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Sunday, April 20, 2025 - 17:19
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 312 – Our F/Favorite Tropes Part 17: The Governess - transcript
(Originally aired 2025/04/20 - listen here)
The “Our F/Favorite Tropes” series examines popular historic romance tropes from the point of view of female couples and considering both the similarities and differences from opposite-sex couples. In literature, a trope is a recurring motif that is understood to carry a certain expected structure and meaning. The trope could be a situation, such as forced proximity, or a character type, such as the lovable rogue. It could be a type of relationship, such as a second-chance romance, or even a mini-script, such as a Cinderella story.
One popular type of trope is based on occupations that come with a certain set of social expectations about how the character will relate to those around her, including potential love interests. Today, we’re going to look at the governess romance.
The governess was part of the educational ecosystem in well-off European families beginning around the 17th century, but coming to its heyday in the later 18th and 19th centuries. (Wealthy American families might also employ a governess, but the institution was less established there.) Our image of the governess comes largely from English history, and the prevalence of the profession varied in different countries. Though the majority of governesses were of the same nationality as their pupils, there was a certain degree of international exchange. Families might prize foreign governesses—especially French ones—if language instruction was valued. And English governesses similarly had opportunities to work in other countries—though few as far away as Anna Leon-Owens, the inspiration for the character in The King and I.
The education of girls was less prioritized than that of boys and had different goals. For the middle and upper classes, boys typically were sent away to school. For girls there was a wider range of possibilities. Some received no formal schooling at all, picking up basic literacy and essential arithmetic at home, and otherwise focusing on the skills of a homemaker. Some did go to boarding schools, or perhaps to day-schools closer to home. But if the family could afford it, girls often received both their formal education and training in social skills, such as music and art, from a governess in their own homes. If a family had a governess, she would also typically be responsible for the initial education of young boys before they were sent away. The daughters of the family would be her responsibility until they were old enough to come out in society. Once her charges were married, she would need to find a new position, or perhaps strike out on her own running a school.
In a previous trope episode, when I discussed employer-employee relationships, I didn’t include the governess because she occupies a somewhat anomalous position—much like a professional companion does. Like the lady’s companion, the governess is expected to be of good social class—perhaps even of the same class as her employer—because part of her duties is to instill those class expectations in her pupils. But in contrast to the companion, the governess is clearly an employee, who receives wages. She is embedded in the family, but not part of the family; accompanying them when they traveled as long as her charges were present, but not socializing or dining with them except perhaps in rare informal circumstances. At the same time, like the lady’s companion, she was definitely not a servant, and did not socialize with the household servants or share the same quarters as them.
The anomalous position meant that her life was often lonely and isolated. It goes without saying that a governess was, by definition, unmarried. Before the later 19th century, the job was one of the few respectable options for unmarried women of the professional classes: the daughters of clergymen, or those in legal or medical professions—all situations where there would be no family money to provide a dowry or independence. The novels of Jane Austen provide a multitude of examples of the dynamics of the profession. Ironically, as more professional opportunities opened for women across the 19th century, women became more willing to view governess as a deliberate career choice, rather than a last chance to avoid poverty—an alternative to marriage, rather than a poor second choice.
The ideal governess was well-educated, widely read, multi-lingual, and accomplished in the arts—the same characteristics that were supposed to make her pupils valuable marriage prospects. All this is the complex background behind the attraction of the governess romance: her suitability as a partner in everything except her financial situation, her close connection with her employer’s family, and yet the strict social taboo that nominally prevents any more intimate relationship.
In the heterosexual governess romance, the central conflict is the violation of that social barrier, due to attraction sparked by the inescapable proximity of the two characters. The male protagonist is typically either an adult son of the family (who risks disinheritance if he falls for an inappropriate object) or a widowed father of the governess’s charges. Another option being an unmarried male guardian to the girls she is to teach. The governess is in a double-bind: she is expected to retain the highest moral standards (as an example for her pupils), but if she rejects the romantic advances she risks being dismissed. In real life, she may also be subject to less romantic advances from an already-married man in the household, but outside of Jane Eyre, this is rarely a good set-up for a romance novel.
On the positive side, the contexts for initiating romantic feelings can include bonding with a guardian or widowed father over concern for the girls, which can reframe them as a sort of fictive “couple”—a sort of “fake it till you make it” situation. In the case where the male romantic prospect is an adult son of the family, there may be all manner of reasons for the initial attraction to break through the social barrier, while the major hurdle may be figuring out how to achieve a happy ending despite family opposition—or perhaps how to resolve that opposition. All manner of other tropes can be combined with the governess scenario.
But let’s shift over to exploring the possibilities for a same-sex governess romance. Some of these may be closely parallel. The widowed mother of the governess’s charges? Both may be feeling the lack of human connection with someone who could be a peer, whether the bereavement is old or recent. If the marriage was not a love-match, the widow may have no previous experience of enjoying romance. If you take a broad-minded notion of romance structures, she needn’t even be widowed. A long-absent husband may leave a mother longing for closer companionship. The same social barrier will need to be broken down, but without the same risk to the governess’s reputation. Conversely, such a pairing might bring in questions of jealousy between two competing maternal figures with respect to the girls.
As with a heterosexual romance, the students might be orphans under the guardianship of someone other than a parent, though it should be noted that “guardianship” here probably wouldn’t mean full legal control, as the law would give precedence to a male relative for that position. Still a female relative might be the one with primary day-to-day oversight, and that could introduce a tension into the romance if a separate legal guardian disapproved of the romantic relationship.
In these previous cases, there is still the hazard of an employment relationship morphing into a romantic one, with the governess not feeling entirely free to be honest in her reactions.
Even without the problems of male attention, the governess’s anomalous social position creates similar issues for establishing and maintaining a romance with another female member of her employer’s family—a visiting relative or one living in the household on a long-term basis. If the governess is being treated as an equal by a member of the family, she may be perceived as stepping out of line by those who have control over her employment. Conversely, if she becomes romantically involved with a woman in a lower social position, her partner will be perceived as stepping out of line and would face disapproval from all sides. One category of person who might seem a natural option, if present in the household, would be a lady’s companion—both stand outside the usual hierarchies, while falling roughly within the same social status. Their major romantic barrier might be the degree to which their time is not their own.
And what about the possibility of a governess falling in love with one of her pupils? Or perhaps a bit less questionably, with the older sister of one of her pupils. Governesses were sometimes not substantially older than their charges. Imagine something like Jane Austen’s Emma where the sublimated romantic jealousy that Emma feels towards Miss Taylor is more overt, and a relationship that has shifted from teacher-pupil to friendship, then shifts further to love? Or perhaps a governess is hired to teach young children and then an absent older sister returns home and finds herself drawn to this person whom her sisters adore. The social barrier has already been disrupted because the two are expected to have a close connection. We can imagine further possibilities where a close emotional bond between teacher and pupil is reignited if the two meet again later in life, with the dynamic merging into something akin to “childhood sweethearts.”
Regardless of the exact details, the governess romance rests on several key points: intellectual and class equality, an artificial social barrier, economic precarity, and a degree of inescapable proximity. Beyond that, all you need to do is mix in a basis for attraction, a handful of personal qualms about the wisdom of pursuing that attraction, and an external crisis or two to trip them up before finding their happy ending.
Show Notes
In this episode we talk about:
- The dynamics of the “governess romance”
- F/f possibilities for governess romances
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
- Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
- Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
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Sunday, April 6, 2025 - 13:30
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 311 - On the Shelf for April 2025 - Transcript
(Originally aired 2025/04/06 - listen here)
Welcome to On the Shelf for April 2025.
Usually when the podcast comes out later than my target Saturday, it’s because life has gotten busy and I’m scrambling to finish writing the script and recording that weekend. For the essay show in March, it was because my brain entirely lost track of what week it was and I recorded the episode a week late. But for this current episode, I delayed release for a couple days because of a special announcement that just came out.
News of the Field
If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you might possibly remember that a year ago I published several articles analyzing the very peculiar nomination and voting data behind the 2023 Hugo Awards, one of the premier science fiction and fantasy awards, chosen annually by members of the World Science Fiction Society in conjunction with Worldcon. Several people were digging into various aspects of those voting peculiarities, which created quite the ruckus at the time, even making it into mainstream media. One of those other analysts, who goes by the pen name Camestros Felapton, asked me to collaborate with him on an extensive data analysis titled “Charting the Cliff: An Investigation into the 2023 Hugo Nomination Statistics.”
Now, another thing you need to know is that one of the categories for the Hugo Awards is the “Best Related Work” for SFF-related items that don’t fall in any of the fiction or art categories, often a non-fiction book or essay. And our essay, “Charting the Cliff” has been selected as a finalist for the Best Related Work Hugo Award.
I don’t know to what extent the listeners of this podcast overlap with SFF fandom, but this is rather huge. I’ve been vibrating with excitement for the last several weeks, but unable to tell anyone why until the official finalist announcements.
So…not in any way directly related to lesbian history or historical fiction, but very meaningful for me.
And, of course, the other exciting thing in my life is that my retirement date is less than a month away now. I’m still working on lining up all the necessary ducks for that, because bureaucracy moves slowly. You might hear them quacking away in the background.
[sound of quacking]
Publications on the Blog
In March, the blog continued my progress through some article collections, this time with more solid lesbian relevance, with Homosexuality in Modern France edited by Jeffrey Merrick and Bryant T. Ragan, Jr. The specific articles I selected for inclusion are “The Enlightenment Confronts Homosexuality” by Bryant T. Ragan Jr., “The Marquis de Villette and Mademoiselle de Raucourt: Representations of Male and Female Sexual Deviance in Late Eighteenth-Century France” by Jeffrey Merrick, “Pass as a Woman, Act like a Man: Marie-Antoinette as Tribade in the Pornography of the French Revolution” by Elizabeth Colwill, and “Invisible Women: Lesbian Working-class Culture in France, 1880-1930” by Francesca Canadé Sautman.
After finishing those, I grabbed several random books from the shelf that looked like I could get through them quickly. The Lesbian History Sourcebook: love and sex between women in Britain from 1780 to 1970 by Alison Oram and Annmarie Turnbull is a collection of extracts from historic texts intended for use in the classroom. Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister by Anne Choma is the companion book to the tv series, laying out Lister’s actual history during the period covered by the show. And finally, The Case of The Abbot of Drimnagh: A Medieval Irish Story of Sex-Change by Tadhg Ó Síocháin analyzes a supernatural tale from an early Irish manuscript and what it says about gender and storytelling.
Looking over the “to do” section of my bookshelves, I’m thinking of spending some time reading USA-centered histories—a field I often find myself overlooking when I reach for something to read.
Book Shopping!
I haven’t been shopping for new books for the blog lately. Not sure whether it’s because we’re in a slump for relevant publications or whether titles simply aren’t coming to my attention. Though goodness knows I have plenty of to-do items lying around!
Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
New lesbian and sapphic historical fiction is an interesting mix this month. The non-series books—and I’ll talk about the series books later—are all from mainstream presses. I’m not sure where the indie and small press sapphic historicals are this month. Is it an empty blip in the calendar? Or are my usual search processes not turning them up? In any event, here’s what I’ve got.
