Spain

Parent:

LHMP #531 Carton 2006 Desire and Same-Sex Intimacies in Asia

Gowing, Laura. 2006. ”Lesbians and Their Like in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800” in Gay Life and Culture: A World History ed. Robert Aldrich. London: Thames and Hudson. 125-43

Project ID number:

532

Introduction:

move to blog - I’m blogging two articles from this survey collection. (The rest of the contents weren’t relevant to the Project.) Hence the intrusion of an Early Modern Europe article into what’s meant to be an Asia cluster.

Blog post:

A Great Article Whose Content I Skim Lightly

LHMP #460 Burshatin 1999 Written on the Body

Heather Rose Jones — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 21:59:20 +0000

As might be expected given the author and subject, this article covers much the same ground as , where the conviction for bigamy can be interpreted at some level as recognition of the “validity” of marriage between two assigned-female people.]

There were a number of complicating factors. Céspedes offered a defense of being a “hermaphrodite” who had undergone a physiological sex change. But medical examination contradicted this claim. There were side charges that the appearance of masculinity was due to magic. Céspedes’ sentence was harsh in absolute terms (two sessions of public whipping, a public confession, then public service as a surgeon), but this was aligned with typical punishments for bigamy at the time (and to some extent, more lenient than usual).

The article traces several parallel processes of “self-fashioning,” not only of gender but of occupation and economic status. Racial self-fashioning was beyond Céspedes’ ability, but they moved across a permeable racial boundary by manipulating other aspects of identity.

The article goes into much more detail regarding the racial/religious politics of 16th century Spain and how Céspedes maneuvered through them.

Parent:

Blackmore, Josiah and Gregory S. Hutcheson. 1999. Queer Iberia: Sexualities, Cultures, and Crossings from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Duke University Press, Durham. ISBN 9780822323495

Burshatin, Israel. 1999. “Written on the Body: Slave or Hermaphrodite in Sixteenth-Century Spain” in Queer Iberia: Sexualities, Cultures, and Crossings from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance ed. Josiah Blackmore and Gregory S. Hutcheson. Duke University Press, Durham. ISBN 9780822323495

Project ID number:

460

Sub-reference:

Burshatin - Written on the Body

Introduction:

Because of the ways that I define the scope of the Project, I end up including a lot of transmasculine content. I often say that there is no lesbian history without transmasculine history, regardless of how the historic individuals understood their own identities, because of they ways that society assigned masculinity to the desire for women or to any sort of transgressive behavior by women. But there are some individuals who--while shedding fascinating light on issues relevant to lesbian history--very clearly understood themselves to be men and demanded that society treat them as such. Eleno de Céspedes is one of those people and regardless of the language that I and other researchers sometimes use in trying to communicate the facts of his life, I want to recognize that.

# # #

Event / person:

Elena/Eleno de Céspedes

ISBN:

9780822323495

Blog post:

Love is Love and Trans People Have Always Existed

LHMP #459 Perry 1999 From Convent to Battlefield

Heather Rose Jones — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 21:55:49 +0000

(

Parent:

Blackmore, Josiah and Gregory S. Hutcheson. 1999. Queer Iberia: Sexualities, Cultures, and Crossings from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Duke University Press, Durham. ISBN 9780822323495

Perry, Mary Elizabeth. 1999. “From Convent to Battlefield: Cross-Dressing and Gendering the Self in the New World of Imperial Spain” in Queer Iberia: Sexualities, Cultures, and Crossings from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance ed. Josiah Blackmore and Gregory S. Hutcheson. Duke University Press, Durham. ISBN 9780822323495

Project ID number:

459

Sub-reference:

Perry - From Convent to Battlefield

Introduction:

The two articles that deal most solidly with Project-related topics are both about trans-masculine individuals. Both are solidly within the fuzzy scope of the Project, but it does continue to point up how absent certain content is from this collection.

# # #

Event / person:

Catalina de Erauso

ISBN:

9780822323495

Blog post:

The Lieutenant Nun Strikes Again

LHMP #458 Gerli1999 Dismembering the Body Politic

Heather Rose Jones — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 21:52:46 +0000

OK, I guess I’m spite-reviewing this. Despite there being a female homoerotic encounter in a key scene in Celestina, Gerli’s article fails to take any notice of it at all. (Other articles in the collection do make reference to it.)

La Celestina (Fernando de Rojas)

Parent:

Blackmore, Josiah and Gregory S. Hutcheson. 1999. Queer Iberia: Sexualities, Cultures, and Crossings from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Duke University Press, Durham. ISBN 9780822323495

Gerli, E. Michael. 1999. “Dismembering the Body Politic: Vile Bodies and Sexual Underworlds in Celestina” in Queer Iberia: Sexualities, Cultures, and Crossings from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance ed. Josiah Blackmore and Gregory S. Hutcheson. Duke University Press, Durham. ISBN 9780822323495

Project ID number:

458

Sub-reference:

Gerli- Dismembering the Body Politic

Event / person:

ISBN:

9780822323495

Blog post:

La Celestina Deserved Better than This

LHMP #456 Blackmore & Hutcheson 1999 Introduction

Heather Rose Jones — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 21:45:24 +0000

The introduction reviews the background and thematic connections of the papers in this volume. The focus is overwhelmingly on masculinity and sodomy, although several articles in the section “The Body and the State” focus on women (or female-coded figures). There are a total of 15 articles of which four have at least marginal relevance to the Project. However the two that have the strongest focus on female-coded individuals both concern transmasculinity.

