lesbian sex club. It’s actually unlikely that such clubs existed outside male imagination. And it’s nearly impossible to untangle whether any of Marie Antoinette’s intense friendships with her closest female courtiers were also sexual. But at the time and in the context of French civic unrest, it was an accusation that was made and that had the power to intensify the personal hatred that many felt for the unpopular queen.
So what’s the overall answer to the question of how people reacted to having a queen who had sexual relations with women? It’s not a question we can answer in that form, because of the lack of solid evidence in most cases that they were having sexual relations with women. But we can say that when the possibility of lesbian sex was raised in royal contexts, the sex itself was never a primary issue. There were issues of the amount of political influence that court favorites (of any gender) might have, and how they might abuse it. And there were issues of competition among the close friends and advisors to royalty for those positions of access. Sometimes the issue of sex was employed as a weapon in those contexts, but not as a primary issue. Rather as an additional tool to be used.
Queen Catalina of Castille was not attacked on sexual grounds, despite the jealous rivalries of her female favorites. Queen Christina of Sweden was considered odd for many reasons, but the rumors of her female lovers were fairly quiet, and they had nothing to do with her voluntary relinquishment of the throne. Sarah Churchill, in a fit of jealous anger, accused her rival of having a sexual relationship with Queen Anne, but it had no effect on Anne’s reign or her continuing affection for Abigail Masham. And the accusations of lesbianism against Queen Marie Antoinette were a consequence of the pre-existing hatred for her, not a cause of that hatred. If you were a queen, and you ruled well, and your people were content, and you secured the succession to the crown, it doesn’t appear that anyone gave a damn about whether you had a woman in your bed. That peculiar focus on people’s sex lives belongs largely to the medicalized model of sexuality that starts around the beginning of the 20th century.
There are links to some relevant publications in the show notes, though I’ve pulled this explanation from a lot of different sources.
Show Notes
Your monthly update on what the Lesbian Historic Motif Project has been doing.
In this episode we talk about:
- Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog
- Books on the queer history of Boston and on the concept of the Boston Marriage in modern psychology
- Medieval penitential manuals that address same-sex relations
- Works on sexuality and same-sex relations in medieval Europe
- Announcing this month’s author guest, Caren Werlinger
- New and forthcoming fiction
- The new and forthcoming fiction segment was added later
- Ask Sappho:
- Where did I get the music that introduces and closes the podcast?
- What did people think about queens who had same-sex relations? Did it affect what the common people and the people of the court thought of them?
- This topic is discussed in one or more entries of the Lesbian Historic Motif Project here:
- Donoghue, Emma. 1995. Passions Between Women: British Lesbian Culture 1668-1801. Harper Perennial, New York. ISBN 0-06-017261-4
- Hutcheson, Gregory S. “Leonor López de Córdoba and the Configuration of Female-Female Desire” in Same Sex Love and Desire Among Women in the Middle Ages (ed. by Francesca Canadé Sautman & Pamela Sheingorn), Palgrave, New York, 2001.
- anser, Susan S. 2014. The Sexuality of History: Modernity and the Sapphic, 1565-1830. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. ISBN 978-0-226-18773-0
- Merrick, Jeffrey & Bryant T. Ragan, Jr. 2001. Homosexuality in Early Modern France: A Documentary Collection. Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 0-19-510257-6
- Velasco, Sherry. 2011. Lesbians in Early Modern Spain. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville. ISBN 978-0-8265-1750-0
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Twitter: @heatherosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
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LHMPMonday, October 9, 2017 - 07:00
I included this article despite being only tenuously related to the Project's focus because it forms an interesting contrast and counterpoint to cases of women cross-dressing and passing as men. Of particular interest are the differences in economic opportunities and in what aspects of the case were of concern to the courts. More generally, it provides insight into the differences between modern and medieval approaches to gender and sexuality. Much like the historic examples of women passing as men, it raises the question of how culturally constructed the concept of transgender identity is, as opposed to other framings of the motivations for acting in the world with a different gender performance than the one your culture expects from someone with your body. The historic imbalances in the economic and legal opportunities for men versus women mean that the economic and legal motivations for taking up a different gender role are not identical for male and female roles. It is particularly unexpected, in the case of John/Eleanor Rykener, that the surface explanation for Eleanor's existence was economic: the dubious financial attractions of sex work and working as an embroiderer. And yet the testimony that Rykener engaged in sexual relations with women, as a man, and not for economic gain argue against interpreting their behavior as a simple case of being a proto-transgender woman. People's lives are, of course, complex and contradictory, and this one point isn't definitive proof of anything, but such points are all we have when searching for understanding.