Glitter in the Dark by Olesya Lyuzna from Mysterious Press follows the recent trend for books set in the Prohibition Era.
Ambitious advice columnist Ginny Dugan knows she’s capable of more than solving other people’s beauty problems, but her boss at Photoplay magazine thinks she's only fit for fluff pieces. When she witnesses the kidnapping of a famous singer at Harlem’s hottest speakeasy, nobody takes her seriously, but Ginny knows what she saw―and what she saw haunts her.
Guilt-ridden over her failure to stop the kidnappers and hard-pressed for cash to finally move out of her uptight showgirl sister’s apartment, Ginny resolves to chase down the truth that will clear her conscience and maybe win her a promotion in the process. She manipulates a brooding detective into a reluctant partnership and together they uncover a sinister plot that pulls them into the dazzling yet dangerous world of the Ziegfeld Follies. Meanwhile, Ginny grapples with a secret of her own―she's fallen for Gloria Gardner, the star of the show. In the Roaring Twenties, their love isn't just scandalous; it’s illegal.
But when a brutal murder strikes someone close to her, Ginny realizes the stakes are higher than she ever imagined. This glamorous world has a deadly edge, and Ginny must shatter her every illusion to catch the shadowy killer before they strike again.
It took me a couple volumes into The Forge and Fracture Series by Brittany N. Williams from Amulet Books to spot the clues of sapphic content. (And to be clear, the reference is to the female protagonist being torn between female and male love interests, and I don’t know how that resolves.) So I’m including the series for the third book’s release: Iron Tongue of Midnight (The Forge & Fracture Saga #3). The two earlier volumes—That Self-Same Metal and Saint-Seducing Gold—came out in 2023 and 2024. As a bit of background from book 1:
Sixteen-year-old Joan Sands is a gifted craftswoman who creates and upkeeps the stage blades for William Shakespeare’s acting company, The King’s Men. Joan’s skill with her blades comes from a magical ability to control metal—an ability gifted by her Head Orisha, Ogun. Because her whole family is Orisha-blessed, the Sands family have always kept tabs on the Fae presence in London.
In the current book, we get the following:
Tensions between humans and fae have never been higher. Magical metal-worker Joan Sands, Shakespeare’s players, and King James I himself have been driven out of London by fae queen Titanea. Her fairy monsters have been unleashed in the city, harassing and slaughtering innocent people. Joan knows there’s only one way to bring peace: She must reforge the pact between humanity and fae.
But first, Joan must unravel the mystery behind the original pact, with the help of her two loves, Rose and Nick. As Queen Titanea’s power grows, Joan realizes her gifts may not be enough to stop her. And when the king’s whims lead to dire consequences, Joan must decide: Is her world even worth saving?
I had to check reviews to confirm that Mere by Danielle Giles from Pan MacMillan has sapphic content, but it was solidly established.
Norfolk, 990 AD. Deep in the Fens, isolated by a vast and treacherous mere, an order of holy sisters make their home. Under the steely guidance of Abbess Sigeburg they follow God’s path, looking to their infirmarian, Hilda, to provide what comfort and cures she can.
But when the mere takes a young servant boy, Sigeburg’s grip falters and Hilda quickly realizes this place holds secrets darker and more unholy than she can fathom.
Then proud Sister Wulfrun, a recent arrival to the convent, has a vision: a curse is upon them and change must be brought. Is she saint or serpent? To Hilda, Wulfrun is a signal bolder and brighter than any fire set – one she cannot help but follow . . .
Renegade Girls: A Queer Tale of Romance and Rabble-Rousing by Nora Neus and Julie Robine is a graphic novel from Little, Brown Ink.
Seventeen-year-old Helena “Nell” Cusack came to New York this summer looking for a story—a real story. She dreams of one day writing hard-hitting articles for the New York Chronicle, but so far she's only managed to land a job as a lowly society reporter. That is, until Alice Austen strolls into her life, an audacious street photographer who encourages Nell to shake up polite society…and maybe also take a chance on love.
When her best friend, Lucia, is injured while working in a garment factory, Nell is determined to crack the story wide open. Posing as a seamstress, she reports on the conditions from the inside, making a name for herself as the Chronicle’s first ever stunt girl. But as Nell’s reporting gains momentum, so do the objections of those who oppose her. Will Nell continue to seek justice—even if it hurts her in the end?
Based on real-life stunt girl Nell Nelson and photographer Alice Austen, this tenderly drawn narrative is about bringing buried stories to light and the bravery of first love.
Last month I noted that a couple of authors had released whole handfuls of series books within a short time period, and I discussed my concerns about whether this was a red flag regarding content. The same phenomenon dominates the total numbers of books this month, representing three-quarters of the titles in my spreadsheet. I’m going to say quite honestly that I still have an uneasy feeling about this topic. I don’t see any obvious “tells” of the books being AI generated. The settings are much more “just vibes” than accurate history, but that goes for a large number of sapphic historicals, even those that aren’t overtly historic fantasy. But when it comes down to it, I just feel weird about giving that much air time to individually listing these cookie-cutter series all in a big lump. So my compromise is to discuss each series as a whole with a high-level overview, but not giving the cover copy for each individual title.
Delilah Kent, who presented us with the Scandal & Sapphire series last month, has a 6-volume series named The Highwaywomen, with the titles The Scarlett Highwaywoman, A Thief’s Kiss, Velvet & Vengeance, The Butcher’s Bride, The Duchess and the Dagger, and Reckless Hearts. The stories appear to be standalones and are set variously in the Regency and Victorian eras. Based on the cover copy, only one of the volumes appears to concern an actual highwaywoman, but all involve the criminal underworld in some fashion.
The Lesbian Pirates series by Marina Tempest—and there’s a carefully designed pen name if I ever saw one—adds four more titles to the two mentioned last month: Banshee’s Cry, Lucky Harp, Mercy’s Blade, and Midnight Serpent. Sapphic pirate romances rarely aim for strict historic accuracy, but the gender-blind casting of characters associated with the British Navy takes on new heights in this series, breaking free of the constraints of reality. The stories appear to all be stand-alones.
The Velvet & Vice series by V.C. Sterling is set in the 1920s, dealing with Prohibition, the criminal underworld, and the denizens of one particular speakeasy, The Velvet Viper. Each title focuses on the adventures and love life of a different couple. The five March and April titles newly added in today’s listings are: Rum & Roses, Brandy & Betrayal, Absinthe & Affection, Moonshine & Mayhem, and Scotch & Secrets.
What Am I Reading?
And what have I been reading in the past month? I don’t usually double-dip and count something both as personal reading and reading for the blog, but I’m going to do it for Gentleman Jack by Anne Choma. I don’t usually consume books for the blog via audiobook -- makes it hard to take notes! It made sense in this case because it’s more of a narrative history rather than a scholarly analysis. And my blog reads more like a book review than my usual summary. It’s a very readable biography and helps point out (though it doesn’t emphasize) the places where the tv show revised Lister’s actual life to make better drama.
On the fiction side, I listened to The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison. I think this finishes up the Cemeteries of Amalo series, set in the same universe as The Goblin Emperor. As with previous books in the series, there are a number of plot threads that braid together in the resolution. Our protagonist, a "witness for the dead" who can communicate with dead souls finds himself representing a murdered dragon. One of the other major plot threads about an escaped insurgent ties back in at the climax in a way that feels a little too convenient. And there's a surprising twist to a hinted-at romance arc that's been developing across the series. All in all, if this is the last book in this sequence, it’s a satisfying conclusion.
I also listened to The Suffragette Scandal by Courtney Milan. This is part of a multi-book series, so some of the character back stories come out in bits and pieces, but it stands alone well enough in my opinion. I've read several Courtney Milan historic romances in the past, with mixed impressions. This one worked very well for me, centering around the Victorian-era feminist movement and one of her favorite tropes: aristocrats who are desperately trying to escape their fate. But the reason I picked it up was for the very-much-in-the-background sapphic romance that has been slipped into the cracks of the main story.
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed the last episode with our first short story of the year. I love how Rhiannon Grant constructs entire societies out of archaeological fragments. If you liked this Iron Age story, you should pick up her Neolithic duology.
Show Notes
Your monthly roundup of history, news, and the field of sapphic historical fiction.
In this episode we talk about:
- A special announcement about your host
- Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog
- Ragan, Bryant T. Jr. 1996. “The Enlightenment Confronts Homosexuality” in Homosexuality in Modern France ed. by Jeffrey Merrick and Bryant T. Ragan, Jr. Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 0-19-509304-6
- Merrick, Jeffrey. 1996. “The Marquis de Villette and Mademoiselle de Raucourt: Representations of Male and Female Sexual Deviance in Late Eighteenth-Century France” in Homosexuality in Modern France ed. by Jeffrey Merrick and Bryant T. Ragan, Jr. Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 0-19-509304-6
- Colwill, Elizabeth. 1996. “Pass as a Woman, Act like a Man: Marie-Antoinette as Tribade in the Pornography of the French Revolution” in Homosexuality in Modern France ed. by Jeffrey Merrick and Bryant T. Ragan, Jr. Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 0-19-509304-6
- Sautman, Francesca Canadé. 1996. “Invisible Women: Lesbian Working-class Culture in Ferance, 1880-1930” in Homosexuality in Modern France ed. by Jeffrey Merrick and Bryant T. Ragan, Jr. Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 0-19-509304-6
- Oram, Alison & Annmarie Turnbull. 2001. The Lesbian History Sourcebook: love and sex between women in Britain from 1780 to 1970. Routledge, New York. ISBN 9-78-0-415-11485-3
- Choma, Anne. 2019. Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister. Penguin Books, New York. ISBN 978-0-14-313456-5
- Ó Síocháin, Tadhg. 2017. The Case of The Abbot of Drimnagh: A Medieval Irish Story of Sex-Change. Cork Studies in Celtic Literatures. ISBN 978-0-9955469-1-2
- Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
- Glitter in the Dark by Olesya Lyuzna
- That Self-Same Metal (The Forge & Fracture Saga #1) by Brittany N. Williams
- Saint-Seducing Gold (The Forge & Fracture Saga #2) by Brittany N. Williams
- Iron Tongue of Midnight (The Forge & Fracture Saga #3) by Brittany N. Williams
- Mere by Danielle Giles
- Renegade Girls: A Queer Tale of Romance and Rabble-Rousing by Nora Neus and Julie Robine
- The Scarlett Highwaywoman (The Highwaywomen #1) by Delilah Kent
- A Thief's Kiss (The Highwaywomen #2) by Delilah Kent
- Velvet & Vengeance (The Highwaywomen #3) by Delilah Kent
- The Butchers Bride (The Highwaywomen #4) by Delilah Kent
- The Duchess and the Dagger (The Highwaywomen #5) by Delilah Kent
- Reckless Hearts (The Highwaywomen #6) by Delilah Kent
- Banshee's Cry (Lesbian Pirates #3) by Marina Tempest
- Lucky Harp (Lesbian Pirates #4) by Marina Tempest
- Mercy's Blade (Lesbian Pirates #5) by Marina Tempest
- Midnight Serpent (Lesbian Pirates #6) by Marina Tempest
- Rum & Roses (Velvet & Vice #3) by V.C. Sterling
- Brandy & Betrayal (Velvet & Vice #4) by V.C. Sterling
- Absinthe & Affection (Velvet & Vice #5) by V.C. Sterling
- Moonshine & Mayhem (Velvet & Vice #6) by V.C. Sterling
- Scotch & Secrets (Velvet & Vice #7) by V.C. Sterling
- What I’ve been consuming
- Gentleman Jack by Anne Choma
- The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison
- The Suffragette Scandal by Courtney Milan
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
- Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
- Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Major category:
LHMPSunday, April 6, 2025 - 12:29
The Hugo Award finalists were just annouced, so I can finally go public. In the category of Best Related Work, the essay "Charting the Cliff: An Investigation Into the 2023 Hugo Nomination Statistics" by Camestros Felapton and Heather Rose Jones received enough nominations to be on the final Hugo Awards ballot.
