Post by Save Your Karma on Jul 27, 2007 14:57:10 GMT -5
Deana Kalcich
British Lit
Professor Wilson
April 30, 2007
Publicly Pious Victorians, Privately Deviant Sex Addicts
Whenever one hears a reference to the Victorians one pictures houses with wrap around porches, stiff furniture, and piteous-picture-perfect families. Despite the pictures in books and replica dollhouses which portray a lavish lifestyle worthy of the perfect family, the Victorian period often contained the opposites of the pictures engrained in our minds, nor were they as piteous as we’d like to think. While the Victorian’s were extremely preoccupied with appearances, their true feelings often surfaced in literature and actions. Such hypocrisy and the dual lifestyle is particularly present in the public expressions, or lack there of, sexuality, and private, and subtle expressions of sexuality .
The Victorians are often portrayed as god-fearing people who feared that sex was the root of all evil. The sexual repression manifested itself in the stiff formal clothing, the scandal of glimpsing just an ankle, and the restrictions of medical devices design to discourage masturbation. As with any sort of repression there must be some relief. That relief for the Victorians seems to come mainly in two specific area’s: the prominence of prostitution and eroticism in literature.
Prostitution in Victorian England thrived. Middle and upper-class men lived lavish lifestyles that they seemed almost entitled to live. This lavish lifestyle undoubtedly included sexual liaisons. As a solution to absolve these indiscretions the indulgence of such luxuries were never explicitly talked about.
However the rise of venereal disease reflects the widespread prostitution and the legislation passed to help minimize the contraction of venereal disease shows that it was a significant concern. The Contagious Diseases Act was formed in 1864 was an attempt to reduce the number of military and navy men from contracting venereal disease. The act stated "Should a member of a special force or a registered doctor believe that a woman was a common prostitute (a term left undefined), then he might lay such information before a Justice of the Peace who was then to summon the woman to a certified hospital established under the act for medical examination. Should she refuse, then the magistrate could order her to be taken to the hospital and there forcibly examined and if found, in either case, to be suffering from venereal disease, then she could be detained in a hospital for a period of up to three months. Resistance to examination or refusal to obey the hospital rules could be visited with one month’s imprisonment for the first offense and two months for any subsequent offense. They might, however, submit voluntarily to examination without a magistrate’s order, but if infected became liable for detention" (Vicinus 95). Such legislation shows that venereal diseases was a huge concern for the Victorians, not only for the military but for the public in general. Men and prostitutes were not the only people affected. Men passed the diseases on to their wives who could pass them on to their unborn children.
Despite the perceived purity, Victorian literature expressed what people could not talk about amongst themselves; sex and sensuality. A great example of this is Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market”. “Goblin Market” is filled with erotic imagery. In lines 32-40 the reader is confronted with the first intimate scene of the poem;
Evening by evening
Among the brookside rushes,
Laura bowed her head to hear,
Lizzie veiled her blushes:
Crouching close together
In the cooling weather,
With clasping arms and cautioning lips,
With tingling cheeks and finger-tips.
"Lie close," Laura said,
The reader does not know the relationship of the two woman. The scene seems to
be very sensual. This is made evident by the references to the senses of sound and
touch, the brookside rushes, and the cooling weather, clasping arms, and tingling
cheeks and finger-tips. These two woman could be crouching beside a river out of
fear, yet they could also be lovers beside that river.
The poem is full of these dual images. In lines 464-474, the reader again sees the duality of the relationship of Lizzie and Laura. Sisters or lovers they have a very intimate relationship.
She cried "Laura," up the garden,
"Did you miss me ?
Come and kiss me.
Never mind my bruises,
Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices
Squeezed from goblin fruits for you,
Goblin pulp and goblin dew.
Eat me, drink me, love me;
Laura, make much of me:
For your sake I have braved the glen
And had to do with goblin merchant men."
The sexual imagery is unmistakable. These sisters are portrayed as having a sexual encounter, something that breaks the mold of the stereotypes applied to Victorians. Not only is this a very open encounter, it is also a homosexual and incestuous one. Homosexuality was a particularly taboo subject. Homosexuality in the supposedly deeply religious Britain was extremely controversial. Oscar Wilde was thrown in prison when convicted of homosexuality and before 1830 people, meaning men, were executed when convicted of such a crime. Relationships portrayed in literature like those of Lizzie and Laura, reflect the opposing side to the supposed pious lifestyle of the Victorians.
Another scene in “Goblin Market” that shows that violence can erupt when men are denied sexual satisfaction. In lines 390-407 the Goblins rape Lizzie.
They began to scratch their pates,
No longer wagging, purring,
But visibly demurring,
Grunting and snarling.
One called her proud,
Cross-grained, uncivil;
Their tones waxed loud,
Their looks were evil.
Lashing their tails
They trod and hustled her,
Elbowed and jostled her,
Clawed with their nails,
Barking, mewing, hissing, mocking,
Tore her gown and soiled her stocking,
Twitched her hair out by the roots,
Stamped upon her tender feet,
Held her hands and squeezed their fruits
Against her mouth to make her eat.
The rape of Lizzie reflects the conditions women were subjected to within their own marriages. While rape was considered a heinous crime outside of marriage, English Law defined rape as “the offence of having unlawful and carnal knowledge of a woman by force and against her will”(Geary 480), many woman were subjected to rape in their own households. Women were treated and portrayed as objects for their husbands to use at their own discretion. Sex was a womanly duty, not a pleasurable act. Because sex was never talked about woman had no idea what to expect on the wedding night, and men treated woman as though they were asexual beings. Medical professionals did nothing to change this attitude many as exemplified by the examples of Dr. William Acton who is quoted as writing "The majority of women (happily for them) are not very much troubled with sexual feelings of any kind" and Dr. Auguste Debay who, though aware of spousal rape by men who demanded sex from their wives regardless of their state of wellbeing, merely counseled woman to “submit” as a “refusal can provoke his bad temper and sometimes a tempest“ (Hellerstein176).
Despite the stereotypical thoughts of Victorians, there is more to their society than meets the eye. The contrast between the public and private life of a middle or upper class person is startling, particularly present in sexual practices and attitudes. Only by examining the literature, domestic policy, and medical practices etc. can one truly understand the complexity and the duality of Victorian life.
Works Cited
Geary, Neville The Law of Marriage and Family Relations: A Manual of Practical Law. Adam and Charles Black: London 1892, p. 480
Hellerstein, Erna Olafson, Hume, Leslie Parker, and Offen, Karen M., eds. Victorian Women; A Documentary Account of Women’s Lives in Nineteenth- Century England, France, and the United States. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1981
Vicinus, Martha., ed. Suffer and Be Still. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1973.
British Lit
Professor Wilson
April 30, 2007
Publicly Pious Victorians, Privately Deviant Sex Addicts
Whenever one hears a reference to the Victorians one pictures houses with wrap around porches, stiff furniture, and piteous-picture-perfect families. Despite the pictures in books and replica dollhouses which portray a lavish lifestyle worthy of the perfect family, the Victorian period often contained the opposites of the pictures engrained in our minds, nor were they as piteous as we’d like to think. While the Victorian’s were extremely preoccupied with appearances, their true feelings often surfaced in literature and actions. Such hypocrisy and the dual lifestyle is particularly present in the public expressions, or lack there of, sexuality, and private, and subtle expressions of sexuality .
The Victorians are often portrayed as god-fearing people who feared that sex was the root of all evil. The sexual repression manifested itself in the stiff formal clothing, the scandal of glimpsing just an ankle, and the restrictions of medical devices design to discourage masturbation. As with any sort of repression there must be some relief. That relief for the Victorians seems to come mainly in two specific area’s: the prominence of prostitution and eroticism in literature.
Prostitution in Victorian England thrived. Middle and upper-class men lived lavish lifestyles that they seemed almost entitled to live. This lavish lifestyle undoubtedly included sexual liaisons. As a solution to absolve these indiscretions the indulgence of such luxuries were never explicitly talked about.
However the rise of venereal disease reflects the widespread prostitution and the legislation passed to help minimize the contraction of venereal disease shows that it was a significant concern. The Contagious Diseases Act was formed in 1864 was an attempt to reduce the number of military and navy men from contracting venereal disease. The act stated "Should a member of a special force or a registered doctor believe that a woman was a common prostitute (a term left undefined), then he might lay such information before a Justice of the Peace who was then to summon the woman to a certified hospital established under the act for medical examination. Should she refuse, then the magistrate could order her to be taken to the hospital and there forcibly examined and if found, in either case, to be suffering from venereal disease, then she could be detained in a hospital for a period of up to three months. Resistance to examination or refusal to obey the hospital rules could be visited with one month’s imprisonment for the first offense and two months for any subsequent offense. They might, however, submit voluntarily to examination without a magistrate’s order, but if infected became liable for detention" (Vicinus 95). Such legislation shows that venereal diseases was a huge concern for the Victorians, not only for the military but for the public in general. Men and prostitutes were not the only people affected. Men passed the diseases on to their wives who could pass them on to their unborn children.