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LHMPFull citation:
Karras, Ruth Mazo & David Lorenzo Boyd. 1996. “’Ut cum Muliere’ - A Male Transvestite Prostitute in Fourteenth-Century London” in Premodern Sexualities ed. by Louise Fradenburg & Carla Freccero. Routledge, New York. ISBN 0-415-91258-X
Publication summary:
This is a collection of papers looking at issues in the historiography of sexuality, that is: how to study sexuality in historic contexts with consideration of the theoretical frameworks being used. In general, the approach is to dismantle the concepts of universals and essences, by which “history” has been used to define and persecute “others.” The papers are very theory-focused around how the study of the “other” points out the narrow and distorted picture of history in the mainstream tradition. One feature that these papers challenge is a clear dichotomy between a pre-modern understanding of sexuality as “acts” versus a modern understanding as “identity”. The papers cover not only queer sexuality by a broader variety of sexualized themes in history. As usual with general collections like this, I’ve selected the papers that speak to lesbian-like themes, but in this case I’ve included on with a male focus that provides an interesting counterpoint on issues of gender identity.
Karras & Boyd 1996 “’Ut cum Muliere’ - A Male Transvestite Prostitute in Fourteenth-Century London”
[The following is duplicated from the associated blog. I'm trying to standardize the organization of associated content.]
I included this article despite being only tenuously related to the Project's focus because it forms an interesting contrast and counterpoint to cases of women cross-dressing and passing as men. Of particular interest are the differences in economic opportunities and in what aspects of the case were of concern to the courts. More generally, it provides insight into the differences between modern and medieval approaches to gender and sexuality. Much like the historic examples of women passing as men, it raises the question of how culturally constructed the concept of transgender identity is, as opposed to other framings of the motivations for acting in the world with a different gender performance than the one your culture expects from someone with your body. The historic imbalances in the economic and legal opportunities for men versus women mean that the economic and legal motivations for taking up a different gender role are not identical for male and female roles. It is particularly unexpected, in the case of John/Eleanor Rykener, that the surface explanation for Eleanor's existence was economic: the dubious financial attractions of sex work and working as an embroiderer. And yet the testimony that Rykener engaged in sexual relations with women, as a man, and not for economic gain argue against interpreting their behavior as a simple case of being a proto-transgender woman. People's lives are, of course, complex and contradictory, and this one point isn't definitive proof of anything, but such points are all we have when searching for understanding.
# # #
This case is drawn from a legal document that is almost unique in medieval England in providing a description of male same-sex activity in a context of male cross-dressing. The legal focus emphasizes the importance of gender, and not sexual behavior or sexual “identity” in the context of medieval law.
John (alias Eleanor) Rykener was apprehended in 1394 for committing an act of prostitution with a man while wearing female clothing. Rykener testified to working as a prostitute as well as an embroidress (a female profession that he engaged in while passing as a woman). He named two women who had initiated him into the trade of prostitution and taught him how to dress. He testified that he was paid to have sex with men and that he also had sex with women (when in male clothing) but not for money. [Note: I am following the original article in using male pronouns for Rykener.]
It isn’t clear that there was ever a formal legal proceeding against him. Sexual crimes were in the purview of the church and what would have been the relevant church records for that place and time have not survived. The original investigation seems to have been under the umbrella of public disorder. Prostitution was a civil crime, but gender transgression seems to have been the main concern.
The article considers how Rykener would have been viewed or would have identified in both medieval and modern terms. Did the medieval authorities consider Rykener a sodomite? Or did they evaluate his case as that of a woman? There are differing frameworks of identity versus activity involved. Medieval law treated sodomy as a criminal act rather than recognizing a homosexual orientation. But prostitution was considered a status crime. That is, the law didn’t view a woman as engaging in prostitution but rather as "being" a prostitute.
Could Rykener have been viewed as having this identity, that of being a prostitute? Prostitute was an inherently female-gendered status. To be considered a prostitute Rykener would have needed to be considered a type of woman.
Conversely, although Rykener admitted to engaging in sexual acts with men, the words “sodomite” or “sodomy” do not appear in the record, although related language such as “detestable sin” and the like do. As noted above, sodomy was evaluated as a specific act, not as a status. And discussions of the moral concerns around sodomy indicate that those concerns were not necessarily for the act itself, but for how it affected the gender status of the participant. Men were supposed to be “active” and women “passive”. For a man to be a passive participant in sex with another man was to disrupt the stability of gender categories.
When men had sex with Rykener, the act is described as “as with a woman”, whereas when Rykener had sex with women, it was “as a man.” Rykener’s gender identity was defined by the role he played in specific acts. But that gender wasn’t solely defined in relation to the gender of his sexual partner, but also by the act of dressing as a woman (or a man) and behaving as one. That is, Rykener was not condemned as a sodomite because he was not having sex with men as a man, but as a woman.
The article includes a full transcription of the legal record (in translation from the Latin original).
Time period:
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Saturday, October 7, 2017 - 12:20
The October "On the Shelf" episode is up at the Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast. In addition to listing the books covered by the blog in the past and forthcoming month, and anouncing this month's author guest (Caren Werlinger), there's an Ask Sappho segment about how rulers with lesbian relationships were viewed in history. The transcript for this episode will go up tomorrow.