More details to come.
Major category:
ConventionsSaturday, March 29, 2025 - 07:00
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 310 – A Falling Star and a Flying Bird by Rhiannon Grant - transcript
(Originally aired 2025/03/29 - listen here)
Today’s story kicks off the 2025 fiction series with “A Falling Star and a Flying Bird” by Rhiannon Grant. Rhiannon lives in Birmingham, UK, with her wife and lots of books and teddy bears. She has been fascinated by British prehistory ever since visiting stone circles in Cornwall as a child. In addition to her fiction she researches, teaches, and writes nonfiction about the Quaker tradition and philosophy of religion.
I’ve had Rhiannon as a guest on the podcast a couple years ago, discussing her sapphic historical novels set in Neolithic Orkney: Between Boat and Shore and Carving a New Shape. The current story is almost modern in comparison, set in the British Iron Age a few centuries before those pesky Romans show up. As with her longer work, Rhiannon has built on archaeological knowledge to envision entire societies, including plausible ways in which queer people might have moved in those societies.
If you want to find out more about Rhiannon Grant and her work, check out her blog at brigidfoxandbuddha.wordpress.com via the link in the show notes.
I will be the narrator for this story.
This recording is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License. You may share it in the full original form but you may not sell it, you may not transcribe it, and you may not adapt it.
A Falling Star and a Flying Bird
By Rhiannon Grant
Singing Oak gets upset about the big stuff, like being humiliated in public or having her authority as our Druid undermined. I won't say that doesn't bother me on her behalf, but I have less power to lose and so it's the little digs which get to me. Take now, for example. Victory is holding my baby. I know she thinks of Tiny Spark as her son Brook's baby, and therefore in some sense her baby, but I was the one who carried her and when she cries to be fed, she'll have to come back to me. But for the time being she's happy enough being cuddled by her grandmother and it leaves me with my hands free to slice apples to eat with the pork when it's roasted.
Victory isn't happy, though. She's describing to little baby Tiny Spark, who's only been able to hold up her own head for a month or so, how she ought to be starting training to get strong and ready for battle. Ready for battle! Victory might have sent her son out to fight when he was too young to understand what was happening, and left him with all the nightmares you'd expect from that, but I don't want to let my daughter become a warrior unless she really wants to. If I've anything in mind for her, it's probably Druid training, but who am I to say what the gods will give her?
Such scruples about waiting for divine favour are important to Singing Oak, and although I'd be a bit more willing to hope for something specific, I also value the principle of waiting for a sign to be sure. Victory, on the other hand, likes to think she can make things happen. She brought her husband to her, a powerful man who fought well and died in the process, leaving her with the one child, a son who might have moved away – taking much of her money and all of his fame with him – if she hadn't arranged for him to get both a Druid wife who had already left her family and a lower-class woman who wouldn't want to marry him. Singing Oak is the Druid and I'm the lower-class woman, by the way.
Fortunately, I'm fond of Brook in a general sense and didn't mind getting pregnant, but I don't care about him enough to be longing for his attention all the time. Sometimes I wonder which would be worse, to love him less or to love him more. Since in fact I love Singing Oak dearly, and she loves me, and Brook loves riding out to be alone, we're all pretty happy when Victory isn't trying to tell us to do something different.
"Silver Wheat?" It's Singing Oak, and it sounds like it's not the first time she's asked. I blink and turn to her with a smile. "I asked if you saw something in the fire. You were staring."
I'd been resting my gaze there in an effort not to scowl at Victory or worry about whether Tiny Spark was going to remember any of the nonsense she was hearing, so I shook my head. "No, only the logs burning."
"You were miles away."
"Thinking about something else." I made myself refocus on the apples in the bowl, slicing another one open and cutting out a maggot. "How are the stars? Did you see better from the rampart?"
"Yes, but there's nothing new." Singing Oak sat down beside me and watched the young man who served Victory as he turned the meat over the fire. The smell was filling the air now and every mouth in the village would be watering soon. "I did see Spot tethered up to graze, so Brook must be back."
People gathered and we ate. It was one of those clear autumn nights when you can feel the winter's cold beginning, without it being sharp enough to stop you sitting around. Victory handed Tiny Spark over to Brook and she was fussing in his arms, trying to look around at however much a little baby can see. Singing Oak wasn't finished with the stars, and took breaks from her meal to watch the skies. Beautiful though she is when she's thoughtful, almost like one of the goddesses she's trying to understand, I kept myself focussed on trying to get plenty of food before Tiny Spark came back to me.
So it was that Singing Oak saw it first. She said, "Look!" and we all turned.
Burning through the sky was a star. It looked like a ball of light, and it flew over us for several breaths before it winked out. It was very bright, much brighter than the evening star which we could see not far away from it.
"I thought it was coming towards us," Brook said when it had gone dark. He bounced Tiny Spark, who was grizzling a little bit, perhaps getting hungry or disconcerted by the adults all looking up.
Then there was a thump.
It was loud enough to feel a little shake in the ground as well. It was somewhere on the far side of the fort, in the area where we dig our storage pits.
"What was that?" I asked, and I wasn't alone. People who hadn't been gathered around the fire started to come up to us, wanting to be close to their family members or find out what was happening.
Brook put on his booming voice.
He doesn't like using it but it does come in handy when there's an emergency or general confusion.
"The gods are sending messages," he said. "Singing Oak, where shall we look?"
She pointed, and we all traipsed back over to the storage area. With the sun almost gone we had to look around with lamps and torches, anything we could light. I checked the new storage pits first – if the gods had sent something to destroy our harvest, we would have had a very serious problem – but the seals were all intact. I went a bit further, testing my footing at every step – I didn't want to fall into an old pit in the dark – when something beneath my torchlight seemed a different colour. I knelt down to find a deep black dust scattered around the mouth of one of last year's storage pits.
"You found it," Singing Oak said behind me as I picked up some of the grit and rubbed it between my fingers.
"Do you think so?"
Singing Oak was carrying a branch, alight at one end, and she lowered the flame into the old pit. There were some little weeds growing on the walls, now covered in black dust, and earth freshly turned over, and at the bottom, below where we would be able to easily reach, a dark stone smaller than my palm.
"The fireball fell here," she said. "I suppose this is the ash it made, or perhaps it's soft like chalk and scattered this when it landed." People were starting to gather around now, including Brook. I stood up, still holding a handful of dark dirt, and Brook gestured for Singing Oak to speak.
She waited for quiet. There are about a hundred people living here at the moment, safely enclosed in our fort, farming the land around, trading with our neighbours when we can, and defending ourselves against them – or going out to raid their herds – when we can't. Some of the children were already asleep, or people were preparing themselves for tomorrow, or simply too tired to care about strange things in the sky, so perhaps thirty or thirty-five people were gathered to hear her.
"The gods have sent a blessing," she began. There were a few murmurs in the crowd, a few deep exhalations as people heard that and welcomed it. Any sign could go either way. The lamb's entrails in the spring had been complex and Singing Oak had told us, regretfully, that difficult times could lie ahead. There had been more rain than usual in the summer and the fields had turned golden later than usual, making it a rush to get everything cut and stored before the days started getting too short. A big flock of ravens had made their home on the east side of the fort, making everyone worry that fighting was on the way – although Singing Oak always told us that they could be waiting for something else. In short, when strange things started to happen, we were all on edge for bad news, and if Singing Oak thought this was a blessing, we were ready for it.
"There are two messages here," she went on. "The first was the falling star." She gestured with her torch, indicating the path of the light we had seen in the sky. The torchlight also shone on her red hair and lit her lively green eyes and wasn't quite bright enough to show all the freckles on her cheeks, freckles which I loved dearly and which she worried might form inauspicious patterns. It was lovely to look at. I had to restrain the urge to remind everyone that she was my wife, especially when they were all gazing at her hopefully as well.
"A falling star is like a bolt of lightning. It comes from Taranis and it means growth is coming. Lightning comes with rain and it means physical growth is coming; the falling star is a quiet, dry light, and it means we will be bigger and stronger as a people." I snuck a look around. Everyone was watching; even Tiny Spark wasn't fussing, perhaps even sleeping in Brook's arms. Singing Oak's voice had the power of authority and the mention of Taranis, her patron deity, probably helped. She had full authority to interpret his oracles. "The second message is this stone and dark earth, come to one of our old pits."
She paused, and someone took the opportunity to call out, "Is it the falling star? Is it a star that landed?"
I knew Singing Oak well enough to see her trying to decide about that. On the one hand, this thing had hit the ground so soon after the light in the sky it seemed they should be related. On the other hand, it looked like a stone; whatever made stars glow, it didn't have it. Slowly, she said, "Perhaps a piece of it. If a star is like a lamp, perhaps this is part of the frame."
Victory frowned. "I'm not sure..." she started.
I glanced at Brook, in case he was about to speak, but he bent his head to check on Tiny Spark and avoid getting involved. "The mystery of stars is far beyond us," I said. "Whatever fell, our question is about what the gods are telling us, not where it came from."
"Wouldn't you need to understand the origin to grasp the message? What if this fell from the sky and not from the gods?" Victory asked. She was as pious as you could wish for and sometimes more pious than I could stand when the gods were on her side, and could be an outright atheist when they weren't.
"Singing Oak, what does your wisdom tell you?"
In pausing, Singing Oak had risked losing the crowd. The bickering had given everyone a brief distraction. Now she was ready to take her cue from me. She adjusted her shawl and said, much more firmly, "This is a blessing on our harvest. We've seen two signs: the falling star for light and the stone for soil. The gods have sent it to bless even our old pits; our new pits will be full and safe all winter, and we will have plenty of bread. We are safe and well."
Everyone cheered, perhaps not as loudly as they would when that phrase was used in our spring-time rituals, but enough to show that Singing Oak had convinced them. She walked through the crowd towards the living quarters, torch held high, and people turned to follow her as she went.
Brook and I ended up at the back. Tiny Spark was mewling and once we were back on solid ground, I opened my tunic to feed her. It's not easy to walk at the same time but sometimes it's better than waiting until she screams.
