{{Short description|19th-century British sexual art and literature}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2024}} {{use British English|date=October 2024}} [[File:1868 Frederic Leighton - Actaea.jpg|thumb|''[[Actaea, the Nymph of the Shore]]'' (1868), an oil painting by [[Frederic Leighton]]. His paintings were enormously popular during his lifetime.]] '''Victorian erotica''' is a genre of sexual art and literature which emerged in the [[Victorian era]] of 19th-century Britain. Victorian [[erotica]] emerged as a product of a Victorian sexual culture.<ref name=":0">{{Citation|last=Weeks|first=Jeffrey|pages=155–174|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781315161525|doi=10.4324/9781315161525-8|title=Sex, Politics and Society|year=2017|chapter=The theorisation of sex}}</ref> The Victorian era was characterized by paradox of rigid morality and anti-sensualism, but also by an obsession with sex. Sex was a main social topic, with progressive and enlightened thought pushing for sexual restriction and repression.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last1=O'Neill|first1=John H.|last2=Bouce|first2=Paul-Gabriel|date=1984|title=Sexuality in Eighteenth-Century Britain|journal=Eighteenth-Century Studies|volume=18|issue=2|pages=261|doi=10.2307/2738547|issn=0013-2586|jstor=2738547}}</ref> [[Human overpopulation|Overpopulation]] was a societal concern for the Victorians, thought to be the cause of famine, disease, and war.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last1=Porter|first1=Roy|last2=Hall|first2=Leslie|last3=Robson|first3=Ann|date=July 1995|title=The Facts of Life: The Creation of Sexual Knowledge in Britain, 1650–1950|journal=History: Reviews of New Books|volume=24|issue=1|pages=108–109|doi=10.1080/03612759.1995.9949173|issn=0361-2759|pmc=1037063}}</ref> To curb the threats of overpopulation (especially of the poor) and to solve other social issues that were arising at the time, sex was socially regulated and controlled.<ref name=":0" /> New sexual categories emerged as a response, defining normal and abnormal sex.<ref>{{Citation|title=Foucault's The History of Sexuality|work=Understanding Foucault, Understanding Modernism|publisher=Bloomsbury Academic|isbn=9781628927702|doi=10.5040/9781501323621.ch-006|year=2017}}</ref> Heterosexual sex between married couples became the only form of sex socially and morally permissible. Sexual pleasure and desire beyond heterosexual marriage was labelled as deviant, considered to be sinful and sinister. Such deviant forms included masturbation, homosexuality, prostitution and pornography.<ref name=":0" /> Procreation was the primary goal of sex, removing it from the public, and placing it in the domestic.<ref name=":2" /> Yet, Victorian anti-sexual attitudes were contradictory of genuine Victorian life, with sex underlying much of the cultural practice. Sex was simultaneously repressed and proliferated. Sex was featured in medical manuals<ref name=":1" /> such as ''[[The Sexual Impulse]]'' by [[Havelock Ellis]] and ''Functions and Disorders of Reproductive Organs'' by [[William Acton (doctor)|William Acton]], and in cultural magazines like ''[[The Penny Magazine]]'' and ''[[The Rambler]]''. Sex was popular in entertainment, with much of Victorian theatre, art and literature including and expressing sexual and sensual themes.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal|last=Davis|first=Tracy C.|date=October 1989|title=The Actress in Victorian Pornography|journal=Theatre Journal|volume=41|issue=3|pages=294–315|doi=10.2307/3208182|issn=0192-2882|jstor=3208182}}</ref>
