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Erotic literature comprises fictional and factual stories and accounts of eros intended to arouse similar feelings in readers. This contrasts erotica, which focuses more specifically on sexual feelings. Other common elements are satire and social criticism. Much erotic literature features erotic art, illustrating the text.
Henry Spencer Ashbee was a book collector, writer, and bibliographer. He is notable for his massive, clandestine three-volume bibliography of erotic literature published under the pseudonym of Pisanus Fraxi.
The Cleveland Street scandal occurred in 1889, when a homosexual male brothel and house of assignation on Cleveland Street, London, was discovered by police. The government was accused of covering up the scandal to protect the names of aristocratic and other prominent patrons.
There are a number of passages in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament that have been interpreted as involving same-sex sexual activity and relationships. The passages about homosexual individuals and sexual relations in the Hebrew Bible are found primarily in the Torah. The book of Leviticus chapter 20 is more comprehensive on matters of detestable sexual acts. Some texts included in the New Testament also reference homosexual individuals and sexual relations, such as the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Luke, and various letters attributed to the Apostle Paul originally directed to the early Christian churches in Asia Minor. Both references in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament have been interpreted as referring primarily to male homosexual individuals and sexual practices.
Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, commonly known as the Labouchere Amendment, made "gross indecency" a crime in the United Kingdom. In practice, the law was used broadly to prosecute male homosexuals where actual sodomy could not be proven. The penalty of life imprisonment for sodomy was also so harsh that successful prosecutions were rare. The new law was much more enforceable. It was also meant to raise the age of consent for heterosexual intercourse. Section 11 was repealed and re-enacted by section 13 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956, which in turn was repealed by the Sexual Offences Act 1967, which partially decriminalised male homosexual behaviour.
William Simpson Potter was a 19th-century English author. From available information, Potter was a friend of Henry Spencer Ashbee, a merchant, bibliographer, bibliophile, authority on the life and works of Miguel de Cervantes, and collector of erotic materials. Ashbee describes Potter as a "shrewd business man, the ardent collector, and the enthusiastic traveller".
Harford Montgomery Hyde, born in Belfast, Ireland, was a barrister, politician, prolific author and biographer. He was deselected by his party in 1959, losing his seat in the House of Commons, as a result of campaigning on homosexual law reform.
Sodom and Gomorrah were two legendary biblical cities destroyed by God for their wickedness. Their story parallels the Genesis flood narrative in its theme of God's anger provoked by man's sin. They are mentioned frequently in the prophets and the New Testament as symbols of human wickedness and divine retribution, and the Quran also contains a version of the story about the two cities. The narrative of their destruction may have a relation to the remains of third-millennium Bronze Age cities in the region, and subsequent Late Bronze Age collapse.
Sodomy, also called buggery in British English, generally refers to either anal sex between people, or any sexual activity between a human and an animal (bestiality). It may also mean any non-procreative sexual activity. Originally, the term sodomy, which is derived from the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Book of Genesis, was commonly restricted to anal sex. Sodomy laws in many countries criminalized the behavior. In the Western world, many of these laws have been overturned or are routinely not enforced. A person who practices sodomy is sometimes referred to as a sodomite.
Satan's Harvest Home is a pamphlet published anonymously in 1749 in London, Great Britain. It describes and denounces what it deems the moral laxity and perversion of contemporary society, especially with reference to effeminacy, sodomy, and prostitution. The pamphlet incorporates some older material; this attempts to diagnose the cause of a perceived increase in the prevalence of sodomy among gentlemen, and specifies a continental European origin for male effeminacy and female same-sex relations. The pamphlet also features a poem, "Petit Maître", denouncing male habits of feminine dress.
The Mysteries of Verbena House, or, Miss Bellasis Birched for Thieving is a pornographic novel of flagellation erotica set in a girls' school, written under the pseudonym Etonensis by George Augustus Sala and completed by James Campbell Reddie. It was published in 1882 in a limited edition of 150 copies at the price of 4 guineas.
James Campbell Reddie was a 19th-century collector and author of pornography, who, writing as "James Campbell", worked for the publisher William Dugdale. According to Henry Spencer Ashbee, Reddie was self-taught and viewed his works from a philosophical point of view.
There are a number of passages in the Hebrew Bible that have been interpreted as involving same-sex sexual acts, desires, and relationships. The passages about homosexual individuals and sexual relations in the Hebrew Bible are found primarily in the Torah and have been interpreted as referring primarily to male homosexual individuals and sexual practices.
Charles Hirsch was a French bookseller in Victorian London who sold French literature and ran a clandestine trade in expensive pornography. He was involved in the writing of Teleny, or The Reverse of the Medal, an early work of homosexual pornography, and described Oscar Wilde's involvement in its compilation.
Thomas Ernest Boulton and Frederick William Park were Victorian cross-dressers. Both were homosexual men from upper-middle-class families, both enjoyed wearing women's clothes and both enjoyed taking part in theatrical performances—playing the women's roles when they did so. It is possible that they asked for money for sex, although there is some dispute over this. In the late 1860s they were joined on a theatrical tour by Lord Arthur Clinton, the Liberal Party Member of Parliament for Newark. Also homosexual, he and Boulton entered into a relationship; Boulton called himself Clinton's wife, and had cards printed showing his name as Lady Arthur Clinton.
The study of homosexuality in Mexico can be divided into three separate periods, coinciding with the three main periods of Mexican history: pre-Columbian, colonial, and post-independence, in spite of the fact that the rejection of homosexuality forms a connecting thread that crosses the three periods.