"I'm sorry about my mother," Brook said.
I shrugged. It's not really his fault that she behaves like that. Even if it were, he should be apologising to Singing Oak, not to me. I didn't say that, though, because the whole messy ground of their marriage arrangement and its ending and my role in everything has been ploughed over so often that while there are very few stones left, it's also hard for anything to stand still long enough to grow. Instead I said, "I wonder if there will be another sign," and when he glanced at me questioningly, I added, "Things come in threes, you know, Singing Oak says that sometimes. Three great blows, three sad stories, three famous weapons."
"A triad of signs," he said, echoing the formal phrase. "But if there is a third sign to come, Silver Wheat, what question will it answer?"
I thought about that when I couldn't sleep that night.
Singing Oak was curled around my back. I could tell from her breathing that she was already asleep. We'd been too tired for more than a hug and kiss when we finally managed to get Tiny Spark to settle, but at least we were tucked safely into bed and behind the blanket which separated our sleeping space from Brook's. Sometimes I thought about how in this woolen cave I was surrounded by the hard work of many hands: the blanket on the bed, of which Singing Oak was currently using more than half, I had woven myself in my mother's house using wool she had shorn from my father's sheep. Although I enjoyed having food every mealtime and not relying on gifts from neighbours who were equally likely to be going hungry in the difficult parts of the year, I missed the laughter in my family.
The brightly dyed hangings which helped to keep the fire's warmth from escaping through the wattle and daub walls were Victory's work, perhaps aided by Brook at times, and had been in use since her husband was alive. We'd washed the smoke out in the summer and been surprised by how much difference it made to the colours. Of course, when I tried to make a joke about it Victory had been offended – I never did work out why, other than that I was both socially inferior and funnier than her – and thinking about them now reminded me how difficult I find it to live here.
Hanging from a roof beam was a blanket which might have been used on the bed, except that Singing Oak had chosen to use her work to separate herself from Brook rather than join him.
I was glad to be on the same side as her. I couldn't really see the blanket in the dark, but I knew it carried patterns representing her own name – oak leaves – and that although her parents had encouraged her to embrace her marriage, it didn't have so much as a shade of blue let alone anything suggesting a brook. I wondered again, as I often had, whether the situation hurt her more than she let on. Druids and the sons of queens can do almost anything they like, but they can also be put into positions they don't like without being able to see a clear way out.
People like me have even fewer options, unless the gods see fit to give us some. I was indeed surrounded by the work of many hands. It turned out that on closer inspection they were also reminders to the ways in which I felt trapped.
Singing Oak sighed and shuffled, unconsciously seeking more of the warmth of my body, and I gladly snuggled into her. Trapped in this case also meant loved. I liked being with her, and where else would I go?
Come to think of it, that would be a question worth divining: what choice do I have?
The gods don't usually bother to answer that sort of thing. In the absence of signs I considered the things I could think of for myself. Stay and spend every day swishing my tail like a horse, trying to flick off a fly which comes back over and over again. Leave alone and go hungry, either an extra mouth trying to make myself useful in my parents' house, or searching for whatever work I could do, or taken in by someone who wanted my body, or maybe enslaved. It didn't seem appealing and I'd miss Singing Oak and Tiny Spark – and Tiny Spark would have to be found a wet nurse or she'd go hungry too. Not that taking her with me would make anything easier.
Maybe in an ideal world, we'd stay and she would go. I pictured Victory riding out of the gates of her own free will, but I knew it would never be a long-term arrangement. She's too attached to the hillfort and the people here are too proud of her and her lineage. I briefly considered murder, but even if the gods would smile on something like that, there are the practical challenges like sneaking up on her at a vulnerable moment, dealing the death-blow, hiding my guilt, and burying the body.
It made for some entertaining images, though.
Perhaps I drifted off to sleep with this in mind, because when I woke I had another picture: Singing Oak and I rode out from the gates with Tiny Spark on my back. I didn't know why, and I immediately dismissed it as unrealistic, but I liked the idea.
I'd woken because Tiny Spark had woken. She was making little noises, not yet crying but on the way, so I slipped out from Singing Oak's arms, wrapped my cloak over the tunic I'd been sleeping in, and took her to the hearth to feed her.
Once she'd had enough milk, I didn't want to lie her down again immediately, so I took her out in the dawn light just to see the day. The sky was clear and the ground soaked with dew. Hardly anyone was moving; even the dogs slept, some of them opening an eye as I passed but ignoring me when they saw I didn't have any food.
Slowly, I walked down the main path through the fort, away from the great wooden gates and towards the far side where Shining Oak goes to commune with the gods. There's an oak tree there which Brook curses sometimes because it would block the view if we were attacked, but it would be ill-luck to fell it when so often the ravens which rest in the branches have served as the gods' mouthpieces.
Some of the ravens looked around as I approached. Not wanting to disturb them – or the people who would hear them if they started shouting – I stopped a good distance away and turned to the east. The sun was just appearing over the ramparts. Our good earthen slopes, topped with a wooden fence, are intended to hamper a raiding party or group of warriors, but they also slow down the sunlight.
Tiny Spark fussed a bit, not yet ready to go back to sleep nor awake enough to look around, and I rocked on the spot while she settled again. I watched the wisps of cloud over the sun and wondered what they meant; I didn't think any god would speak to me, but perhaps a goddess would leave a little trail of clues I could use to work out what to do. Did I have a choice I hadn't seen?
A raven flew past me. Watching, I expected it to go off into the fields or perhaps towards the houses, where they would take dropped wheat grains which the dogs spurned.
But the raven landed on the ground, almost at my feet. I stopped moving. Fortunately, Tiny Spark was quiet. The huge black bird walked a few steps, ignoring me although it was less an arm's length from my feet. It stuck its beak into the grass and came out with a beetle, which it crunched down. I breathed in, and perhaps I made some other noise, because it cocked its head to look up at me before spreading its wings to fly away. I felt the wind as it left the ground, climbing into the sky in an unhurried, deliberate way.
I wished for Singing Oak to tell me what that meant. Then I wondered what it meant to me: the ravens are associated with Brook as our king but also with our people here. We'd been close enough to touch, the raven and I, but it had flown away so that I couldn't follow. It could have walked, as they often did when they searched the ground for food. Did that mean something? Did it mean that I should leave, or that I couldn't, or that the gods were close, or that they were ignoring me? I tried to think of a story in which a raven flew away, but I could only think of stories in which they were forewarnings of battle to come or gathered around the dead afterwards. They weren't hopeful tales and I was pleased that they didn't seem relevant, although it also didn't help me understand whether the raven's actions were a sign.
Another cloud passed over the sun, dimming the light for a moment, then moved on. That was the second and a third one followed behind. The clouds could be us; I looked for, and found, a small one just above the others to represent Tiny Spark. I wondered whether that could be a sign.
The image from my dream came back to me then. Here was Tiny Spark's cloud, slightly above and to the left of the one I had chosen as my own. My cloud was following the one which might represent Singing Oak. But the first one I had seen, which had crossed the sun and drawn my attention, the one which was for Brook, had started to change shape. It was breaking up. Singing Oak's cloud could no longer follow it.
I didn't see a cloud for Victory. The rest of the sky was clear.
Not having a proper offering with which to thank the goddess for her guidance, I pulled a strand of my hair and let it fall to the ground.
I tried to wake Singing Oak quietly, thinking that we could pack and be gone before anyone else noticed, but of course she wanted all the details of the sign, and to interpret it properly, and by the time I'd told her everything and she'd explained to me three reasons I knew nothing about the gods, even though I'd had a prophetic dream and an augury from birds and an explanation in the skies, Brook was awake and on the verge of telling Victory and my plan was about to fail.
"Wait," I said, before he could get out the door. To his credit, he did wait, taking a seat by the hearth and beginning to stir up the fire. That was good, he'd need it to cook his own breakfast when we were gone.
"The interplay between last night's signs and..." Singing Oak began. I think she heard me sigh, because she stopped talking and looked at me, really looked in the light from the refreshed fire, for the first time that morning. "A god did speak to you, didn't they? I can see it in your eyes."
"I think so," I said. I didn't want to be too set on it, although telling the story to Singing Oak had made me more convinced that it was real.
"Yes," she said, slowly, considering. "You've always been special, observant, kind, open... you love me so well, and now the gods have rewarded you."
That was putting it a bit strongly, I thought, although I didn't like to argue with her and we were at risk of getting distracted. I answered her with a kiss, making it strong and sweet but keeping my mouth closed and pulling back when Tiny Spark made a noise. "I do love you, and so do the gods, and maybe they love me enough to help me. My question now is... do we obey? Do we go? Do I go, and do you come with me?"
"And do you take my daughter?" Brook asked. I jumped, having almost forgotten he was there. "More to the point, what do I tell my mother? She won't be pleased, and she won't have much time for anything Silver Wheat says about the gods."
Singing Oak looked into the fire. Perhaps she was searching for a sign of her own; the shapes in the embers are sometimes said to give clues in much the same way as clouds. Perhaps she found one, or something inside her changed, because when she lifted her head I could see that she'd decided that we would go.
"Tell Victory that we've gone to give an offering at the shrine to Brigid," she said to Brook. "Tell her – tell everyone – that we saw signs this morning that we need to give thanks for last night's blessing, and that Brigid brought us the fire and the metal and so we have gone to repay her, on their behalf. It will save us sacrificing any more of the harvest. And tell them to leave the rock where it fell. And get a sword ready to give to the river when the spring comes, because these blessings don't come for nothing."
It was a good plan. The shrine to Brigid was several day's ride away, not so far that we would be expected to spend a long time preparing for the journey but not so near that they would expect us back tomorrow. The other instructions would distract people – especially Victory, who loved the fine work of our excellent blacksmiths and resented it every time we had to kill a perfectly good sword and hand it over to the other world.
Brook stood. "Is this goodbye, then?"
Singing Oak smiled at him. "We'll see each other again, my official and dutiful husband," she said. "We'll bring your daughter when she's old enough for the combat training her grandmother wants to give her."
"Can I see her before that?"
"When the gods will it," I said. I'd had enough talk and handed Tiny Spark to Singing Oak to hold while I threw a few things into a leather bag: some spare clothes, the end of yesterday's bread.
"I'll have them ready your horses," Brook said.
Singing Oak relaxed once we were alone, rocking the baby and handing me things to pack. "Remember your thick cloak," she said. "The weather's already turning."
As we went out the door, I paused to thank the spirits of the hearth and the house who had sheltered me. It wasn't their fault I couldn't stay.
At the gate, Brook was waiting. I took Ivy's bridle from his hand and gave her a brief glance over – my little mare is willing and friendly and prone to scratching herself on sharp posts, so I always look to see if her skin is sore before I ride. Today, fortunately, she seemed fine. One or two people were already walking around, watching us as they went about their business, and if we did anything which seemed remarkable we'd have a crowd before we could blink.
"Give my greetings to Brigid," Brook said loudly once we were mounted, and the groom who had helped Singing Oak echoed the sentiment. Hopefully nobody would think to question that story for some time.