== General == Historian Peter Webb writes that there are two categories of Victorian erotica: on the one hand the expressive writings of [[Oscar Wilde]] and [[Algernon Charles Swinburne|Swinburne]], and on the other hand the "coldly calculated indulgence in male fantasy" such as is found in ''[[The Memoirs of Dolly Morton]]'', where women are depicted merely as sex objects.<ref name=webb>{{cite book |title=The Sexual Dimension in Literature |chapter=Victorian Erotica |first=Peter |last=Webb |editor-first=Alan |editor-last=Bold |publisher=Barnes & Noble |year=1982 |pages=90–121 |isbn=0854783040}}</ref>
Art and literature provided Victorians with an avenue to express transgressive and repressed sexual desire.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Sex and death in Victorian literature|last=Regina.|first=Barreca|date=1990|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=978-0253310156|oclc=19672783}}</ref><ref name=":10">{{Cite book|title=Sex scandal : the private parts of Victorian fiction|author=Cohen William A.|date=1996|publisher=Duke University Press|isbn=9780822398028|oclc=682184252}}</ref> Sex was a prominent feature in much of Victorian art,<ref name=":3" /> especially in theatre and literature. Sex was often illustrated by stories of deviance and scandal.<ref name=":10" /><ref>{{Cite journal|title=Victorian sexuality : old texts and new insights|journal=American Scholar|pages=372–378|first=Peter|last=Gay|oclc=936823048|year=1980}}</ref> It is argued that some Victorian erotica rests on techniques of implication and allusion to sexual desires and activity,<ref name=":9">{{Cite book|last=Oulton|first=Carolyn W. de la L.|date=2016-04-08|title=Romantic Friendship in Victorian Literature|doi=10.4324/9781315606934|isbn=9781315606934}}</ref> such as in the works of [[Oscar Wilde|Wilde]], [[Charles Dickens|Dickens]], and [[Michael Field (author)|Field]]. Yet there are also explicitly sexual works, as compiled in [[Henry Spencer Ashbee]]'s ''Forbidden Books of the Victorians'', in which the books describe sex in much erotic detail. Such Victorian works include ''[[The Romance of Lust]]'', ''[[My Secret Life (memoir)|My Secret Life]]'', and ''[[Venus in Furs]]''. Additional Victorian artists and authors include [[Aubrey Beardsley]] (the illustrator of Wilde's [[Salome (play)|Salome]]), and many literary and artistic worked by "Anonymous."
== The female sexual object == A main component of Victorian erotica was the female sexual object. Women were increasingly being defined in terms of femininity, subordination, and the object of sexual desire.<ref name=":3" /> Aesthetic and medical procedures were targeting women to accentuate their sex appeal.<ref name=":2" /> In real Victorian life, female sexuality was problematic, and was only to be expressed in terms of domestic life.<ref name=":2" />
On the stage, in art, or in literature, women were inscribed with sexuality, positioned as the sexual object.<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal|last=Davis|first=Tracy C.|date=1989|title=Sexual Language in Victorian Society and Theatre|journal=The American Journal of Semiotics|volume=6|issue=4|pages=33–49|doi=10.5840/ajs1989643|issn=0277-7126}}</ref> Societal expectations tied women to ideas of purity and virginity.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /> Erotic plot lines and themes sought to shatter these expectations, crafting women as whores, prostitutes, and adulterers.<ref name=":4" /> Women were symbol of vice and temptation.<ref name=":3" /> Men were thought to be victims of the female seductress, and were the primary spectators and consumers of female erotica.<ref name=":4" /> Themes of same-sex erotica were avoided.
