LHMP #504 Wagner 2013 Pathological Bodies

This book as a whole looks at connections between medical theories and political culture, in 18-19th century Britain and France. Only one chapter has any relevance to the Project and this summary will be confined to that material.

Chapter 1: The Case of Marie Antoinette: Revolutionary Politics and the Biologically Suspect Woman

Like a number of other publications, this focuses on the political propaganda that depicted Marie Antoinette as an extreme sexual deviant along several axes, with a special interest in tying those themes to deviant anatomy.

The process of turning MA into a hated figure via sexual propaganda pre-dated her, having been used against salonnières and other courtiers earlier in the century, but the intensity and virulence was unprecedented. MA was simultaneously supposed to have committed adultery, incest, sodomy, lesbianism, murder, and treason. Underlying this campaign was not only attacks on a specific woman, but the establishment of specific sexual norms and political values. These revolved around the idea that women were inherently unfit for politics and government, and worked toward the elimination of women from public life.

A key aspect of this process was promotion of the idea that biological differences between the sexes required distinct gender roles, and that women’s bodies were inherently pathological. [Note: This is part of the rise of the “separate spheres” philosophy and the general 19th theories about the genders as essentially separate species.] Despite the political conflicts between France and Britain, this French propaganda influenced British attitudes, resulting not only in negative attitudes in Britain towards MA, but shifting debate around women’s participation in public life.

Another aspect of the French discourse was how it interacted with medical research of the time, especially theories about the connection between physiology and sexual deviance. The chapter reviews Laqueur’s theories about a shift from a one-sex to two-sex model of bodies. There’s a long discussion of this in the chapter, including discussion of how Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s writings on gender and “nature” fit in with it. But I’m going to skip the details on that.

The pornographic pamphlets slandering MA begin in 1789 with accusations of incest and adultery, suggesting that her children are bastards, and depicting her as sexually voracious. This was ascribed to “uterine furor” with a physiological cause that drove her to seek ever expanding sexual gratification. In some publications, this sex drive is specifically ascribed to her “cunt” rather than to her as a person.

Nymphomania was a newly identified condition in French medical writing and generally ascribed to a physical condition, either a disorder of the nerves of the uterus, or in some cases to an enlarged clitoris that caused masculine sexual aggression in women. Other writers attributed a psychological cause (or at least contribution), due to an impotent or cold husband. (An issue present in the royal marriage.) However this aspect didn’t besmirch Louis’s reputation in the way that MA’s was. Especially in Britain, Louis was depicted positively by royalists.

Early theories of nymphomania identified multiple possible causes in women’s lives, all revolving around the idea of not having an appropriate, approved outlet for marital sex enjoyed in moderation. The overall theory was that women, though “naturally passive” had no sexual self-control and required external restraint in order to avoid sexual excess.

The introduction of accusations of lesbianism against MA occurred in a context where differences between the sexes were shifting from metaphysical causes (“nature”) to biological causes. Thus there was a medicalization of non-normative behaviors and a search for physical evidence of their cause. As a byproduct, depictions of abnormal anatomy (e.g., phallic women) were used to represent deprecated political figures. This process was not restricted to MA, but applied to her close companions as well as other women prominent in Revolutionary politics.

The chapter then moves on to similar symbolic connections between ideas of political “transparency” and a fascination with anatomical ambiguity (“hermaphrodites”) and the idea that women (and only women) presenting with anatomical ambiguity were “deceptive” and untrustworthy. This concern especially focused on the clitoris, how to understand unusually large organs, and how those organs might be used. [Note: As usual, I feel that discussions around this topic could really stand to have a solid grounding in intersex issues. Too often there’s a sense that early modern medical writers are either imagining the existence of clitoral hypertrophy, or are discussing only minor variations in size, as opposed to considering the variety of ways in which intersex anatomy might present.]  If—based on changing understandings of anatomical analogy—the clitoris is understood as a penis analogue, then it can be considered inherently “deceptive” and pathological as it has no biological purpose other than to infringe on male territory. If the clitoris is inherently pathological, then it must necessarily be associated with other pathologies, such as masturbation, lesbianism, and nymphomania. (This is also a review of the motif of large clitorises being associated with foreignness—especially the extreme version where it is attributed to non-European women.)

Medical discourse worked to create an image where, not only were men and women considered biologically separate species, but lesbians could be considered biologically distinct from “normal” women, by means of linking their sexuality with abnormal clitoral anatomy, and specifically with masculinized anatomy. [Note: This, of course, feeds eventually into one strain of sexological theories of lesbianism.]

At the same time as this medicalization of sexuality was developing, a counter-image of lesbianism as social fashion was created, with elaborate fantasies of an “Anandrine Sect” of women devoted to same-sex erotics. This motif implicated MA as well as some other prominent women in France (some of whom do appear to have been in lesbian relationships).

By 1793, the sexual propaganda against MA was so well established that it was used as legal evidence against her.

At this point, the chapter goes off into topics of less interest.