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LHMPFriday, October 6, 2017 - 07:00
Shira Glassman writes self-described "fluffy queer Jewish princess fantasies" (ok, I may have reworded slightly but I think I've kept the essence of it). The Second Mango introduces the reader to Perach, a secondary-world fantasy realm where everyone just happens to be Jewish. I mean that in the most positive possible way -- when creating a fantasy setting completely separate from real-world history, why not set it up exactly as you choose? It's subversive in its own way, because every time I was tempted to trip over the concept, I thought about all the similar fantasy settings that never get questioned or challenged when they silently echo dominant real-world cultures without presenting any logical basis for why they should. But perhaps I digress too much into literary theory.
The Second Mango is a fairly straightforward quest adventure, where a young, newly-installed queen goes off on a quest to find a girlfriend. There is just enough heteronormativity in the setting that her quest leaves her advisors and courtiers baffled and confused, but not so much that everyone won't cheerfully accept the outcome when she succeeds. The quest is aided by a masked gender-bending swordswoman and her shapeshifting horse-dragon, with barriers and challenges being offered variously by scheming innkeepers and misogynistic sorcerers.
The book is very young adult in feel, not so much for the age of the protagonist, but for the relative straightforwardness of the plot. Characters are pretty much who they present themselves as, challenges are relatively straightforward and solvable, and the plot twists are foreshadowed well enough for a pleasant reading experience without being obvious enough to spoil it. The prose is on the explanatory side more than the immersive side, and various aspects of character identity (such as food sensitivities) are solidly rooted in contemporary discourse rather than being given a more oblique in-world presentation. For the target readership of this series, I assume this is a solid feature, not a flaw. If the phrase "fluffy lesbian Jewish queen with food sensitivities finds true love" makes your heart go pitter-pat, then you are solidly in the target demographic for The Second Mango and I strongly recommend it to you.
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ReviewsMonday, October 2, 2017 - 07:00
In last week's post, I lamented that I'm increasingly finding less new material in general medieval works such as this. But I was able to extract three new publications to track down from this book: two on pairs of women buried together with a common memorial (where it's clear they aren't family members), and one on the source of an anecdote I've been seeing references to for many years. This last is a description of a group of women showing up at a tournament dressed as men to take part in the activities. While women cross-dressing in the context of chivalric culture is a not uncommon literary motif, I've been a bit skeptical of how solid the evidence for this event was in the third and fourth-hand references I'd seen of it previously. Now I have a publication to track down and plans for a podcast topic on gender-transgressive women in tournament contexts.
It's been delightful to see some of the more recent research and discoveries on the history of homoeroticism (by "recent" I mean generally post-1980 or so!) being published as general studies such as this one and the text on sexuality in general by Karras that I covered last week. I recently had a request from a friend for research materials on male homosexuality in medieval England for a historic novel she's working on and was able to enthusiastically lend her Karras, the present volume, and Mills' book Seeing Sodomy in the Middle Ages. I'm always delighted to know that people are using the results of this project for their fiction.
Major category:
LHMPFull citation:
Linkinen, Tom. 2015. Same-sex Sexuality in Later Medieval English Culture. Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam. ISBN 978-90-8964-629-3
Publication summary:
Pretty much exactly what it says on the label.
Introduction
As with most general works on same-sex sexuality (and especially ones authored by men) this book is overwhelmingly focused on male sexuality. There is also the tendency usual in this context to suggest that texts, situations, and commentaries that don’t specifically include women can be extrapolated to them.
[For this reason, I’ve largely passed over the sections discussing generic texts. Most of them were created by men, for a male readership, and with the assumption that male sexuality was the only topic worth writing about. So I have strong doubts that they can be taken as providing relevant information for female study. The chapters that focus exclusively on men have very short summaries.]
This study looks not only at the nature of medieval same-sex sexuality and attitudes toward same-sex relationships, but also how accusations of sodomy were used to stigmatize men for political reasons. The final section of the book takes a more positive look at how the omissions and silences in the historic record suggest “implicit possibilities for love and desire” both in spite of and because of medieval attitudes toward the topic.
The book is primarily taken from written sources (descriptive, moralistic, literary) but also some visual art.
Chapter 1: Framing condemnations
This is a general discussion of the concept of sodomy in the general sense of sex “against nature”. Some texts discussing sodomy specifically include women having sex together, but more often there is no explicit inclusion. Even texts clearly discussing woman-woman sex don’t necessarily use the term “sodomy”. Despite the title of Helmut Puff’s paper on the 14th century trial of Katherine Hetzeldorfer, the trial records and interviews never use the term “sodomy” for what she was accused of. Or any specific categorical label at all.