We rode down the hill and onto the plain in silence. We turned west towards the shrine of Brigid, knowing that in some places along the route we could still be seen from the fort; and Singing Oak said, "We might as well make it true, at least to start with, unless we get another sign."
"We'll pray for one," I said, adjusting Tiny Spark as she slept on my back. But the sign that I got that afternoon was nothing more and nothing less than the fulfilment of what I had already seen: Brook's cloud dissolving until there were just the two of us; the raven flying away from me as I was leaving the fort; riding away as I had seen in my dream; the blessing of the full grain pits so we wouldn't be worried about the people at home even if we went hungry in our travels; and the light of Taranis coming overhead and heralding a change. I couldn't make it add up to a neat set of three. I had a feeling that Victory would be proud of the way I made it all fit the answers I wanted to reach.
I didn't mention that to Singing Oak. Instead, when we stopped by a stream to refill our water skins and rest, I hugged her close. "I'm glad we get this time."
"It's a gift," she agreed, and kissed me. The water chattered beside us and Tiny Spark woke up, but I ignored it all for a few more moments thinking only of her lips.
Show Notes
This quarter’s fiction episode presents A Falling Star and a Flying Bird by Rhiannon Grant, narrated by Heather Rose Jones.
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
- Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
- Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
- Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)
Links to Rhiannon Grant Online
Major category:
LHMPThursday, March 27, 2025 - 21:00
The Project has very fuzzy boundaries, but I'll admit this falls outside them. Sometimes a publication is just too interesting to skip.
Major category:
LHMPFull citation:
Ó Síocháin, Tadhg. 2017. The Case of The Abbot of Drimnagh: A Medieval Irish Story of Sex-Change. Cork Studies in Celtic Literatures. ISBN 978-0-9955469-1-2
This slim book presents an edition and analysis of a medieval Irish anecdote involving a magical sex change from male to female and back to male again. The tale doesn’t align well with what a modern person would consider a transgender story, but it does have some interesting angles on ideas about gender roles and the alignment between bodies and gender identity. To a large extent, the themes in this text lie outside the scope of the Lesbian Historic Motif Project, because there is no intersection with the image of a woman-loving woman in any of the permutations of identity. But as with research into John Rykener, it provides a rare glimpse into pre-modern examples of “male-to-female” transformation.
# # #
We start with an overview of the events of the story. A medieval Irish abbot falls asleep on a hill at Easter, wakes up as a woman, encounters a supernatural female figure, goes to a nearby monastery where he meets, marries, and has children with the “erenagh” of the monastery. [Note: “erenagh” was a post, often hereditary, that served as a sort of business manager for the monastery.] On another Easter, he falls asleep on the same hill as previously and wakes up as a man. He returns to his original home and is told by his wife that he’s only been gone an hour. But the erenagh that he married, and their seven children exist at the neighboring monastery and they arrange for shared custody of the children.
The earliest manuscript versions of the tale date to the 14th century, but linguistic and cultural aspects of the text suggest the original date of composition to be in the early 13th century.
There follows a critical edition of the text with English translation. The focus is on trying to untangle the linguistic and cultural nuances of this anecdote. What did it mean in context? How do the supernatural/otherworldly elements contribute?
The protagonist is described as a beautiful and richly-dressed man, carrying a sword. (Keeping in mind that he’s the abbot of a monastery.) When he wakes as a woman, she is equally beautiful, dressed in women’s clothing, and carrying a distaff. [Note: the sword and distaff are both highly gendered attributes.] While the protagonist is trying to figure out what happened, a large, frightening, ugly woman wearing armor comes along and the protagonist explains her predicament, expressing sorrow and gender dysphoria. (The armor-wearing woman then disappears from the story.) The protagonist travels to a nearby monastery and encounters a tall, martial man who falls instantly in love with her and has sex with her. The protagonist refuses to explain her background or history. This new man says he is the erenagh of the monastery and a widower and that it makes sense for them to marry. The protagonist goes to live with him as his wife for seven years and bears seven children.
At the end of seven years, their entire household is invited to an Easter celebration at the original monastery, resulting in the protagonist falling asleep again on the very same hill. This time he wakes up as a man, with his original sword beside him. He goes to his old home and tells his wife the tale, but she says he’d only been gone less than an hour. The tale now jumps to a legal judgement between him and the erenagh, in which it is decided that they would divide custody of the seven children.
[Note: In some ways, this is structured as a “dream story”—a common context for otherworldly tales. Except that the events in the dream appear to have actually occurred in the “real world” through a warping of time.]
The analysis looks at various other folk tales involving sex change, including the Greek myth of Tiresias and an Urdu legend (from India), among others. In general, fanciful tales of female-to-male change focus on the social role of the protagonist, while these tales about male-to-female change focus on sex and the experience of gender. For them, the sex change is presented as a curse or a catastrophe. The Urdu tale has several striking parallels, in the encounter with an ugly woman (who forcibly marries the protagonist during an interim transformation to a different male body) and the motif of discovering a gendered object associated with the change episode.
Sex change is a frequent motif in Hindu tales, especially triggered by bathing in a magical pool. Sometimes the reverse change happens in the same location, similarly to what happens in the Irish tale. In some of the comparable tales, the male-to-female sex change is a divine punishment.
The motif of no time elapsing (despite pregnancy and childbirth) also occurs in comparable material.
More modern Irish and Scottish folk tales with a sex change motif are not close parallels to this medieval text. They lack the monastic context, the ugly woman, and the fairy hill. [Note: The text rather assumes that the reader is familiar with the “fact” that if you spend the night on a fairy hill, weird stuff is going to go down.] Rather than looking for direct transmission connections to these more recent tales, the author suggests that all of the sex-change tales may be elaborating on an “ancient international motif.”
The article spends a while examining the concept of authorship and narrative voice.
The next section of the text looks at the historic/cultural context of the story and what relationship the story’s characters, places, and events might have to historic “reality.” Both the positions of abbot and erenagh had authority over religious institutions, but were not necessarily clerics (in medieval Ireland), but could be held by secular members of families that had hereditary authority over the religious institutions.
The protagonist is described in heroic terms, not religious ones. Despite his initial anxiety and dysphoria, the protagonist embraces (literally) life as a woman, but retains the same internal consciousness and memories through both changes. Despite this, he has no emotional reaction to leaving/losing a spouse at either of the transformations.
The “ugly woman” that the protagonist first encounters serves no obvious narrative role except possibly to signal the shift to the otherworldly setting that the protagonist has clearly entered. Though one may speculate that she may have effected the change as punishment for him trespassing on a fairy mound. (A motif that occurs in other tales.) The time slippage clearly indicates that the seven years were spent in the otherworld. But the “ugly woman” need not be a malevolent figure if she is seen, instead, as precipitating a necessary hero’s adventure, leaving him with the gift of offspring. (There’s no mention of children from his original wife.) [Note: although the author doesn’t say it in as many words, we may be dealing here with a fragmentary text of an original that included more context and details that would make better sense of these points.]
The next section of the article examines the motifs of metamorphosis and how female symbolism is used. Philosophical and religious misogyny are reflected in all types of sex-change motifs. Male-to-female change is humbling and humiliating; female-to-male change is empowering and ennobling.
The next section discusses the motif of marriage and sexual relations and how they function in the story. This is complex in early Irish society, as a variety of types of unions and relationships had legal status and definition, though all might fall under the umbrella of “marriage.” Clerical marriage was allowed in the early church (and even when later discouraged, might be prevalent).
The next section discusses genre distinctions—oral versus literary, Pagan versus Christian, and how they manifest in the text. “Wonder tales” were universally popular, though they might take different forms in Pagan and Christian culture. (E.g., fairy magic versus saints’ miracles.)
A concluding section sums up the author’s take on this text.
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Wednesday, March 26, 2025 - 21:30
When I have a bunch of items written up in advance, I usually like to space them out to give the appearance of having a regular blog schedule. But the way life has gone lately, if I don't roll these out one after the other, I have half a chance of forgetting entirely that I've written them up. Life is just fighting with one bureaucracy after another these days. Still trying to get all my retirement ducks in a row. Only 35 days to go and some of those ducks are still running around quacking.
Major category:
LHMPFull citation:
Choma, Anne. 2019. Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister. Penguin Books, New York. ISBN 978-0-14-313456-5
I don’t usually consume books for the blog via audiobook -- makes it hard to take notes! It made sense in this case because it’s more of a narrative history rather than a scholarly analysis. As such, this is more in the line of a book review than my usual factual summary.
This is a narrative history of Anne Lister’s life between November 1831 and March 1834, the period covered by the tv series Gentleman Jack. The book was written specifically as a companion to the tv series, giving the actual details of Anne’s life during that period, which differs in various details from the tv series. (The tv series both omitted and invented significant details.) Interspersed in the narrative are extensive quotes from Anne’s diaries.
The account is very readable and will give you a solid background of Anne’s life and times. It is neither a scholarly historical analysis (for that, you might try Jill Liddington) nor an extensive and contextualized survey of significant portions of the diaries (for which you want Helena Whitbread). But it hits a sweet spot for the general reader. And if you’re a fan of the tv series, it makes an interesting “compare and contrast” to understand how history gets adapted for the requirements of drama.
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Tuesday, March 25, 2025 - 07:00
There's a whole genre of "a general history of lesbians/homosexuality in Britain" with approaches ranging from lighthearted (and often inaccurate) pop history to very serious academic studies and sourcebooks. (This genre may also exist for other countries -- I've collected a smaller set for the USA -- but I haven't run across them as often.) This one falls in the mid-range, probably intended as a textbook for a non-specialist social history course.
Major category:
LHMPFull citation:
Oram, Alison & Annmarie Turnbull. 2001. The Lesbian History Sourcebook: love and sex between women in Britain from 1780 to 1970. Routledge, New York. ISBN 9-78-0-415-11485-3
The book, rather than being a “general history of lesbianism” (of which there are numerous examples) is intended for the study of specific historic texts speaking to particular aspects of lesbian history. Each chapter has an introduction and then a series of extracts from relevant sources. Due to the nature of the material, some chapters focus primarily on 20th century material, and so are largely out of scope for the Project. So I will spend less focus on those. As with many sourcebook type works, rather than trying to summarize all the content, I’ll give a high-level overview of what is included. The specific pre-20th century source material will be indicated by my index keywords. If there is no keyword (e.g., because I don’t view the material as relevant, or because it is too anonymous), I’ll list it within the chapter.
# # #
Introduction: Who is the Lesbian?
For the purposes of this book, “British lesbian history” begins in the late 18th century. It was unclear to me if this was simply a chosen scope based on the source material they wanted to present, or if the authors believe there is no lesbian history prior to that date. They assert that “lesbian identity” is a late 20th century concept. “Women…did not necessarily have a language to describe themselves as lovers of women.” [Note: we can take it as given that I disagree with that position.]
