Pop Culture Lesbian Sororal Incest - Yeah They Went There

This article addresses the ticklish topic of the “sapphic incest motif” in erotic art and drama around the turn of the 20th century. Multiple themes braid together within this general context. The rhetorical use of “sisterhood” in support of feminist and sapphic communities. (It isn’t too far a stretch to assert the existence of sapphic communities at this point.) The use of actual or fictional family ties to defuse potential sapphic readings, as with actress Charlotte Cushman’s Romeo playing opposite her real-life sister’s Juliet. And the imagery of implied (or actual) family ties in deliberately erotic imagery, such as “French postcards” depicting nude women.

Focusing for a moment on Cushman’s Romeo: there was an entire industry of pop culture depictions of her and her sister in these roles, encompassing Staffordshire china figurines and lithographs. The mollifying factor of casting her sister as Juliet is contradicted by later performances in which her Juliet was played by at least two of her female lovers (Matilda Hays and Sarah Anderton).

Another thread in the public debates around the definition and perception of incest appears in the long consideration of an English bill concerning the legality of a man marrying his dead wife’s sister. Some have connected this concern to male pornographic fantasies and depictions of “having both sisters,” while pornographic images of pairs of women embracing raised the specter that the sisters might prefer each other instead.

The depiction or presentation of “sister acts” in art and on stage created a gradient of eroticism from explicit postcards to musical and comedy acts in with “sisterhood” could be interpreted as standing in for lesbian sexual relationships (even when performed by real-life sisters). The gradient was expanded further by Victorian attempts to re-define the historical Sappho’s same-sex desire as maternal in nature, focusing on the image of her as a teacher and mentor. [Note: At the same time, some women in erotic relationships used the language of mother-daughter bonds, with no actual familial basis.]

These tangled popular culture connections between family bonds and erotic connections carried over into early 20th century theatrical imagery, such as the vaudeville sister act known as Tempest and Sunshine who appear on the covers of sheet music publications with one sister in drag and the two in a romantic embrace, illustrating songs of courtship and love. Silent films in the pre-Hayes Code era were rife with imagery of “sisters” (whether in terms of the characters or the actresses) in eroticized scenes.

The author suggests that, rather than the ambiguity of “sisterhood” providing a deniable cover for lesbian eroticism, this imagery demonstrates that “any such invisibility or ‘deniability’ was produced in relation to an overwhelming abundance of visibility and plausibility.” That is, any deniability is being projected by modern critics rather than being attributable to the women participating in the production of these images at the time. (A large number of relevant early film titles are mentioned.)