Theologian Peter Abelard, in reference to Saint Paul’s famous text, suggests that the sin in woman-woman sex was that women’s genitals were intended for the use of men “not so women could co-habit with women.” That is, women’s homoerotic activity was not a sin in itself, but a sin against masculine prerogative, access, and authority.
Medieval versions of Ovid’s story of Iphis and Ianthe, e.g., Gower’s, focus on the transformation of “unnatural” female/female love to “natural” male/female activity via a miraculous bodily sex change. Female/female love, though portrayed as real and genuine, is still treated as “vain” and a state in need of correction.
Much of the anxiety around same-sex sexuality was an extension of general concern with transgressing gender boundaries and roles. The central sin in sodomy (other than being non-procreative) was a man “turning himself into a woman” in taking what was considered a passive role in the act. Women need not be thought to be having “unnatural” sex to be condemned for claiming masculine roles. A story is given from Knighton’s Chronicle of women dressing as men to take part in tournaments in Berwick (on the Scottish border) in 1348. [This is a reference I’ve been trying to track down a good citation for, since it provides a fascinating historic rather than literary precedent for women openly cross-dressing in the medieval period.] “A rumor arose and great excitement concerning some armed women taking part in the tournament. They were all very eye-catching and beautiful, though hardly of the kingdom’s better sort.” And “neither fearing God nor abashed by the voice of popular outrage, they slipped the traces of matrimonial restraint” and seemed to have been punished by nothing worse than bad weather which was held to be God’s punishment on them. Their offense was claiming a masculine presentation and taking part in masculine activities, but it was an offense against gender, not sexuality.
The vague references in penitentials to “a woman sinning with a woman” may have had broader concerns than penetrative sex. The French court records concerning Jehanne and Lawrence are discussed (where the activity appears to have been tribadism). In general, though female same-sex acts are virtually absent from the legal record. There are essentially no English examples up through 1500.
Chapter 2: Silencing the Unmentionable Vice
What do the silences in the written record mean? In primary sources, it can mean the simple absence of data, but in secondary sources it can mean that historians aren’t asking the questions that would lead them to find the existing data. For women’s same-sex activities, that silence is even deeper, not only the silence around same-sex sexuality but the silence around women in general. The author briefly discusses this as an observation but doesn’t really dissect the reasons why.
In primary sources, even the avoidance of topics can provide clues. Moral instructions and penitential manuals often specifically recommend against “giving people ideas” by being too specific in questioning them regarding their activities. In this context Ancrene Wisse (a manual for anchoresses--lay women devoted to pious seclusion, but living in the community and with regular social contacts) notes several contexts for the possibility of sexual sin and warns “Anchoresses have been tempted by their own sisters.” [Please note: this is not a suggestion of incest, but rather the use of “sister” to refer to fellow anchoresses.]
Chapter 3: Stigmatizing with Same-sex Sexuality
Close personal relationships among the powerful, especially those that suggested political corruption, often attracted accusations of sodomy. (Much discussion of King Edward II.) This chapter is concerned exclusively with relations between men, as women were far less often in a position with that type of authority and similarly less likely to have an opportunity to extend benefits to close same-sex friends. [A couple of notes: Recall that this work focuses specifically on medieval England. Accusations against powerful women that their close personal friendships might be tainted with same-sex desire occurred, for example in Iberia, and in later centuries in England, see e.g., Queen Anne.]
Chapter 4: Sharing Disgust and Fear
This chapter discusses the public performance of disgust and fear around (men’s) same-sex activities as a means of communicating and enforcing social standards.
Chapter 5: Sharing Laughter
When same-sex relationships were a topic of humor, it was usually mean-spirited mockery, but that label could apply to entire genres of medieval humor, especially when sexual or scatological or involving gender reversals (which were either punished, or appeared as punishment for some other transgression). Like expressions of disgust, humor was a means of expressing anxiety as well as communicating cultural attitudes. Examples of material covered here are fabliaux, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (which are often borrowed from fabliaux), satirical songs and poems. Visual humor of a sexual or scatological type is often found in marginal manuscript art.
Chapter 6: Framing Possibilities
The author ventures into controversial territory in this chapter by asking, “Where are the possibilities within the evidence for non-condemnatory attitudes towards same-sex relations?” He focuses primarily on attitudes towards same-sex friendship and love (rather than sex) but with the question of whether these institutions might have allowed for expressions of desire as well, even though the accepted medieval discourse about the love of friends considered the two to be incompatible. (He notes that the vocabulary used by defendants in medieval sodomy trials came from the realm of sex and sin, not love and affection.)
Silence around same-sex desires and acts allowed for the possibility of their unremarked presence. The inability to name--or avoidance of naming--same-sex sins allowed for individuals to express same-sex desire secretly and without condemnation. English law lacked explicit statutes against same-sex activity until the 16th century (and then only against men), and social privilege could protect the participants from consequences and scrutiny.