The book’s definition “ideally includes some evidence of eroticism” but somewhat broadly defined. They’re looking for evidence of sexual activity with the caveat that “sexual” is often defined in male-centered terms. Secondly, their definition includes “the transgressing of gender roles,” with the caveat that gender transgression is more socially visible than femme lesbians. Somewhat less clearly, they are looking for evidence of self-knowledge by women who desire women.
The book is structured first to examine two archetypes (roughly: female husbands and romantic friendships), then public “expert” commentary in the fields of medicine, education, and law, followed by the cultural construction of lesbian identity (primarily restricted to the 20th century.
They discuss the history of lesbian history, the importance of developing a sense of lesbian history to social movements, and the development of a body of scholarship. They are interested in a broad scope of sources, not only the writings of the elite, but this interest is primarily found in the 20th century sources.
There is a discussion of the nature of the evidence: published sources (media, government publications, edited collections of personal papers), much of which is poorly indexed from the point of view of lesbian history. Documentation of women’s sex lives is rare, in part because personal papers were often deliberately destroyed. The documentation of working-class women’s lives is most often by outside observers, who typically are unsympathetic.
Somewhat more common than personal data is general commentary on the idea of the lesbian, especially by professionals. In every era, social norms constrained how people understood and discussed the topic.
The introduction closes with the importance of interrogating the sources and reading them in their historic context.
Part I: Archetypes of Love Between Women
Chapter 1: Cross-Dressing Women
The chapter begins with a survey of the motivations, contexts, and reception of gender-crossing. This is followed by excerpts from historic documents illustrating the subject, with brief contextual introductions.
- 1773 – A crossdressing woman marries an old woman for her money
- 1777 – A cross-dressing woman marries 3 different women and defrauds them of money.
- 1815 – A Black woman cross-dresses and works as a sailor, no lesbian elements
- 1861 – Mary Newell cross-dressed as part of absconding with her employer’s money
- (see tags for others)
Chapter 2: Romantic Friends and Lesbian Couples
This archetype is associated with middle and upper class women (although the authors note that this may be due to the skewed nature of the sources, and evidence for working class romantic friendships may not have been recorded or preserved). They assert that romantic friendship belongs to the 18-19th centuries. [Note: This is incorrect, as there are early versions of the archetype at least as early as the 17th century.]
The texts in this chapter document shifts in how this archetype was framed. There is a contrast between the acceptance of f/f partnership and the difficulty of economic independence to enjoy it. The motif interacts with the theme of “surplus women” and female alliances within the women’s movement (the “New Women”). Both the expressions and the probably reality of romantic friendships existed across a continuum. There is a discussion of lesbian theorists regarding that continuum and how that idea expands the scope of interest. There are conflicting opinions on erotic aspects of romantic friendship. The example of Anne Lister acted substantially to break the image that all romantic friendships were non-sexual.
- 1858 D.M. Craik’s advice book to women
- 1887 Constance Maynard, diary entries
- (see tags for others)
Part II: Professional Commentaries
Chapter 3: Medicine
The next 3 chapters look at professional discourse and how it reflects larger social attitudes toward lesbianism, as well as other social trends that the popular mind connected with that subject. 19th century British medical writing didn’t really address lesbianism much, or for that matter female sexuality in general. The texts that did exist tend to associate lesbianism with foreign practices or sex workers. Sexological writing arrived relatively late in Britain and only barely overlaps the very end of the 19th century. The texts do include a couple of references from the mid 19th century to lesbianism among sex workers or schoolgirls, or—later in the century—among actresses.
- 1939 M. Ryan work on prostitution that mentions lesbianism among sex workers
- 1840 T. Laycock’s book on “nervous disorders of women” that cautions against very euphemistically described schoolgirl relationships
- 1892 an early British sexology work that discusses homosexuality, but not lesbianism in particular
Chapter 4: Education
The texts in this chapter touch on school friendships that have a romantic or erotic component.None date to much before the turn of the 20th century, which reflects the era when such friendships came to be pathologized.
- 1893 An advice manual for girls that warns of “schoolgirl friendships” that lead to ignoring one’s family
Chapter 5: Law
Other than an extended excerpt from the Pirie & Woods trial, this chapter is focused entirely on the 20th century, reflecting shifts in legal approaches.
Part III: Making Lesbianism in Culture
Chapter 6: The Well of Loneliness
This chapter concerns reactions to the publication of The Well of Loneliness and its content. By definition, entirely 20th century.
Chapter 7: Social Perceptions
As public discourse around lesbianism became more explicit, there is a wider range of texts reflecting that awareness. All included material is 20th century.
Chapter 8: Identities and Networks
In contrast to the preceding few chapters, this one dips back to the early 19th century to document personal writings of women expressing self-conscious desire for women and something resembling a lesbian identity. These texts also trace the connections and networks of like-minded women that their authors created, as well as details of how those connections were established. We begin, naturally, with Anne Lister and her circle of lovers in Yorkshire. But other diarists and letter writers of the Victorian era are reflected here, speaking of love and wooing, discussing such passions with others who shared them. But the majority of the material is 20th century.
Event / person:
Monday, March 24, 2025 - 20:00
This is the last article from this collection and brings the topic up to the late 19th and early 20th century, as well as focusing on the working classes and others who aren't well documented in earlier ages.
Major category:
LHMPFull citation:
Sautman, Francesca Canadé. 1996. “Invisible Women: Lesbian Working-class Culture in Ferance, 1880-1930” in Homosexuality in Modern France ed. by Jeffrey Merrick and Bryant T. Ragan, Jr. Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 0-19-509304-6
Sautman 1996 Invisible Women
This article looks at French working-class lesbian culture from 1882-1930 and notes that a lot of previous coverage of French culture in this era has focused on the demi-monde, artists, and salon culture. The author challenges the assertion by some historians that a history of this sort—at the intersection of gender and class—is impossible to write. The decadent esthetic and visions of the Belle Epoque stand in contrast to the experiences of the working class. This was an era of union and feminist movements. WWI stepped up women’s participation in the industrial workforce. At the same time, both psychological and political theory created feminized images of disorder and deviance. (The author explains how she is using the terms “lesbian,” “same-sex,” and “homosexual” in the article to make certain distinctions without implying “identities.”) The author claims that the terms “tribade” and “sapphist” were used in this era to indicate specific sexual practices (frottage and cunnilingus respectively) but gives no citation for this claim. Letters written by working class women that alluded to their same-sex desires used phrases like “being for women” or “feminine loves” as well as a variety of slang terms. [Note: I’m gradually assembling a database of terminology from primary sources—this article has a good chunk of examples to add to it.]
The author challenges the claim that lesbians of this era faced, at worst, mockery and were not taken seriously. This may have been true of upper-class lesbians, while working-class lesbians were often portrayed as old, ugly, rough in manners, and addicted to vice. The medical pathologization of lesbianism could also be used against women whose desires were seen as problematic.
Technically speaking, lesbianism was not illegal in France in this era, though public sex and cross-dressing were. Moral crusades against lesbianism ran into this barrier in not having legal tools at their disposal. [Note: This absence of laws against homosexuality also applied to men, though men were more likely to run afoul of the laws against public sex.]
Feminist activists sometimes deliberately shunned an association with lesbianism, perhaps the more so due to leaning towards “mannish” clothing. Artists and authors walked a tightrope of plausible deniability, depicting same-sex desire and affection while relying on a general social acceptance of non-sexual physicality between women.
There is an extensive discussion of women in the union movement and gender discrimination in unionized trades. Restriction to low-paying jobs contributed to a pervasive reliance on sex work. Homophobia was pervasive in leftist political circles, even those supporting “free love.”
Despite and because of this, we can find references to working class lesbians tucked away in records and letters: the audible lovemaking overheard between a cook and a maid, letters with sexual advances between servants in different households, an affair made legible by the results of a suicide pact. Other lesbian lives have been made visible by diligent research, such as artist’s model and painter Victoire Meurent. Women who publicly denied lesbian relationships might be contradicted in memoirs by their friends and lovers.
There was a regular association in the popular imagination between lesbians and sex workers. This existed side by side with the stereotype of the working class as moral and “innocent” unless debauched by encounters with the upper classes. A similar stereotype asserting that homosexuality was absent from high society and the middle classes pretty much narrowed the possibilities (in the popular imagination) to “café society and the theater.” [Note: What this means is that visible lesbianism tended to be restricted to these stereotypes, not that lesbianism itself wasn’t present.]
A contrasting theory was that gender transgression in dress or appearance would itself lead to homosexuality. (There is more discussion of contradictory psychological and popular theories associated with lesbianism.)
This image of lesbian sex workers (including those asserted to have a wealthy female clientele) was exploited by pornographers and those promoting “sex tourism” in Paris. The complex dynamics and attitudes around lesbian sex workers are a poplar theme in literature of the time. Regardless of popular imagery, lesbian relationships and domestic arrangements among sex workers were common. (A number of brief biographical sketches are offered.)
The article concludes with a discussion of lesbian culture within women’s prisons.
Place:
Sunday, March 23, 2025 - 18:21
Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 309 – Lesbians and Sex Work - transcript
(Originally aired 2025/03/22 - listen here)
Introduction
There are a number of interesting themes that intersect with women loving women across history, but one that might seem, at first, to be unexpected is the association of lesbianism with sex work. I mean, here you are thinking, “Isn’t sex work mostly about women providing sexual services for men? And isn’t that a bit in conflict with women loving women?” And yet we find this association repeatedly in many different contexts. So what’s going on?
Obviously a significant underlayer is simple misogyny, whereby all women who stand outside the approved sexual norm get lumped together. But when we start sorting through the data, we find four distinct motifs. I should note that these motifs don’t necessarily reflect patterns of women’s experience, as opposed to social archetypes. And the ways in which these motifs are framed are sometimes informed by other models of gender and sexuality embedded in a particular era.
The four motifs can be summed up first as “some women are oversexed and they incline both towards sex work and lesbianism;” second as “women are trained into sex work by being seduced by an established female sex worker;” third “female sex workers view men as a job and therefore turn to women for their own love and pleasure;” and fourth “there is a specific marketplace for women providing sexual services to women.”
When I do this sort of historic survey, usually I try to organize it by culture and then by era, but in this case the data is so sparse and scattered that I’m going to organize it by those four themes.
Over-Sexed
The first motif stems from the idea that if a woman transgresses approved sexual norms in one manner, she is likely to transgress other norms. But in some eras, we also find an explanation that the reason why women might turn to sex work or to sex with other women is because they have an excessive sex drive that can’t be satisfied by sticking to approved objects and relationships. This motif doesn’t necessarily treat sex work and lesbianism as distinct concepts. Perhaps the most direct expression of this idea is in derogatory language where a woman might be insulted by simultaneously calling her a whore, a slut, and a lesbian—something we find in early modern English drama. So we might see this not so much a conflation of sex workers and lesbians as a failure to distinguish them.
