The Sexual History of London (18 page)

Between 1794 and 1796, the Chevalier drew large crowds to his public fencing displays – whilst dressed as a woman. Despite being referred to in the
Public Ledger
as ‘an impertinent French female' most press coverage was favourable. The Chevalier was regarded as a woman who had been forced to disguise herself as a man but who had now reassigned herself to her true gender. His reticence towards women when he himself was in breeches was taken as further evidence of his female identity, while his status as an aristocrat also offered protection.

The Chevalier died in 1810, and when his body was examined, he was discovered to have been a man. But, while he was indisputably male, it was noted that ‘the throat was by no means a man's; the shoulders were square, the breast remarkably full, the arms, hands and fingers those of a stout female; and the legs and feet corresponding with the arms'.
¹²

Lesbians (the term was used in its modern meaning from 1732) had a lower profile, partly because sexual acts between women have never been illegal, and partly because lesbianism has rarely been perceived as a threat to the status quo. Lesbian displays would have been on the menu of any self-respecting seraglio: a standard service for male punters keen to watch some girl-on-girl action, as in the seduction of Fanny Hill by an older woman at the outset of her sexual career. Genuine lesbian relationships were common among prostitutes; many women developed close emotional and physical bonds as a means of survival and as a response to male abuse.

Punters or ‘cullies' were not surprised to encounter lesbians in the course of their sexual adventures.
Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies
tells us about a Miss Wilson of Green Street, Cavendish Square, who is of above average height and lacking in conventional female graces: ‘her hands and arms, her limbs, indeed, in general, are more calculated for the milk-carrier, than the soft delights of love'. Miss Wilson frequently declared that ‘a female bed-fellow can give more real joys than ever she experienced with the male part of the sex' and that ‘many of the pranks she has played with her own sex in bed (where she is as lascivious as a goat) have come to our knowledge'.
¹³

‘Mother Courage' of Suffolk Street and Frances Bradshaw of Bow Street catered for the lesbian trade, while Sisters Anne and Elanor [
sic
] Redshawe ran ‘an extremely secretive discreet House of Intrigue in Tavistock Street, catering for Ladies in the Highest Keeping' and wealthy married women who came in disguise to amuse themselves.
¹⁴

Lesbians were tolerated if they appeared reassuringly feminine, or if they were, like Queen Anne, of such exalted station that they were immune to the law. The Fleet Registers give three examples of women marrying each other, without any action being taken against them.
¹⁵
While heterosexual women who dressed as men to enlist in the military, such as Hannah Snell, the Female Marine (1723–92), were tolerated, visibly butch women received very different treatment, since passing for a man endowed them with greater social and economic status. Catherine Vizzani, an Italian courtesan caught trying to elope with another woman whilst dressed as a man, was shot dead in 1755.
¹⁶

There were more visible lesbians down in the East End, where a balladeer immortalized this couple in 1728:

Dagenham Breach was a thousand-acre lake next to the Thames resulting from a repair to its walls from 1714 to eliminate a 400-foot mud bank that was a danger to shipping. It was near St Katharine's Docks, where men plied for work as porters unloading ships. The last line says that these women will have to plug up the hole with a finger (‘digit') in the absence of any larger instrument, alluding to their lack of a penis. So this Latin tag appears to have been a variant on the old gag about the boy sticking his finger in the dyke.

Penis or no, lesbians were a common feature of medical textbooks, many of which served as a source of titillation, notably in descriptions of the clitoris. This magnificent organ, first officially discovered by anatomists in the sixteenth century, was regarded as a form of mini-penis. The larger the clitoris, writers argued, the greater the propensity to ‘tribadism' or ‘frottage' (rubbing) and women having sex with each other like men. According to one author, ‘Women well furnished in these Parts may divert themselves with their Companions to whom for the most part they can give as much Pleasure as Men do but cannot receive in any proportion the Pleasure themselves, for want of Ejaculation, the Crisis of Enjoyment to the Male in the Intrigues of
Venus.
I am informed that Diversions of this nature are frequently practis'd by robust and lustful Females who cannot with any prospect of safety to their Reputations venture upon the Embraces of a Man, though they are never so strongly inclin'd'.
¹⁸

Despite the fact that the average clitoris is about the length of half a finger, a bawdy literature developed in which women from certain racial backgrounds were more generously endowed, and therefore more libidinous, particularly the Italians (stereotyped as sex-mad, yet again), Turkish, Arab and black women, who were reputed to have clitorises as large and as effective as a penis. The collective attitude of (male) authors to lesbianism was, as is so often the case with men, erotic fascination, tinged with the occasional reminder that such conduct was, of course, immoral. The anonymous scribe of
Satan's Harvest Home
issued a rebuke to ‘Sapphists' who ‘not content with our Sex, begins
Amours
with her own, and teaches the Female World a new Sort of Sin, call'd the
Flats,
practis'd at Twickenham at this day'.
¹⁹