The silence is even deeper around women’s sexuality, leaving even more possibility for women’s same-sex relations to go unremarked and thus uncondemned. The avoidance of naming specifics, e.g., in Lollard anti-clerical polemics referencing acts “shameful to speak of” and the “most horrible sin possible” or women “having sex with themselves...or inanimate objects” made it possible to be ignorant of what was meant. [It occurs to me to wonder whether in the original language it would be possible to distinguish between “themselves” as reflexive or mutual.]
Women’s activities were typically considered of concern only as they affected men. If their same-sex activities were considered irrelevant to the lives of men, would they have been mentioned in the literature at all? One gendered activity that does come in for regular negative attention is gossip, and women’s close friendships regularly came under male suspicion in this context.
Anchoresses are warned against the temptations of lust, noting it can come “in the eye, or with the mouth, or with the hand...and many unseemly and unnatural things.” This passage is closely followed by the abovementioned acknowledgment that an anchoress might be tempted by “sisters”, i.e., by other anchoresses or religious women. Concerns about religious women sinning with men were usually described explicitly, so the lack of specificity in these passages seems to exclude a male presence. These sensual temptations are presented in parallel with ordinary, everyday concerns, as if they are both expected and of no special moment. The text Hali Meidenhad (Holy maidenhood) similarly suggests sensory temptations: that lechery may come through sight, speech, kisses, and feeling by the hands.
Instructions to confessors for soliciting details of sins in confession (and this is specifically in a context concerned with sexual sins) suggested that prompts for details should begin with vagueness and then suggest the penitent offer details. If there were a partner she is prompted to explain it was “this sort of man...a married man, or an innocent thing, or a woman as I am.”
One same-sex context the author suggests [that I have some skepticism about] is that as “lust” was personified in these Latin texts as linguistically female. So while discussions of men's temptation were linguistically heterosexual, this usage could lead to discussions in which a female Lust tempted a female virgin, which might have presented ideas to a previously ignorant reader. [I’m not discounting the potential for arbitrarily gendered words to both reflect and shape cultural concepts, I’m just skeptical.]
Continental records of this era, including penitentials and medical manuals, are more explicit about sexual activity between women using manual stimulation or dildos. Some medical manuals even recommend that midwives use stimulation to orgasm in some cases to promote female health.
The literary imagination offered female same-sex relations in works such as John Gower’s version of Ovid’s Iphis and Ianthe.
The final part of the chapter is focused on the romantic implications of elevated “noble friendships” and is centered almost entirely on men. The discourse around friendship at the time (written entirely by men, of course) considered friendship only possible between equals, and thus impossible between those of the same gender.
After a discussion of male friendships being celebrated on joint grave memorials, there is a brief mention of two examples of female pairs on joint grave memorials. A funeral brass of two women in the mid 15th century commemorates Elizabeth Etchingham and Anne [actually Agnes] Oxenbridge, two unmarried women of local aristocratic families who were buried and memorialized together, despite 30 years separating their deaths. Another case of female co-burial in 15th century London provides no information about the women other than their names: Joan Isham and Margery Nicoll.
The chapter ends with a discussion of how these close loving friendships were understood at the time. Andreas Capellanus (The Art of Courtly Love) presents the apparently contradictory positions that the love of men for each other (in friendship) is elevated over what they feel for women, but elsewhere he explicitly excludes the possibility that courtly love can exist between people of the same sex. This is not contradictory if you understand “courtly love” to be sublimated sex, but reintroduces ambiguity in analyses that point out that courtly love relationships were often ways for men to create transitive bonds with other men (i.e., with the husband of the woman they are paying court to).
Conclusions
No new information is introduced in the conclusion.
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Saturday, September 30, 2017 - 19:21
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 21 (previously 14e) - The Highwaywoman Special
(Originally aired 2017/09/30 - listen here)
[First two verses of “The Highwayman” by Alfred J. Noyes, music by Phil Ochs, pronouns adjusted]
Outlaws have been a staple of popular stories as far back as recorded literature. Specific types of outlaw arise out of the society of the times. Laws restricting the hunting of game created poachers. The age of merchant ships crossing the seas spawned pirates. The concentration of cash in banks gave rise to bank robbers. And the establishment of regular coaching routes to carry passengers and commerce on fixed schedules were the temptation that gave rise to highwaymen.
In England, the great era of mythic highwaymen began around the 17th century and continued into the early 19th. The majority of real life highwaymen were male, of course. But a few highwaywomen made their way into song and story and the pages of history as well. Some examples in literature may have simply been an opportunity to turn gender tropes on their head, but throughout early modern history, there have been many women who found the economic temptations of male professions sufficient to trade skirts for trousers.
Not all depictions of literary highwaywomen were particularly feminist in spirit, though. The earliest known highwaywoman ballad, “The Female Highway Hector” from the 17th century, is more of a cautionary tale. After a long series of successful robberies against various stereotyped victims, she tries to rob a “real” highwayman and is defeated and sexually assaulted.
