LHMP #550 Traub 1996 The Perversion of ‘Lesbian’ Desire

This article is one of those that eventually went into Traub’s The Renaissance of Lesbianism (chapter 6), but since I did a higher level overview when I covered that book, it’s worth examining more closely.

In essence, this article uses the lens of treatments of the myth of Callisto in the 17th century to track changing ideas about female homoeroticism. Traub’s premise is that, during the 17th century, there was a conceptual shift from having two dominant cultural models: the “chaste female friend” and the “masculinized tribade (with or without enlarged clitoris).” But that across the 17th century, the “innocence” of the chaste female friend came under increasing attack as part of a constellation of social changes around love, desire, and marriage. [Note: Although Traub gives a nod to there being other models besides these two, her position that feminine couples were perceived as “chaste” is contradicted rather strongly by the depiction of f/f sex in 17th century pornography—a topic on my mind given the recent run of articles that the blog has covered.]

Within this framework, the erotic nature of “femme” partners—whether as part of a femme/femme couple or as the partner of a tribade—is largely erased or silenced. Traub suggests that this silencing is not because people truly believed that a feminine woman had no erotic identity with respect to a female partner, but rather because assigning erotic potential to such a woman represented a greater threat to the status quo than assigning it to a tribade. [Note: I’m using Traub’s shorthand of “tribade = masculinized woman” for convenience, although I challenge its accuracy.]

In the 17th century, the “mythic pastoral” genre is significant for examining f/f eroticism as the displacement from the here-and-now allowed for greater freedom in representation. Further, classical myth offered various homoerotic motifs that could be used for this exploration, especially the myth of Callisto and her seduction by Jupiter-in-disguise-as-Diana. This myth especially brings in an examination of the concept of “chastity” as one of Diana’s defining attributes was chastity, defined as a rejection of m/f eroticism but variable in its position on f/f eroticism.

Traub considers this shift as essential to the emergence of a recognizable “lesbian” identity in the 18th century, in collapsing the two aforementioned distinct models into something that could be subsumed into a unified identity. [Note: There are several logical gaps in the structure she’s creating, especially in how it overlooks multiple rises and falls of the image of “chaste female friends” as a salient social dynamic, but I think this is derived in part from reaching for an overarching historic progression.] Essential to this was a recognition of the erotic potential for femme-femme relations and the resulting anxiety around a mode that had previously been considered both harmless and insignificant.

The article moves on to close reading of several selected interpretations of the myth of Callisto. The themes present in interpretations of Callisto and Diana can be ambiguous and contradictory. On the one hand, they may contrast a view of “erotic innocence” of the nymphs’ pre-existing society with the sexual shame revealed by Callisto’s pregnancy. On another hand, they provide a convenient context for depicting female nudity and homoerotic interactions among a female-only community defined by its rejection of masculine control and dominance. [Note: While Traub doesn’t make this specific point, there’s an obvious contradiction between the premises of the mythology, e.g., that a man observing Diana at the bath will be punished horribly, and the interaction between art and observer, where the latter definitely includes men.] Typically, artistic depictions of Jupiter-in-disguise-as-Diana are indistinguishable from depictions of Diana, thereby embodying a homoerotic “reality” while rendinging the underlying m/f dynamic invisible except in the viewer’s background knowledge.

The shift in framing comes in how the dynamics of the disguised “seduction” are depicted. In Thomas Heywood’s play The Golden Age, the pairing off of Diana’s nymphs into couples who share a bed and engage in erotic play is presented as the natural, uncorrupted state of Diana’s community. Chastity is defined as avoidance of heterosexual penetration. When Callisto is approached by the disguised Jupiter (disguised as another nymph in this version, rather thana s Diana), she is hesitant (providing Jupiter with the opportunity to make the rhetorical case for f/f erotics) but the text doesn’t clarify whether she objects to a female erotic advance or whether she is suspicious of the aggressiveness of Jupiter’s actions.

In contrast, Cavalli’s 1651 Italian opera La Calisto depicts the title character as much more eager for her erotic encounter, but then places a general condemnation of f/f eroticism in Diana’s mouth when Callisto sings of the delights she believes they have shared. That is, Callisto’s disgrace is not a pregnancy resulting from Jupiter’s rape, but her homoerotic desire that gave Jupiter the opportunity.

Traub sees this contrast as representing a crucial shift in how the reception of f/f eroticism was depicted. In this new framing, “chastity itself becomes suspect” and what women do together can no longer be considered automatically “innocent.” The image of chastity as a form of female empowerment was always a two-edged sword, depending on the range of possibilities it was imbued with. If the only imaginable sexual transgression was heterosexual, then “chaste” women had a great deal of social freedom for homosocial and homoerotic expression. But when society classifies the potential for f/f eroticism as transgressive, then female chastity becomes suspect.

A third staging of Callisto is considered: John Crowne’s court masque Calisto: or The Chaste Nimph, in which the two daughters of James II (then Duke of York) starred. Crowne, in his introduction, makes a great fuss over how to present the myth acceptably for the intended players and audience and, in the end, not only erases the performance of f/f erotics, but erases Jupiter’s sexual violence, as Calisto is allowed to successfully resist the seduction, allowing the most extreme interpretation of “chastity” to triumph. The masque also introduces a subplot with a different f/f relationship (between Juno and one of the nymphs) in order to attack the idea of f/f friendship entirely.

Now that “chaste f/f love” has been reanalyzed as “perverse” it can be combed with the image of the tribade to represent a general threat of female homoeroticism. This “invention of homosexual desire” Traub pairs with the invention of heterosexual desire as part of a shift in the ideology of marriage from revolving around dynastic and inheritance considerations to revolving around the concept of “companionate marriage.” This, in turn, she connects with the rise of capitalist and individualist dynamics and their erosion of the importance of familial wealth to economic success. If the need to marry is no longer driven by social and economic structures, then a new driving force is required: heterosexual desire. [Note: this is a long and detailed discussion, and even at that I suspect it’s skating over a lot of detailed analysis. So don’t take the preceding too literally.]

Relationships that don’t threaten the priorities of property and lineage can be considered inconsequential. If dynastic unions and the production of legitimate heirs are the central concern, then non-reproductive erotics can be classified as “chaste.” But if mutual sexual and emotional desire within marriage are the priority, then romantic and erotic relations between women are destabilizing and become a focus of anxiety. [Note: This dynamic takes different forms in different ages. It appears again in the later 19th century with women’s increased opportunity for economic self-sufficiency.]

This, Traub concludes, is the primary reason that the erotic potential of femme homoeroticism has been erased and silenced: not because it was not threatening, but because it was even more threatening than more obviously transgressive forms. To be significant, a concept must exist in relation to its opposite. In order for lesbianism to achieve significance, heterosexuality must be invented for it to contrast with. [Note: I have a little trouble with Traub’s logic here. As she notes “the deviant is literally inconceivable without the norm,” but she implies that heterosexuality as a “norm” was a new invention around the 17th century. It seems to me that the idea of male-female sexual relations as a “norm” is inherent in vast quantities of documentary materials throughout recorded history.]