In medieval Europe, attitudes toward homosexuality varied from region to region, determined by religious culture; the Catholic Church, which dominated the religious landscape, considered, and still considers, sodomy as a mortal sin and a "crime against nature". By the 11th century Sodomy was increasingly viewed as a serious moral crime and punishable by mutilation or death. Medieval records reflect this growing concern. The emergence of heretical groups, such as the Cathars and Waldensians, witnesses a rise in allegations of unnatural sexual conduct against such heretics as part of the war against heresy in Christendom. Accusations of Sodomy and unnatural acts were levelled against the Order of the Knights Templar in 1307 as part of Philip IV of France's attempt to suppress the order. These allegations have been dismissed by some scholars.
John Saul, also known as Jack Saul, and Dublin Jack, was an Irish prostitute. He featured in two major homosexual scandals, and as a character in two works of pornographic literature of the period. Considered "notorious in Dublin and London" and "made infamous by the sensational testimony he gave in the Cleveland Street scandal", which was published in newspapers around the world, he has recently been the subject of scholarly analysis and speculation. One reason is the paucity of information on the lives and outlook of individual male prostitutes of the period. Saul has also come to be seen by some as a defiant individual in a society that sought to repress him: "a figure of abjection who refuses his status".
Cities of the Plain or cities of the plain may refer to:
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. 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. Overpopulation was a societal concern for the Victorians, thought to be the cause of famine, disease, and war. To curb the threats of overpopulation and to solve other social issues that were arising at the time, sex was socially regulated and controlled. New sexual categories emerged as a response, defining normal and abnormal sex. 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. Procreation was the primary goal of sex, removing it from the public, and placing it in the domestic. 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 such as The Sexual Impulse by Havelock Ellis and Functions and Disorders of Reproductive Organs by 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.
References
- Citations
- ↑ Gunn, Drewey Wayne Gay Novels of Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth 1881-1981: A Reader's Guide, McFarland and Company, North Carolina, 2014, p5-7
- ↑ Hallam, Paul The Book of Sodom, Verso, London, 1993, p19
- ↑ Hyde, H. Montgomery A History of Pornography, Dell, 1966, p141.
- ↑ Cornwall Mansions: The Rise and Fall of 7K and Its Neighbours, The Gissing Journal, Vol XLIV, No4, October, 2008
- ↑ Cornwall Mansions: The Rise and Fall of 7K and Its Neighbours, in The Gissing Journal, Vol XLIV, No4, October, 2008
- ↑ Pisanus Fraxi (Henry Spencer Ashbee), Index Librorum Prohibitorum: Being Notes Bio- Biblio- Icono- graphical and Critical, on Curious and Uncommon Books (London: privately printed, 1877), p. 194.
- ↑ Pearsall (1971) pp. 561-8
- ↑ Hyde (1964) pp. 140-1.
- ↑ Cook (2003) p. 28.
- ↑ Hyde (1962) p.87
- ↑ Gilbert (2002) p. 66.
- ↑ Hyde (1970) p. 141.
- ↑ Cook, Matt (1 October 2003). "'A New City of Friends': London and Homosexuality in the 1890s". History Workshop Journal. 56 (1): 33–58. doi:10.1093/hwj/56.1.33.
- ↑ Healey, Trebor (28 May 2014). "Early Gay Literature Rediscovered". Huffington Post . Retrieved 31 May 2014.
- ↑ Cook (2003) p. 19.
- ↑ Ditmore (2006) p. 443.
- ↑ Peniston (2004) pp. 77–78.
- ↑ http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/823/1/PhD_Volume_One_2010.pdf p.175
- ↑ Kaplan (2005) p. 223
- ↑ Sevilla, Diario de (26 May 2019). "Pornografía bruitista". Diario de Sevilla (in Spanish).
- Bibliography
- Cook, Matt. London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885-1914. Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-521-82207-6
- Ditmore, Melissa Hope, ed. Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work. 2 vols. Westport, Conn: Greenwood, 2006. ISBN 0-313-32968-0
- Fone, Byrne R. S. A Road to Stonewall: Male Homosexuality and Homophobia in English and American Literature, 1750-1969. New York: Twayne, 1995. ISBN 0-8057-8856-5
- Gilbert, Pamela K. Imagined Londons. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. ISBN 978-0791455029
- Hyde, H. Montgomery. A History of Pornography. London: Heinemann, 1964.
- Hyde, H. Montgomery. The Love That Dared Not Speak Its Name: A Candid History of Homosexuality in Britain. New York: Little, Brown, 1970.
- Hyde, H. Montgomery. The Trials of Oscar Wilde. New York: Dover, 1962. ISBN 0-486-20216-X
- Kaplan, Morris B. Sodom on the Thames: Sex, Love, and Scandal in Wilde Times. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8014-3678-8
- Pearsall, Ronald. The Worm in the Bud: The World of Victorian Sexuality. London: Penguin, 1971. ISBN 978-0140063431
- Peniston, William A. Pederasts and Others: Urban Culture and Sexual Identity in Nineteenth-Century Paris. Haworth Gay & Lesbian Studies. New York: Routledge, 2004. ISBN 1-56023-486-5
- Setz, Wolfram. "Introduction", in The Sins of the Cities of the Plain, pp. vii-xxv. Kansas City: Valancourt Books, 2013. ISBN 978-1-934555-31-6
