LHMP #545 Mourão 1999 The representation of female desire in early modern pornographic texts

The author notes a lack of attention paid to mid-17th century literary pornography, a telling absence in considerations of gender-related shifts in this era, while also noting that feminist analysis of pornography focuses mostly on contemporary issues and treats the genre as monolithic and inherently misogynistic. [Note: This article was written in the wake of the “pornography wars” of the ‘70s and ‘80s, which provides context for the author’s observation.] This article challenges that simplistic position and tries to examine 17th century pornography as pollical and social critique, as well as titillating entertainment.

While this article is fascinating reading, it touches only slightly on f/f representation, despite the regular presence of sex between women in pornographic works. Rather, the focus is on how female characters in pornographic texts are empowered to value and prioritize their own pleasure, and to convince men of the importance of providing, not just experiencing, pleasure. Even when discussing the “educational,” dialogue-based texts that feature female initiation of a woman into sexual pleasure, the author primarily focuses on how this illustrates the validation of women’s experiences, with little reference to the specifically homoerotic context.

An exception comes in the discussion of Satyra sotadica, when analyzing the rhetorical device of giving lip service to the inability of women to provide mutual sexual pleasure, set against scenarios that clearly contradict that claim. This is framed as one of a range of non-reproductive sexual experiences that “allow readers to begin to imagine a model of female desire.” However it is noted that, even as the central female characters of Satyra sotadica move on to ever more transgressive sex acts, they are depicted as preferring and gaining their most consistent enjoyment from each other. This preferential desire was more threatening to the status quo than isolated same-sex encounters.

The text also depicts voyeurism primarily in the context of women observing women, or women recounting sexual encounters to other women for their enjoyment. Thus even when m/f sex acts are described, the context is providing pleasure for a female audience.

These pornographic texts rarely represent male homoeroticism, much less provide it the tacit endorsement given to lesbian acts. (Keeping in mind that this is the era when a male homoerotic subculture was developing in London and elsewhere.) Thus a male audience is pressured into cross-gender identification in many of the work’s scenarios.

The article concludes by speculating about differences in the social context between 17th century and modern pornography that affect its reception as feminist versus anti-feminist.