This conflation may be present in Plato’s invention of the word “hetairistria” in the Symposium dialogue about the origin of sexual orientation in the separation of two-bodied creatures who are forever trying to find their “other half.” As Boehringer explains, the root “hetair-” covers a cluster of meanings in the sense “friend, companion” but with gendered nuances. The masculine “hetairos” only ever has a neutral sense of “friend” whereas the feminine “hetaira” developed a contextual meaning of “courtesan, mistress.” A verb derived from the same root occurs in the context of male prostitution. While Plato’s invention “hetairistria” clearly refers in some way to women loving women, though the context suggests that it may mean specifically “a woman whose love for women goes beyond the accepted norm.” However Plato intended the word, it was later interpreted and used to mean a woman-loving woman generally, used in parallel with tribade and lesbian. But the connection with hetaira as courtesan also anchored this sense in the semantic realm of sex work.
We see this same evolution of overlapping meanings in the shifting images of Sappho where she is reimagined as a courtesan in combination with her reputation for loving women.
Taking a somewhat different angle we see a connection between gender transgression and sex work in the popular association of the latter with cross-dressing. On the 16th century Italian stage, characters depicting courtesans are often given cross-dressing scenes, mirroring habits attributed to real life courtesans. In English court records of the 15th and 16th centuries, cross-dressing women were assumed to be sex workers, whether because cross-dressing gave them the freedom to be out on the streets illicitly or because their clients may have found it titillating. While this isn’t to say that most sex workers cross-dressed, the law assumed that a cross-dressed woman was engaged in sexual transgression of some type. There are specific records of a woman being “enticed to whoredom” in a process that included cutting her hair short and dressing her in men’s clothing. The women in this category were not assumed to be engaging in sex with other women, but the motif links via the cross-dressing theme. Notorious 17th century gender outlaw Mary Frith was accused of being involved in prostitution purely on the basis of her mix of male and female garments, and dramatic characters based on her were also depicted as bisexual. It’s also worth noting that in this era calling a woman a whore or prostitute didn’t depend on whether she accepted money, but could simply refer to any sex outside marriage.
This motif of prostitutes wearing masculine clothing as an advertising statement continues into the 19th century in the American West, alongside other types of signifiers such as wearing overly sumptuous dress.
During the same era in France, writers and artists documenting the demi-monde associated lesbians with the spheres of sex work and theater. These depictions echoed the developing medical theories of homosexuality, which viewed it as a direct byproduct of criminality and prostitution.
Lesbianism as Training
Male anxiety about lesbian relations among sex workers was defused, to some extent, in the motif of same-sex seduction as a means to provide an erotic awakening for prospective sex workers. In this scenario, an older, experienced woman introduces an innocent young girl to the pleasures of sex and then—in the male-centered context of this motif—leaves her eager for the supposedly more enjoyable encounters with male clients.
This is a popular motif in dramas and novels of the 16th through 18th centuries, such as the 16th century Spanish dialogue La Celestina and its many derivatives such as the English translation as The Spanish Bawd. The theme is strongly implied in the 17th century English play The Three Ladies of London and is overt in the 18th century French pornographic novel Thérèse the Philosophe, though in the latter case the supposed ingenue already has a lesbian history before being taken under the wing of a procuress. Perhaps the most widely known example is in John Cleland’s 18th century novel Fanny Hill, in which the innocent Fanny is initiated into sexual pleasure by an older prostitute. Her mentor is described as having a preferred taste for female partners, while Fanny is eager to move on to men.
The motif of lesbian seduction into sex work may not have been entirely restricted to fiction. In one 17th century Spanish court case, a lesbian couple on trial are also accused of collecting a group of “wayward” young women supposedly to deliver them to a convent for reformed sex workers, but believed to be instead recruiting them to set up a brothel. Though in this case there isn’t direct evidence that the couple were engaging in sex with their recruits.
Women for Love
But what if, like Fanny Hill’s mentor, a sex worker actually prefers to take her pleasure with other women? Then we have our third motif. This one provokes a bit more male anxiety than the “seduction into sex work” motif, because it undermines the necessary fiction that sex workers have a more-than-commercial relationship to their clients. It also undermines the fiction that women turn to other women for sex only because men aren’t available. As Brantôme laments in 16th century France, “Even courtesans, who have men at their disposal at all hours, yet have recourse to these fricarelles, seek each other out and love each other, as I have heard of sundry doing in Italy and in Spain.
Among the various myths that arose about Sappho, one strand turned her into a courtesan—perhaps from the misapprehension that only courtesans would have the education and sophistication to be poets. There are images of Sappho on Greek pottery that depict her as a part of a symposium of courtesans participating in a female pederastic tradition.
A genre of teasing and satirical poetry in medieval Spain includes references to homosexual relations, including three verses that make clear and explicit reference to female same-sex encounters by sex workers serving military camps.
Brantôme, along with some of his contemporaries even name names in this context, contrasting the “chaste” love between two female aristocrats with the more lascivious desires of “the great prostitute Cecilia Venetiana” and a famous Spanish courtesan in Rome, Isabella de Luna, who herself kept another courtesan named Pandora as her mistress.
In an era when women on stage found it difficult to escape a second career as mistresses to wealthy theater patrons, a number of prominent actresses were famous for their female lovers, including 18th century French actress Mademoiselle de Raucourt who was said to have “married” her lover, the singer Sophie Arnould and had succession of other female lovers. (Though Raucourt is perhaps not an ideal example of the category as she struggled to avoid the need for having male clients.) The motif of actresses competing with men for the affections of courtesans and mistresses was prevalent enough to become a standard trope in French comic media.
Sometimes these relationships were complicated. Betty Rizzo explores one 18th century couple who combined a romantic and (probably) sexual relationship with a business partnership, Sophia Baddeley being a sometime actress and courtesan, and Elizabeth Steele being her companion, lover, pimp, and business manager.
Guy de Maupassant’s late 19th century French novel “Paul’s Mistress” features the protagonist’s suicidal despair when his mistress deserts him for the “more certain affections” of a band of lesbians.
A Russian psychiatrist’s case study of the late 19th century tells of a female couple who met while working together in a brothel and were fired for neglecting their customers in favor of each other. After the two eventually broke up, one of the women returned to working in the brothel, picked up another girlfriend, and again was kicked out, taking her new girlfriend with her.
Lest I give the impression that these motifs are restricted to Western culture—honestly, it’s the old problem that the vast majority of my research sources have that focus—I’ll offer two other items. Among a 9th century collection of songs and stories from the Islamicate world, there is an anecdote of the famous courtesan Bathal daringly singing a song about her preference for sex with women.
And in India, within the curious genre of Rekhti poetry—an Urdu genre in which a typically male poet writes in a female voice addressing a female beloved—there is evidence of courtesans performing these poems for each other.
Lesbian Sex Work
Our fourth motif is a bit harder to pin down, especially with regard to whether it existed in real life as opposed to literature. Were there circumstances in which women provided sexual services to other women as a commercial enterprise? What sort of evidence would that leave? What is the dividing line between a woman providing financial support to her female lover, and sex as a financial transaction? In this essay, I’ve been treating a wide variety of non-marital heterosexual liaisons as falling within the category of sex work, including ones where the women are characterized as “courtesans” or “mistresses.” But female couples didn’t have the option of formal marriage; is it fair to apply the same definitions to them? These are some of the complications.
In Lucian’s fictional Dialogues of the Courtesans, we have a clear example of a professional courtesan (who appears to be much more on the “sex worker” end of the scale than the “intellectual companion” end) hired to entertain a female couple, including engaging in sex with both of them. (For the moment we’re going to skate over the question of whether the character of Megilla should be treated as transgender, because Lucian clearly intended her to be read as female.) This courtesan’s profession includes providing entertainment to her clients, that entertainment clearly is expected to include sexual services, and while she is a bit surprised to be asked to provide those services for women, she is perfectly willing and appears to be continuing to engage with these clients. Was this an actual feature of 2nd century Greek culture? Not proven, but neither does Lucian present it as something the reader is expected to disbelieve.
In late 15th century English legal records, there is one tantalizing reference to a woman named Thomasina keeping in her household a cross-dressed woman who was a concubine. While there’s enough ambiguity in the record for doubt as to whose concubine the woman was, the most straightforward reading is that she was Thomasina’s concubine. However there’s even more doubt as to whether the relationship should be read as transactional, as “concubine” simply meant a non-marital relationship and may have been the only word available to the clerk to describe the situation.
Less ambiguous, though not clearly certain, is an inquisition record from mid-17th century Spain in which one member of a female couple was recorded as having boasted that her girlfriend was willing to pay her for sex (but evidently was not actually doing so). The most straightforward interpretation would be a culture where sex work for a female client was understood as a possibility. But in the specific case, this is a long-term couple, although with a stormy relationship, where neither woman is considered by the court to be a sex worker.
Returning to the realm of fiction, Delariviere Manley’s early 18th century novel The New Atalantis includes an anecdote in which a female couple—one crossdressing as a man—together engaged the services of “Creatures of Hire” who were happy in “obliging [their] peculiar taste.” A similar event occurs in Eliza Haywood’s mid-18th century novel The History of Jemmy and Jenny Jessamy, where a character named Lady Fisk goes on a cross-dressed adventure in Covent Garden that ends in picking up a (female) prostitute, though in this case the sex worker was not amenable once she learned Fisk’s assigned sex.
Interacting with sex workers while in gender disguise does add another twist to interpretative difficulty, especially if one is viewing the situation through trans possibilities. 18th century English actress Charlotte Charke’s autobiography records flirtations with sex workers while crossdressing, though the demands of her audience meant that she generally depicts it as attracting not-entirely-wanted attention and that the sex workers were not aware of her assigned sex.
Another complication? Where is the dividing line between a brothel, where women go to pay for sex, and a sex club, where they gather to have encounters with other women? The potentially fictitious 18th century Anandrine Sect in France is clearly a sex club rather than a house of prostitution, and the description by a German visitor to London in the 1780s of organized societies for “females who avoid all intimate intercourse with the opposite sex, confining themselves to their own sex” similarly sounds non-commercial.
A complaint in 18th century Amsterdam against 4 women who shared a house “where disreputable people gathered” is unclear on the nature of the establishment. The house was said to be one where women came to caress and kiss one another and feel under each other’s skirts. While one of the women said she was “seduced with coffee and alcohol,” it isn’t clear that the house was a commercial establishment as opposed to a meeting place.
The most explicit descriptions I’ve found of English brothels catering to lesbians have turned out to be an elaborate game of telephone, with sources citing each other in circular fashion, adding ever more specific details as they go. If you’re interested in going down that rabbit hole, check out my podcast on “Researching the Origins of Lesbian Myths, Legends, and Symbols” (linked in the show notes). But in the end I could find no verifiable evidence for lesbian bordellos in 18th century London.
Summary
So as you can see the question of a historic connection between lesbians and sex workers is complex and full of uncertainties, not only due to the nature of the sources and the biases of the people recording them, but due to the often ambiguous nature of sex work itself within societies where even relationships with official imprimatur are transactional in nature. But perhaps this exploration has offered new ideas for historic stories and characters.
Show Notes
In this episode we talk about:
- Four motifs that connect women loving women and sex work in historic sources
- Sources used
- Bennett, Judith and Shannon McSheffrey. 2014. “Early, Erotic and Alien: Women Dressed as Men in Late Medieval London” in History Workshop Journal. 77 (1): 1-25.