Here’s the beginning of the ballad. The original broadsheet suggests singing it to a tune called “The Rant” and I’ve used a tune with that name that is believed to be the one that was originally used.
The Female Highway Hector
You gallants of every station
Give ear to a frollicksome song
The like was ne’er seen in this nation
‘Twas done by a female so young.
She bought her a mare and a bridle
A saddle and pistols also
She resolved she would not be idle
So upon the pad she did go.
She clothed herself in great splendor
For breeches and sword she had on
Her body appear’d very slender
She show’d like a pretty young man.
And then like a padder so witty
She mounted with speed on her mare
She left all her friends in the city
And steered her course towards the Ware.
We’ll leave her story there, as the rest of the ballad is not edifying.
Real life highwaywomen--those for which we have solid evidence--were rarely romantic figures. But then, neither were most male highwaymen.
Legal records of prosecutions of women for this crime seem to have been rare, though not unheard of. Joan Bracey was hanged in Nottingham in the later 17th century for highway robbery, as was Ann Meders, hanged at Tyburn. Both met their ends at a relatively young age, not surprisingly. Both began their careers in partnership with male companions, as did Nan Hereford, who managed to carry on the profession for six years after her husband was hanged before meeting her own end.
Legend is more likely to view highwaymen--and women--as romantic figures. The early years of the profession corresponded with the political struggles in England between the Cavaliers and the Roundheads during the English Civil War and the dashing cavalier turned highwayman was a staple of popular culture.
Katherine Ferrers was a 17th century Englishwoman whom legend holds to have been the “Wicked Lady”, a notorious female highwayman. Katherine became an heiress at age six, during a period when her family was swept up in conflicts between the Royalist supporters of King Charles I and the forces of Parliament. Katherine’s family were Royalists and financial difficulties related to this state inspired them to marry Katherine off at age 14, after which most of her inherited property was sold off. She died at age 26, shortly after the return of King Charles II to the throne. For the last couple years of her life, her husband had been in prison for participating in an uprising. This much is fact.
Legend holds that--like a number of impoverished Royalists--she turned her hand to highway robbery to support herself during her husband’s imprisonment. Legend further holds that, after being shot during a robbery she died of her wounds, being discovered wearing men’s clothing. In this case, legend is unlikely to hold any truth. There are no mentions of Katherine’s supposed exploits in any of the sensational histories of famous highwaymen published in the 18th century. The first mention of her supposed exploits seems to be in the mid 19th century, but the image of a beautiful and daring woman taking to the highway has been irresistible to authors and filmmakers, and The Wicked Lady has been the subject of several novels and films, as well as inspiring ghost stories associated with her residence.
Within the context of this podcast, it must be admitted that--like most legends and ballads of cross-dressing women, the tales of female highwaymen from the 17th and 18th centuries remain steadfastly heterosexual. One notable exception is Mary Frith, known as Moll Cutpurse, a real woman living around 1600 who was notorious for dressing in men’s clothes and rumored to be sexually interested in both men and women. Contemporary records portrayed Moll Cutpurse as a thief, a fence, and a pimp but an early 18th century writer who produced a history of famous highwaymen, decided she also needed to be given a brief fictional career of highway robbery.
A much more cheerful (though still solidly heterosexual) story is told in a ballad titled “Sovay” or “The Female Highwayman” which was collected in the late 19th century, at a time when highwaymen had long since disappeared. This one is worth performing in full as it introduces a motif particularly popular in modern female highwayman fiction.
Sovay, or The Female Highwayman
Sovay, Sovay, all on a day,
She dressed herself in man's array,
With a sword and pistol all by her side,
To meet her true love
To meet her true love away did ride.
She met her true love all on the plain,
And when she saw him she bid him stand,
'Stand and deliver, kind sir,' she said,
Or else this moment
Or else this moment I’ll shoot you dead.'
Oh, when she'd robbed him of all his store,
She says, 'Kind sir, there is one thing more,
A diamond ring which I know you have,
Deliver that,
Deliver that, your sweet life to save.'
'That diamond ring a token is,
That ring I’ll keep, my life I’ll lose;'
She being tender hearted just like a dove,
She rode away
She rode away from her own true love.
Next morning in the garden green,
O like true lovers they were seen;
He saw his watch hanging by her clothes,
Which made him flush
Which made him flush like a red rose.
'What makes you flush at so silly a thing,
I fain would have had your diamond ring,
‘And if you had given me the ring,’ she said,
I’d have pulled the trigger
I’d have pulled the trigger, I’d have shot you dead.’
In the oldest version of the ballad, Sovay only tells her love that demanding the ring was a test, but I rather like the stronger version that I performed. But remember this trope of stealing a love token, because it’s going to come up again.