Erotic stimulation was usually implied or suggested.<ref name=":4" /> Female erotica was marked through clothing, hairstyles, corseted silhouettes, shoes and headgear.<ref name=":4" /> Explicit nudity was rare, with arousal coming from the process of undressing.<ref name=":6">{{Cite journal|last=Nochlin|first=Linda|date=March 1978|title=Lost and Found: Once More the Fallen Woman|journal=The Art Bulletin|volume=60|issue=1|pages=139–153|doi=10.2307/3049751|issn=0004-3079|jstor=3049751}}</ref> Rather than the breast or buttocks, legs were a major source of sexual arousal.<ref name=":6"/> Veiling and silhouetting were popular modes of titillation, with brief uncovering of legs, or silhouetted outlines of naked women creating voyeuristic arousal.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Morgan|first=Rosemarie|date=2006-04-07|title=Women and Sexuality in the Novels of Thomas Hardy|doi=10.4324/9780203193365|isbn=9780203193365}}</ref>
=== The fallen woman === [[File:Past and Present Number One.jpg|thumb|Augustus Egg's [[Past and Present (paintings)|''Past and Present'']] (1858) depicting the "Fallen Woman"]] The fallen woman was a key stereotype for Victorian erotica. The fallen woman was characterized in opposition to the Victorian moral standard for women.<ref name=":6"/> Women were expected to be sexually pure and virtuous, with their role being mothers and domestic caregivers.<ref name=":2" /> The fallen woman was a prostitute, sexual deviant, or wife unable to perform her domestic duties.<ref name=":6"/> This woman, whether driven by economic problems or greed, was thought to have fallen from virtue. Social anxieties over the sexuality and independence of women produced the image of the fallen woman.<ref name=":6"/> Erotic images and narratives often portrayed these fallen women needing to be rescued from her vices, and to be reformed into the proper position in family life.<ref name=":6" /> The fallen woman is featured in much of Victorian erotic literature, including works by [[Thomas Hardy]], [[Augustus Egg]], and [[William Bell Scott]].
== Same-sex erotica ==
Art and literature allowed the expression of a homosexual identity.<ref name=":12">{{Cite journal|last=Nord|first=Deborah Epstein|date=July 2004|title=Book Review: Ellen Bayuk Rosenman. Unauthorized Pleasures: Accounts Of Victorian Erotic Experience. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2003|journal=Victorian Studies|volume=46|issue=4|pages=707–709|doi=10.2979/vic.2004.46.4.707|issn=0042-5222}}</ref><ref name=":14">{{Cite book|title=The Victorian nude : sexuality, morality, and art|author=Smith, Alison|date=1996|publisher=Manchester University Press|isbn=978-0719044021|oclc=36208423}}</ref> Art and literature were the primary mode in which positive images of homosexuality could be produced.<ref name=":19">Prettejohn, E. (Ed.). (1999). ''After the Pre-Raphaelites: art and aestheticism in Victorian England''. Manchester University Press.</ref> Homosexual artists such as [[Walter Pater|Pater]], [[Oscar Wilde|Wilde]], [[John Addington Symonds|Symonds]], and [[Simeon Solomon|Solomon]], threaded homosexual themes and identities through their work.<ref name=":7">{{Citation|last=Prettejohn|first=Elizabeth|pages=265–272|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9781139017183|doi=10.1017/ccol9780521895156.020|title=The Cambridge Companion to the Pre-Raphaelites|year=2012|chapter=Envoi}}</ref>
''[[The Sins of the Cities of the Plain|The Sins of the Cities of the Plain; or, The Recollections of a Mary-Ann]]'', is an explicitly homosexual novel written by an anonymous author in 1881.<ref name=":15">{{Cite book|title=Forbidden books of the Victorians Henry Spencer Ashbee's bibliographies of erotica|author=Ashbee, Henry Spencer|date=1970|publisher=Odyssey Press|oclc=574281820}}</ref> This novel is inspired by John Saul, an Irish male prostitute who was involved in a homosexual scandal in Dublin in 1884.<ref name=":15" />
''The Phoenix of Sodom'', written by Robert Holloway in 1813, is based on experiences from the famous [[Vere Street Coterie|The Vere Street Coterie]].<ref name=":15" />
The Shaftesbury memorial by Alfred Gilbert caused moral scandal and outrage, as the sculpture was deemed subversive of heterosexual standards of the time.<ref name=":7" />
