LHMP

In an era when men intrested in homosexual encounters were creating subcultures, meeting places, and social institutions such as "molly houses,"  there are vanishingly few indications that women with sapphic interests had anything similar. Except in the popular imagination. In fictional works such as L'Espion Anglois and in satirical political tracts, the image of an entire secret society of lesbians was developed. Was there any foundation of truth to these imagined lesbian sex clubs? Likely not on the scale depicted, though perhaps on a smaller more personal level.

(Lightly adapted from the original twitter thread. My first draft included more detailed descriptions of the books, but I edited ruthlessly to make (most of) them fit into individual tweets.)

25 recommended texts from the Lesbian Historic Motif Project blog. This is in response to a twitter request for suggested reading on pre-20th century queer history. My specific specialty is on sapphic/lesbian history, though some of these works are broader in coverage.

It's entirely coincidental that I'm covering this article on "The Italian Taste" (i.e., homosexuality) in late 18th century France right after airing the podcast on Anne Lister's courtship strategies that included her slang term "going to Italy" for engaging in sexual relations with women. It was fairly common for historic cultues to attribute either the practice or the origins of homosexual relations to some other neighboring culture. The English tended to view France as the origin of non-normative sexual practices, while France looked to Italy.

I waver between thinking that each period I read about it the absolutely most fascinating one with regard to gender and sexuality, and thinking that the period immediately before the one I'm reading about is. But every time I read articles about the 17th century (especially England or France, but let's be honest: that's where the publications skew) I come back to the idea that it was a fascinatingly queer era.