The era of the rise of highwaymen was also an era when popular media was fascinated with gender disguises and the possibility of accidental homoerotic encounters with women disguised as men. Denise Walen’s extensive study of female cross-dressing in early modern drama doesn’t seem to include any examples where the disguised woman has a homoerotic encounter while acting as a highwayman, but it’s exactly the sort of plot one might find in that context.
Lesbian historical romance, on the other hand, has latched on to the motif of the cross-dressing female highwayman as an excellent way to combine swashbuckling, gender play, and the possibility of accidentally falling in love with a woman who was forbidden to you both by gender and profession.
Within this sub-genre, the motif of the stolen trinket that provides an excuse for further contact almost seems a requirement. In fact, we can lay out a formula for the standard lesbian highwaywoman romance: a respectable young woman (though one with a yearning for something beyond her foreseeable fate on the marriage market) is one of the victims of a highwayman’s robbery, protesting the loss of a piece of jewelry that has deep sentimental meaning. The highwayman, in a change of heart, returns the jewelry prompting (or encouraging) an inexplicable attraction between the two, and the highwayman is (eventually) revealed to be a woman who took to an outlaw life due to a tragic backstory. They, of course, fall in love, struggle with the personal, social, and legal barriers to their relationship, and eventually work their way through to a happy ending.
Here are five stories about female highwaymen finding love and redemption in the arms of another woman.
* * *
Rebeccah and the Highwayman by Barbara Davies (Bedazzled Ink, 2008)
I loved the solid historic grounding in Barbara Davies’ Rebeccah and the Highwayman. At the beginning of the 18th century, in the time of Queen Anne, Rebeccah Dutton has a series of encounters with the mysterious highwayman Blue-Eyed Nick, but the secret that “Nick” is actually a woman proves dangerous as both women are drawn together again and again.
The meaningful keepsake in this story is Rebeccah’s family signet ring, which she is allowed to keep in the initial encounter. They are reunited when Kate--in the guise of Blue-Eyed Nick--is wounded in the course of rescuing Rebeccah, who must then conceal the highwaywoman during her recovery. Kate has a brush with the gallows, but we know it will come off well--after all, this isn’t a Sarah Waters novel! I particularly liked the novel’s use of the relationship between Queen Anne and Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough (who is conveniently Rebeccah’s distant cousin) to convey understandings and attitudes towards women’s romantic relationships at the time. The story is solidly written with only occasional historical info-dumps. Kate’s eventual change of profession was delightfully true to the times. Unlike several of the books discussed in this show, the erotic content draws the curtain after passionate kissing, though more is clearly implied. This is an excellent book for those who want both good writing and good history.
The Locket and the Flintlock by Rebecca S Buck (Bold Strokes Books, 2012)
Rebecca S. Buck’s The Locket and the Flintlock takes a Regency era setting and draws on the motifs of that genre as well as the standard highwayman tropes of a stolen sentimental keepsake (as one might guess from the title) and a highwaywoman with a tragic backstory, a heart of gold, and a drive for social and economic justice. A few days after her dead mother’s locket has been taken during a daring highway robbery, Lucia Foxe recognizes the thieves riding past from her bedroom window and sets out after them, bareback on her favorite mare, to retrieve the keepsake in the middle of the night. And there lies one of the major flaws of this work: almost all the characters do something important that breaks my willingness to believe in the story. But if you can overlook plot holes and inconsistencies, it’s a rollicking adventure with a lot of angsty self-examination and the level of steaminess one tends to expect from a Bold Strokes book.
Daring and Decorum by Lawrence Hogue (Supposed Crimes, 2017)
Except for one issue, which I’ll get to in a moment, I loved Lawrence Hogue’s Daring and Decorum. Set in 18th century England, Elizabeth Collington longs for something beyond the life of a respectable vicar’s daughter. Then one day she encounters a highwayman who steals her mother’s necklace...and a kiss. The encounter stirs feelings that must be kept secret, and an even greater secret is that the highwayman is a woman. The book’s strength is its solid worldbuilding and the deliberation with which it builds the relationship between the two female protagonists, making both their attraction and the obstacles to it believable and solidly grounded in the social history of the times. Unlike many stories that plunge the women directly into a relationship, Daring and Decorum provides a realistic pacing for the relationship, though this may cause some readers to find it slow. I loved Hogue’s writing. He has a solid grasp of the flavor of early 19th century novels without resulting in any stilted awkwardness of language. The one thing that got the book off on the wrong foot for me was a mild sexual assault in the opening scene. Nothing more than groping, but I’m not fond of the message that women will, of course, get turned on by assault as long as it’s by the person who ends up being the love interest. It wasn’t enough to put me off the book entirely, but I think the story could have worked just as well with a different opening.