The mention of an innocuous south-west London suburb is a reference to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, an aristocratic English traveller who eventually retired to Twickenham. Lady Mary was so inspired by the beauty and solidarity of the Turkish women she met during her travels that she was suspected of having indulged in the pleasures of the harem, which, according to the author of
Satan's Harvest Home
, was a veritable cornucopia of girl-on-girl action, steam baths and cucumbers, which he refers to as ‘the Game of Flats'. This is a reference to games with playing cards, which were called ‘flats', and an allusion to the rubbing together of two ‘flat' female pudenda. For example, sex between women was described in 1698–9 as ‘a New Game / Call'd Flats with a Swinging Clitoris'. The lesbian usage, though it can be traced back to at least 1663, is not recorded in the
Oxford English Dictionary
.
²⁰

‘Flats' was said to be particularly popular among the Turks:

In keeping with the theory that foreign girls were better endowed, and more libidinous, women had to travel abroad to experience the wilder shores of love. This attitude is apparent in
A Sapphic Epistle to Mrs D
(1782), in which the anonymous Mrs D pursues lesbian amours in Italy, ‘where many lascivious females divert themselves one with another'. Men should beware, warns another poet, lest their sweethearts be seduced by other women when their backs are turned:

Those lesbians, and straight women, for whom clitoral orgasm was not sufficient could console themselves with a dildo, which had become a must-have accessory for any self-respecting woman or man about town by the early eighteenth century. One Georges-Louis Lesage (1676–1759), visiting England in 1713, noted that there were always some women in St James's Park carrying baskets full of dolls which seemed to be in great demand with the young ladies. Instead of legs, the dolls supported a cylinder, covered with cloth, which was about six inches long and one inch wide. According to Lesage, one young woman complained that hers was too big and she wanted to exchange it for a smaller one, but the vendor refused to do so, arguing that it would be impossible to resell it.
²³

‘Signor Dildo' as Rochester referred to this ‘cylinder' in his poem of 1678 was much in demand, and an entire tradition of bawdy verse developed lauding the properties of this essential item. One poem describes the exploits of a dildo when it arrives in London. Nicknamed ‘Monsieur Thing', the poem follows it from Covent Garden to Fleet Street and to the homes of several ladies in dire need of its services:

Monsieur Thing then meets another merchant's wife, who immediately takes a shine to him:

His troubles are not over, however, as he is called upon to satisfy an old maid and a couple of lesbians, one of whom ties him to her middle:

Sold at sixpence a copy, ‘Monsieur Thing's Origin' did not please everybody: one female bookseller who caught a pair of hawkers selling the poem outside her shop set the constables on them.
²⁵

Another source of amusement was the sex doll, which could be ordered by eighteenth-century males with sufficient means for their private amusement.
²⁶
Published in 1748,
Adollizing: or, a lively picture of a doll-worship
assures the reader that this extraordinary episode is based on a true story. Clodius, a person of high distinction, failing to seduce the beautiful young Clarabella, takes himself off to a ‘Latin artist' (Italians once again being synonymous with sex in eighteenth-century London) who makes a doll, ‘as big as life' and with perfect craftsmanship, right down to ‘the arch'd mount, just o'er the cloven part', upon which ‘a tuft of hair he fixes with nice art'.
²⁷
This doll is not for display only:

Eventually, Clodius becomes bored with his doll, and, despite experimenting with different heads, abandons it in favour of Clarabella, who eventually thaws sufficiently to reciprocate his advances.

 

Eighteenth-century Londoners were intrigued by, and not always tolerant of, sexual diversity, whilst being fascinated by freak show aspects of human sexuality such as hermaphrodites and ‘castrati' or eunuchs, who, it was believed, were capable of sexual intercourse but sexually sterile. An entire body of pornographic literature developed devoted to the premise that a sexually frustrated woman could find relief with a eunuch as there was no danger of getting pregnant. ‘Castrati' are ‘very tractable; it gratifies their pride to be taken notice of by a woman and they toil like horses'.
²⁹
In one tale, Lady Lucian decides to try out Signor Squalini, a singer, who proves most satisfactory and is hired as her music tutor. One day, however, the happy musicians are disturbed by Lady Lucian's husband, who passed by her door and: