Friday 14 November 2014

Please Please Me: Sex and the Victorians

A mechanical vibrator

One of the joys of writing Victorian crime fiction is the unexpected area of research that you innocently type into Google, not anticipating anything to appear. And then it does. For my current book, I wanted to explore some of the myths surrounding the ''sexually repressed Victorians'' legacy.

The biggest myth was that the Victorians, particularly women, ''hated'' sex and were all frustrated and miserable. They certainly did not and were not. Queen Victoria for one, loved it. The morning after her wedding night she wrote ecstatically in her diary that sex was ''a foretaste of heaven''. The Victorian era marked the start of the ''information age'' and there were manuals, pamphlets and advice books on love making, if you knew where to buy them.

Victorian women were not the sexually passive creatures they have come to be seen as. The lives of famous courtesans like Cora Pearl, and ''Skittles'' -  one of the 'pretty horsebreakers' who rode out on Sunday afternoons in Hyde Park, totally naked under her riding habit, show that female sexuality was as expressive and varied as it is today.

Don't ask
Of course there were exceptions. The notion that girls arrived at their wedding night pure, sexless and ignorant to be awakened (or not) by her husband can be seen in the forlorn comment of Mary Sidgewick, married in 1859 at the age of 18 to a much older man. She later wrote in her diary: ' how I cried at Paris....the nights!' However, the importance of the female orgasm was certainly known about and seen as vitally important in a relationship. Sexual pleasure, especially female sexual pleasure, mattered.

This was because the Victorians believed that a woman in a sexually satisfying relationship was more likely to become pregnant, thus the idea that masturbation was not a good idea. A book entitled The Art To Begetting Handsome Children, published in 1860, had detailed instructions on foreplay and love-making within the marriage relationship - for the Victorians, of course, this was the proper and only place for sex to happen.

electromechanical vibrator
The other myth is that the Victorians used vibrators via pelvic massage administered by the medical profession to induce orgasm in women, who were supposed to suffer from hysterics. The release of the ''hysterical paroxysm'' (orgasm) purportedly helped the poor things to calm down. To aid this, the Victorians apparently  'invented' the vibrator, because there were far too many women and not enough strong-handed doctors.

1890 hand-cranked vibrator
Frankly, I find this difficult to believe. Victorian vibrators (see pics) are the most unsexiest things I have ever seen. I can't imagine any women, however 'hysterical' reaching orgasm with one of these devices clunking and buzzing away down her lower end! Luckily, there were many more attractive aids available. Victorian sex toys were many and varied, often crafted in ivory, or wood or leather.

Some were decorated with flowers or delicate silver tracery.
All were created to enhance women's sexual pleasure. For the Victorians, sex, pleasure and love were important concepts, and they were just as preoccupied, fascinated and eager to experiment as we are today.

If you would like to download a free sample of Diamonds&Dust, A Victorian Murder Mystery, you can do so HERE.  Honour&Obey, A Victorian Crime Thriller can be viewed HERE








18 comments:

  1. Can't say any of those metal contraptions do much for me. But leather ...!

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  2. Ps, that was a joke, not insight into my bedroom (she added hurriedly).

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    1. Hahaha .... we soo believe you *she says*

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    2. aw! Jo! I was seeing a different side to you briefly!!! ;-)

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  3. Being the convent educated innocent that I am, such notions of personal pleasure are quite alien to me...*cough*...but I do recall, back in the day, the scandal of the missing church candles and the suspiciously wide grin on the face of Mother Superior, from which I think the make-up for The Joker was later based!

    Some schools of thought certainly portray the Victorian era as being one of pent up sexual frustration, regarding the female of the species. It's been said that during this time of patriarchal domination it would have been considered unseemly for the woman to make the first move by approaching her spouse for sex, as to do so would have earned her the reputation of being a wanton wench and warranted scornful glances from the husband...( who, I suspect, would have bashed his disdain out by ravishing her over the flock mattress anyway! )...

    It is said that such thwarted females would host soirées whereupon they would release their frustrations by partaking in an evening of orgiastic gratification with the other...( hm...once again I'm oddly reminded of Mother Superior! )...

    Anyway, Hedges...what an extremely interesting post! And how generous of you to share with us your collection of...erm....implements...surprising what you can pick up at a car boot sale!

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    1. I bought an extra set to give you for christmas..don't worry.

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  6. While I write about love, and romance in my Victorian tales Carol, I have never even thought to venture into the realms of sex, and pleasure! Maybe I should!! It very obviously happened, then, before then, as well as now. So why do we authors skate around sex when writing about Victorian times!? Good question! Maybe I should introduce sex into my tales, but maybe not the contraptions of pleasure which you have pictured! To me they look like instruments of torture, and far removed from the idea of pleasure!
    Very, very interesting article Carol! For which I salute you.
    Rosemary

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    1. I think it's good to confront myths in life with truths in fiction!

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  7. Well, I've certainly learnt something new today. My goodness! But those contraptions! They look more like my wood working tools than sex aids. I think more than anything though, CarolStar, you are turning upside down this notion we all have that the victorian women were unbelievably prudish. It seems that there is no doubt they were not….at all! Great post!

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    1. It was the male construct of women as the 'Angel in the House' or the 'whore in the street' that has caused the dichotomy. Women's voices were still not being foregrounded, thus the fiction that women were sexually repressed.

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  8. Very good post Thank you Carol. Though my Dad's hand drill comes to mind. Yukk.
    my recent delve in the research field produced a fact I am still shocked by. In 1971 women were banned from going to wimpy bars after12. As this time of night the only women about were street walkers! So even recent history can surprise.

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    1. Even in the 1960's women were still leaving work once married. Shocking! In the late Victorian period, they were lucky to be employed, their porr little brains being considered smaller

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  9. Be careful you don't get the Internet police onto you with all these - cough - uncomfortable searches!

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    1. Oh I know...sometimes I look at what I've googled and think: WHAT?? It IS research though.

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    2. Of course it is, my dear, of course it is :-)

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