===Lesbian===
[[Michael Field (author)|Michael Field]] was a pseudonym for the lesbian couple Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper. Michael Field was a poet, who it is suggested developed a language of love between women.<ref name=":16">{{Cite journal|last=White|first=Christine|date=June 1990|title='Poets and lovers evermore': Interpreting female love in the poetry and journals of Michael Field|journal=Textual Practice|volume=4|issue=2|pages=197–212|doi=10.1080/09502369008582086|issn=0950-236X}}</ref> Lesbian sex and emotions were spoken and explored in Field's work, with their position against worldly discrimination.<ref name=":16" /> It is discussed that lesbian vocabulary and discourse was not available to Field, so language inherent to heterosexuality such as "marriage", was used as metaphors to describe Field's love.<ref name=":16" />
''School Life in Paris'', (1897). This is a book made from a compilation of letters from a young British girl, who boarding at a [[finishing school]] in Paris, sent letters to her cousin in England. These letters are erotically descriptive, especially of clothing, and describes her mistress as "handsome". The letters also include an explicit scene in which Blanche had to lie naked on her dorm bed, as an initiation into the school's "lesbian society".{{fact|date=October 2024}}
Other Lesbian erotic works include ''The Nunnery Tales'' (1886), ''Astrid Cane (1891)'', and ''[[The Mysteries of Verbena House]]'' (1882).{{fact|date=October 2024}}
== Pornography ==
In the Victorian period, pornography on the market boomed, and was produced in abundance.<ref name=":0" /> Before 1864, pornography was described as "obscenity".<ref name=":17">{{Cite journal|last=Frederickson|first=Kathleen|date=May 2011|title=Victorian Pornography and the Laws of Genre|journal=Literature Compass|volume=8|issue=5|pages=340–348|doi=10.1111/j.1741-4113.2011.00800.x|issn=1741-4113}}</ref> Only in 1864 was the word "pornography" placed in the dictionary.<ref name=":0" /> Pornography was not a clear-cut genre, but a general category of sexual explicitness.<ref name=":17" /> There were political concerns that pornography "corrupted private morality" disturbing social order.<ref name=":17" /> For the Victorians, pornography was a medium in which they could illustrate repressed and controlled sexual fantasy and desire.<ref name=":18">{{Cite journal|last=Joudrey|date=2015|title=Penetrating Boundaries: An Ethics of Anti-Perfectionism in Victorian Pornography|journal=Victorian Studies|volume=57|issue=3|pages=423|doi=10.2979/victorianstudies.57.3.423|s2cid=145155673 |issn=0042-5222}}</ref>
Victorian pornography often depicted the rape, abduction, and subordination of women.<ref name=":18" /> Cases and trials of sexual misconduct were a class of their own.<ref name=":1" /> Castration was also a theme of Victorian pornography, with it being alluded to the male orgasm.<ref name=":17" /> Female characters would threaten to dismember a penis in the height of orgasm, as in ''[[The Lustful Turk]]''.<ref name=":18" />
''[[The Pearl (magazine)|The Pearl: A Journal of Facetiae and Voluptuous Reading]]'' was a pornographic magazine published in London in the Victorian era.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Virdis |first=Daniela Francesca |date=2015-01-02 |title=Eroticizing female and male bodies: a linguistic investigation of a pornographic novel from the Victorian magazine The Pearl |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/23268743.2014.984924 |journal=Porn Studies |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=19–34 |doi=10.1080/23268743.2014.984924 |issn=2326-8743|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
Victorian legislation was passed in an attempt to deal with the issue. The [[Obscene Publications Act 1857]] prohibited the distribution and sale of pornography, though not its possession.
[[Henry Spencer Ashbee]] is the first bibliographer of pornographic literature.<ref name=":17" />
== See also == * [[Jugum penis]] * [[LGBT rights in the 19th century]] * [[Stag film]] * [[Victorian morality]] * [[Women in the Victorian era]]
== References == {{reflist}}{{Victorian era|state=collapsed}} [[Category:Erotica]] [[Category:Victorian culture]]