- Beynon, John C. 2010. “Unaccountable Women” in Lesbian Dames: Sapphism in the Long Eighteenth Century. Beynon, John C. & Caroline Gonda eds. Ashgate, Farnham. ISBN 978-0-7546-7335-4
- Blackmore, Josiah. 1999. “The Poets of Sodom” in Queer Iberia: Sexualities, Cultures, and Crossings from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance ed. Josiah Blackmore and Gregory S. Hutcheson. Duke University Press, Durham. ISBN 9780822323495
- Boehringer, Sandra (trans. Anna Preger). 2021. Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome. Routledge, New York. ISBN 978-0-367-74476-2
- Burford, E.J. 1986. Wits, Wenchers and Wantons - London’s Low Life: Covent Garden in the Eighteenth Century. Robert Hale, London. ISBN 0-7090-2629-3
- Cheek, Pamela. 1998. "The 'Mémoires secrets' and the Actress: Tribadism, Performance, and Property", in Jeremy D. Popkin and Bernadette Fort (eds), The "Mémoires secrets" and the Culture of Publicity in Eighteenth-Century France, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation.
- Choquette, Leslie. 2001. “’Homosexuals in the City: Representations of Lesbian and Gay Space in Nineteenth-Century Paris” in Merrick, Jeffrey & Michael Sibalis, eds. Homosexuality in French History and Culture. Harrington Park Press, New York. ISBN 1-56023-263-3
- Craft-Fairchild, Catherine. 2006. “Sexual and Textual Indeterminacy: Eighteenth-Century English Representations of Sapphism” in Journal of the History of Sexuality 15:3
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- Engelstein, Laura. 1990. "Lesbian Vignettes: A Russian Triptych from the 1890s" in Signs vol. 15, no. 4 813-831.
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- Gilhuly, Kate. 2015. “Lesbians are Not from Lesbos” in Blondell, Ruby & Kirk Ormand (eds). Ancient Sex: New Essays. The Ohio State University Press, Columbus. ISBN 978-0-8142-1283-7
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- Haley, Shelley P. “Lucian’s ‘Leaena and Clonarium’: Voyeurism or a Challenge to Assumptions?” in Rabinowitz, Nancy Sorkin & Lisa Auanger eds. 2002. Among Women: From the Homosocial to the Homoerotic in the Ancient World. University of Texas Press, Austin. ISBN 0-29-77113-4
- Ingrassia, Catherine. 2003. “Eliza Haywood, Sapphic Desire, and the Practice of Reading” in: Kittredge, Katharine (ed). Lewd & Notorious: Female Transgression in the Eighteenth Century. The University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor. ISBN 0-472-11090-X
- Jones, Ann Rosalind & Peter Stallybrass. 1991. “Fetishizing gender: constructing the Hermaphrodite in Renaissance Europe” in Body guards : the cultural politics of gender ambiguity edited by Julia Epstein & Kristina Straub. Routledge, New York. ISBN 0-415-90388-2
- Jones, Heather Rose. 2021. “Researching the Origins of Lesbian Myths, Legends, and Symbols” (podcast). https://alpennia.com/blog/lesbian-historic-motif-podcast-episode-201-researching-origins-lesbian-myths-legends-and
- Katritzky, M.A. 2005. “Reading the Actress in Commedia Imagery” in Women Players in England, 1500-1660: Beyond the All-Male Stage, edited by Pamela Allen Brown & Peter Parolin. Ashgate, Burlington. ISBN 978-0-7546-0953-7
- Klein, Ula Lukszo. 2021. Sapphic Crossings: Cross-Dressing Women in Eighteenth-Century British Literature. University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville. ISBN 978-0-8139-4551-4
- Kranz, Susan E. 1995. The Sexual Identities of Moll Cutpurse in Dekker and Middleton’s The Roaring Girl and in London in Renaissance and Reformation 19: 5-20.
- Merrick, Jeffrey. 1990. “Sexual Politics and Public Order in Late Eighteenth-Century France: the Mémoires secrets and the Correspondance secrète” in Journal of the History of Sexuality 1, 68-84.
- 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
- Rizzo, Betty. 1994. Companions without Vows: Relationships among Eighteenth-Century British Women. Athens: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-3218-5
- Sears, Clare. 2015. Arresting Dress: Cross-Dressing, Law, and Fascination in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco. Durham: Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-5758-2
- Shapiro, Michael. 1994. Gender in Play on the Shakespearean Stage: Boy Heroines and Female Pages. Ann Arbor.
- Van der Meer, Theo. 1991. “Tribades on Trial: Female Same-Sex Offenders in Late Eighteenth-Century Amsterdam” in Journal of the History of Sexuality 1:3 424-445.
- Vanita, Ruth and Saleem Kidwai, eds. 2000. Same-Sex Love in India: Readings from Literature and History. St. Martin’s, New York. ISBN 0-312-22169-X
- Velasco, Sherry. 2011. Lesbians in Early Modern Spain. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville. ISBN 978-0-8265-1750-0
- Wahl, Elizabeth Susan. 1999. Invisible Relations: Representations of Female Intimacy in the Age of Enlightenment. Stanford University Press, Stanford. ISBN 0-8047-3650-2
- Walen, Denise A. 2005. Constructions of Female Homoeroticism in Early Modern Drama. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-6875-3
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LHMPSaturday, March 22, 2025 - 08:00
I'm not quite sure why I keep forgetting that I have blogs all written up and ready to post. (This is why I plan to have a posted work schedule in retirement: so everything gets pushed along the path at regular intervals.)
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LHMPFull citation:
Colwill, Elizabeth. 1996. “Pass as a Woman, Act like a Man: Marie-Antoinette as Tribade in the Pornography of the French Revolution” in Homosexuality in Modern France ed. by Jeffrey Merrick and Bryant T. Ragan, Jr. Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 0-19-509304-6
Colwill 1996 Pass as a Woman, Act like a Man
Among the political propaganda published during the French Revolution against Queen Marie-Antoinette (MA, for convenience) was a prominent theme of her sexual profligacy, and in particular the charge that she engaged in lesbian sex (as well as other sexual charges). In this context, her lesbian relations were depicted, not an accompaniment or “appetizer” to heterosexual acts (as often presented in pornography of the time), but as a preference.
This association of MA with sapphic relations informed her public image—though not always overtly sexually—in succeeding centuries. But as much as lesbianism was used as a weapon against MA, MA’s alleged lesbianism tells us much about attitudes toward lesbians in her era. The intersection of these two themes can make a study of both subjects a bit fraught from a historian’s point of view. Political tracts are deliberately exaggerated and use parody, making it impossible to separate fact from fiction. Was MA a lesbian, with the satirists fastening on this as a weapon against her, thus creating an atmosphere of anti-lesbian sentiment deriving from animus against the queen? Or was there a general social anxiety about lesbianism, leading satirists to choose it as a weapon against the queen? Was there an actual lesbian subculture in France that provided the framework for the specifics of the charges? Or was the alleged network of lesbians among the queen’s circle entirely an invention of her enemies?
Historians of sexuality have conflicting ideas and chronologies of models of sexual difference, but generally agree that the 18th century was an era when older metaphysical models were shifting to medical and “scientific” models, in line with the Enlightenment in general. Many of the underlying ideas remained the same, only the superficial explanation changed—such as “women’s sinful nature” shifting to “woman’s inherent weakness and hysteria.” With a shift to same-sex desire and activity no longer being ascribed to sexual natures existing on a continuum between male and female, new identities must be posited (Trumbach’s “four genders”) to account for desire that broke heterosexual models.
In France, public discourse around gender and sexual non-conformity was increasing across the 18th century and became intertwined with ideas about the state, rather than merely being individual foibles. MA complicated ideas about gender and sexuality, at once being seen as hyper-feminine and dangerously masculine. She “passes as a woman but acts like a man.” The authors of this article assert that MA cannot be pinned down to one specific reading precisely because the frameworks for understanding sex and gender were in flux. Official structures and opinions were intolerant of anything “unnatural” by older models, but Enlightenment ideas were challenging the definition and boundaries of “natural.” Political pornography attacking MA as lesbian did not merely reflect understandings, but shaped them.
One thread of the hatred for MA was the image of her as wielding inappropriate political power. This bled over into the image of her ceding that power to sexual partners (in much the same way that kings’ mistresses became targets if thought to have too much influence). King Louis’ well-known sexual failings generated the image of a frustrated and thus sexually voracious MA. While accusations against MA included several men of the court, sex with women was framed as superior and inexhaustible.
Another thread was a shift in the social and economic place of pornography. Previously intersecting several other genres (medical, philosophical), after the Revolution pornography came to be seen and defined as a distinct genre. This segregation of the sexual from the philosophical and political turned pornography from public discourse into private vice. It became apolitical and focused on personal sexual arousal—a shift that had not yet taken place during the propaganda campaign against MA. Before that shift, pornography was one of the tools used for establishing and maintaining political and social order, by helping define the boundaries of the acceptable.
This article has an extensive analysis of the symbolic hierarchies inherent in depictions of various sexual pairings and acts.
Within this context, satires against MA focused on her supposed relations with the comtesse de Polignac and the princesse de Lamballe (who were, objectively, her closest friends and confidantes in the court). The net expanded outside the aristocracy to artists patronized by the queen, including singer Arnould, actress Raucourt, and painter Vigée-Lebrun. These rumors circulated before the Revolution. Early in the Revolution, royalists might try to displace criticism of the queen onto these favorites who had “led her astray.” But a focus on the queen herself overwhelmed ever these efforts. Eventually, the alleged sexual depravity of the queen became the supposed proof that monarchy itself was unsupportable.
In contrast to Renaissance pornography that celebrated pleasure, these publications served as a warning to police morality and a rationale for the queen’s execution.
Interestingly, the subjects, treatment, preoccupations, and tone of the political sexual satires closely parallel those of libertine pornography by authors such as Sade, even to the fascination with lesbianism. Within the context of political attacks on women who stepped outside “proper” role, lesbianism was primarily charged against aristocrats, even when charges of “masculinity” were in play against others—primarily, but not exclusively, as some women pushing for equal rights were added to the roster of MA’s alleged lovers. Overall, a contrast was established between the immoral, libertine, sapphic aristocrat and the moral, domestic, heterosexual bourgeoise woman—a contrast that reverberated into the 19th century.
Revolutionary attacks on MA were scarcely uniform or coherent. Beside the continuing theme of lesbianism were allegations of more broad-ranging sexual transgressions, and pamphleteers often inserted their own personal preoccupations into the attacks. MA’s alleged abandonment of material impulses fed into anxiety about declining birthrates.
The article concludes with a discussion of the image of the “hermaphrodite” both physiological and behavioral, and how MA was fitted into this tradition.
[Note: Although some historians have defined “tribade” (the term generally used in these documents) as being associated with the motif of the macro-clitoral woman, the specific sex acts described in this political pornography focus on manual stimulation, dildos, and sometimes oral sex.]
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