Despite the perceived purity, Victorian literature expressed what people could not talk about amongst themselves; sex and sensuality. A great example of this is Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market”. “Goblin Market” is filled with erotic imagery. In lines 32-40 the reader is confronted with the first intimate scene of the poem;
Evening by evening
Among the brookside rushes,
Laura bowed her head to hear,
Lizzie veiled her blushes:
Crouching close together
In the cooling weather,
With clasping arms and cautioning lips,
With tingling cheeks and finger-tips.
"Lie close," Laura said,
The reader does not know the relationship of the two woman. The scene seems to
be very sensual. This is made evident by the references to the senses of sound and
touch, the brookside rushes, and the cooling weather, clasping arms, and tingling
cheeks and finger-tips. These two woman could be crouching beside a river out of
fear, yet they could also be lovers beside that river.
The poem is full of these dual images. In lines 464-474, the reader again sees the duality of the relationship of Lizzie and Laura. Sisters or lovers they have a very intimate relationship.
She cried "Laura," up the garden,
"Did you miss me ?
Come and kiss me.
Never mind my bruises,
Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices
Squeezed from goblin fruits for you,
Goblin pulp and goblin dew.
Eat me, drink me, love me;
Laura, make much of me:
For your sake I have braved the glen
And had to do with goblin merchant men."
The sexual imagery is unmistakable. These sisters are portrayed as having a sexual encounter, something that breaks the mold of the stereotypes applied to Victorians. Not only is this a very open encounter, it is also a homosexual and incestuous one. Homosexuality was a particularly taboo subject. Homosexuality in the supposedly deeply religious Britain was extremely controversial. Oscar Wilde was thrown in prison when convicted of homosexuality and before 1830 people, meaning men, were executed when convicted of such a crime. Relationships portrayed in literature like those of Lizzie and Laura, reflect the opposing side to the supposed pious lifestyle of the Victorians.
Another scene in “Goblin Market” that shows that violence can erupt when men are denied sexual satisfaction. In lines 390-407 the Goblins rape Lizzie.
They began to scratch their pates,
No longer wagging, purring,
But visibly demurring,
Grunting and snarling.
One called her proud,
Cross-grained, uncivil;
Their tones waxed loud,
Their looks were evil.
Lashing their tails
They trod and hustled her,
Elbowed and jostled her,
Clawed with their nails,
Barking, mewing, hissing, mocking,
Tore her gown and soiled her stocking,
Twitched her hair out by the roots,
Stamped upon her tender feet,
Held her hands and squeezed their fruits
Against her mouth to make her eat.
The rape of Lizzie reflects the conditions women were subjected to within their own marriages. While rape was considered a heinous crime outside of marriage, English Law defined rape as “the offence of having unlawful and carnal knowledge of a woman by force and against her will”(Geary 480), many woman were subjected to rape in their own households. Women were treated and portrayed as objects for their husbands to use at their own discretion. Sex was a womanly duty, not a pleasurable act. Because sex was never talked about woman had no idea what to expect on the wedding night, and men treated woman as though they were asexual beings. Medical professionals did nothing to change this attitude many as exemplified by the examples of Dr. William Acton who is quoted as writing "The majority of women (happily for them) are not very much troubled with sexual feelings of any kind" and Dr. Auguste Debay who, though aware of spousal rape by men who demanded sex from their wives regardless of their state of wellbeing, merely counseled woman to “submit” as a “refusal can provoke his bad temper and sometimes a tempest“ (Hellerstein176).
Despite the stereotypical thoughts of Victorians, there is more to their society than meets the eye. The contrast between the public and private life of a middle or upper class person is startling, particularly present in sexual practices and attitudes. Only by examining the literature, domestic policy, and medical practices etc. can one truly understand the complexity and the duality of Victorian life.
Works Cited
Geary, Neville The Law of Marriage and Family Relations: A Manual of Practical Law. Adam and Charles Black: London 1892, p. 480
Hellerstein, Erna Olafson, Hume, Leslie Parker, and Offen, Karen M., eds. Victorian Women; A Documentary Account of Women’s Lives in Nineteenth- Century England, France, and the United States. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1981
Vicinus, Martha., ed. Suffer and Be Still. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1973.