The Mask of the Highwaywoman by Niamh Murphy (self-published, 2017)
In The Mask of the Highwaywoman by Niamh Murphy, Evelyn Thackeray is traveling to visit friends in advance of her upcoming marriage to a business associate of her widowed father when a band of highwaymen--and one highwaywoman--stops the coach she’s traveling in. Robbed of her money and a locket that Evelyn risked the anger of the highwaymen to try to keep, she’s now stranded penniless in a village. She offers to work at an inn in exchange for a room for the night...and then Bess, the highwaywoman, climbs through her window there, out of the darkness.
The story uses the standard collection of highwaywoman tropes: the soft-hearted thief, the keepsake stolen and then returned as an excuse to meet again, the sudden inexplicable attraction to an outlaw. And it tries to add in a layer of off-balance, constantly shifting loyalties and triple-crosses, but never quite sticks the landing in terms of believability. The plot consists of a non-stop sequence of chases, kidnappings, and escapes, punctuated by emotional confrontations and betrayals. I found it hard to sympathize with either Evelyn or Bess, and the question of how a highwaywoman successfully retires from a life of crime felt glossed over a bit too easily. But if non-stop action is your thing, check it out.
Behind the Mask by Kim Larabee (Alyson Books, 1989 out of print)
What is a single young woman in the Regency era to do if she must support a household? In Kim Larabee’s Behind the Mask, as an alternative to setting one’s cap for a handsome man with a title or a fortune, our hero Maddie Elverton turns to highway robbery. But her double life threatens to unravel when she encounters Allie Sifton, at first as a victim of her robbery, and then as a partner in her secret. There is a theft and return of jewelry, though not of the usual sentimental keepsake.
This story is largely a light-hearted romp, filled with exquisite writing, and leavened by a small amount of peril from the dogged pursuit by Lt. Bridgewater, who has set his sights on taking the highwayman in hand. Larabee is mistress of the language and conventions of the Regency romance, and turns the usual tropes of the genre on their head to bring Allie and Maddie together for their happily ever after. I highly recommend this book if you can find a copy, however unfortunately it is out of print.
* * *
There are plenty of ideas left to tackle in the female highwayman genre. England isn’t the only possible setting and the field is wide open for a plot that starts out with something other than the theft of a sentimental keepsake.
I’ll take what may be unfair advantage to note that I included a brief highway robbery scene in my novelette “The Mazarinette and the Musketeer”, set in the late 17th century where the crime is planned to cover up the retrieval of sensitive state documents. There is, of course, also a damsel in distress to rescue. There’s a link to the free story in the show notes.
Whether your heroines meet over the theft of a sentimental locket or rob Roundheads in support of King Charles, whether they run off together to enjoy their life of crime or eventually settle down in the guise of lady companions, it’s hard to beat a highwaywoman for swashbuckling adventure!
[Final verse of “The Highwayman” by Noyes & Ochs]
Show Notes
This is my first “fifth week special” episode, when I have to come up with something outside my 4-topic rotation. Today we have a multi-media look at female highwaymen in history, song, and story, including five lesbian highwaywoman romances.
In this episode we talk about:
- The historic era of the highwaymen
- Ballads featuring female highwaymen (you get to hear me sing!)
- Women in history who went “on the pad” as they say, or who were rumored to have done so
- The most popular formula for lesbian highwaywoman novels
- Five lesbian highwaywoman romances, plus one bonus highway robbery incident
The various persons and works discussed or presented in this podcast (in order of appearance) are as follows. Some historic references may apply to more than one person.
- “The Highwayman” (excerpt, lyrics by Alfred Noyes music by Phil Ochs, performed by Heather Rose Jones)
- “The Female Highway Hector”, 1683-1703 (excerpt, anonymous broadside ballad, sung to the tune “The Rant”, performed by Heather Rose Jones)
- Historic highwaywomen Joan Bracey, Ann Meders, Nan Hereford
- Rumored highwaywomen Katherine Ferrers (“The Wicked Lady”) and Mary Frith (Moll Cutpurse)
- “Sovay, or The Female Highwayman” (full text, traditional ballad, music traditional?, performed by Heather Rose Jones)
- For cross-dressing motifs in literature in general:
Novels with Highwaywoman Romances
- Rebeccah and the Highwayman by Barbara Davies (Bedazzled Ink, 2008)
- The Locket and the Flintlock by Rebecca S Buck (Bold Strokes Books, 2012)
- Daring and Decorum by Lawrence Hogue (Supposed Crimes, 2017)
- The Mask of the Highwaywoman by Niamh Murphy (self-published, 2017)
- Behind the Mask by Kim Larabee (Alyson Books, 1989 out of print)
- “The Mazarinette and the Musketeer” by Heather Rose Jones (self-published, 2016)
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
- Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
- RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
- Twitter: @LesbianMotif
- Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
- The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon
Links to Heather Online
- Website: http://alpennia.com
- Email: Heather Rose Jones
- Twitter: @heatherosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Major category:
LHMPPages