This collection evolved out of a set of thematic sessions at the International Medieval Congress (Kalamazoo) and the contents point to the hazards of how scholarly networks silently constrain the scope of interest for such projects. If particular areas of interest are not included within a scholarly network, it becomes difficult to solicit work on those areas—or even to notice that they are not covered.

LHMP entry type:

Parent:

Blackmore, Josiah and Gregory S. Hutcheson. 1999. Queer Iberia: Sexualities, Cultures, and Crossings from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Duke University Press, Durham. ISBN 9780822323495

Blackmore, Josiah and Gregory S. Hutcheson. 1999. “Introduction” in Queer Iberia: Sexualities, Cultures, and Crossings from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance ed. Josiah Blackmore and Gregory S. Hutcheson. Duke University Press, Durham. ISBN 9780822323495

Project ID number:

456

Sub-reference:

Introduction

ISBN:

9780822323495

Blog post:

Queer Iberia - Yet another queer history collection

LHMP #400 Velasco 2014 How to Spot a Lesbian in the Early Modern Spanish World

Heather Rose Jones — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 14:11:54 +0000

This chapter begins with a discussion of historic terminologies for women who loved women and the eternal problem of whether to use the label “lesbian”. Should the historian look for specific acts, or for evidence of emotional intimacy? And as a literary historian, should one distinguish between literary, artistic, or dramatic depictions, and “non-fictional” content in the fields of law, medicine, and theology?

An example of these themes colliding is in envisioning, a performance of Pérez de Montalbán’s 1626 play The Lieutenant Nun (based on the real-life story of Catalina de Erauso) portrayed on stage by popular actress Luisa de Robles. How would audiences have received and understood that performance in which a favorite actress openly flirted with women on stage, when depicting a woman known to have been attracted to women?

The historic record that contains unmistakable evidence of women desiring women is overlaid by the evidence of “attempts to suppress, destroy, or tamper” with that evidence.

The article then goes into a brief summary of documentary evidence from legal, medical, and theological texts. All these tended to approach the topic of lesbian sex from a heteronormative viewpoint, focusing on penetrative acts “like a man with a woman.” But other texts focused on romantic attachments, such as descriptions of — or concerns about — “special, friendships” in convents. Lesbians might be identified by a certain “look” (i.e., a masculine appearance), but also by how they “looked” at each other, betraying desire.

For all that discussions of lesbian desire in Spanish literature show discomfort or our framed humorously, they provide evidence that people could imagine such things, and were openly discussing the possibilities. The article concludes with cases where a person assigned female at birth framed their desire and actions in transgender terms, rather than same-sex ones, complicating the historic record.

[Note: for many more details on the content of this chapter see,

Parent:

McCallum, E.L. & Mikko Tuhkanen, eds. 2014. The Cambridge History of Gay and Lesbian Literature Cambridge University Press, New York. ISBN 978-1-107-03521-8

Velasco, Sherry. 2014. “How to Spot a Lesbian in the Early Modern Spanish World” in The Cambridge History of Gay and Lesbian Literature ed. E.L. McCallum & Mikko Tuhkanen. Cambridge University Press, New York. ISBN 978-1-107-03521-8

Project ID number:

400

Sub-reference:

Chapter 10 - How to Spot a Lesbian in the Early Modern Spanish World

Event / person:

Catalina de Erauso

ISBN:

978-1-107-03521-8

Blog post:

A Brief Summary of a Book I've Already Covered: Lesbians in Early Modern Spain

LHMP #240 Amer 2009 Medieval Arab Lesbians and 'Lesbian-Like'

Heather Rose Jones — Sun, 20 Jan 2019 19:39:22 +0000

Amer begins by tackling the Whorfian-tinged assertion that the lack of a specific terminology for lesbianism in medieval Europe contributed to a lack of modern scholarship about same-sex desire between women in that era, by noting that the existence of a diverse and specific vocabulary for the topic in medieval Arabic (sahq, sihaqa, musahaqat, al-nisa’, sahiqa) hasn’t resulted in a vibrant field of study. This is particularly disappointing given the significant surviving literature on the topic. Further, Amer notes, if you broaden the field of inquiry to include “lesbian-like” women (following Judith Bennett’s definition), the literature is even richer. The structure of cultural and social life in some medieval Arabic courts may contain unstudied spaces in which same-sex activity occurred that--if not “lesbian” by a strict definition--certain fall into the category of “lesbian-like.”

Medieval Arab Lesbians

The medieval Arabic vocabulary for “lesbianism” (sahq, sihaq, sihaqa) and “lesbian” (sahiqa, sahhaqa, musahiqa) arise from describing a behavior rather than an identity or orientation, coming from the root s-h-q meaning “to pound” (as with spices) or “to rub”, and thus being semantically connected to Greek tribas and Latin fricatrix.

Medieval Arabic medical theories included the idea that lesbianism was caused by an itch of the labia that could be soothed only by rubbing against another woman’s genitals. (These medical writings included versions of the 2nd century Greek writer Galen, and included a tradition that Galen’s daughter was a lesbian and had provided him with data on the topic.) This theory included humoral concepts of heat and cold to explain why sex with a man couldn’t scratch the itch in the same way. (al-Kindi, 9th c)

The scientific view of lesbianism in Arabic literature was as a medical category, with theories about the underlying cause that included maternal consumption of specific plants. (Yuhanna ibn Masawayh, 9th c) In this context, it was seen as innate, lifelong, and as morally neutral.

But although the etymology of sahq indicates an activity, the cultural context of the range of terms in medieval Arabic literature associates sahiqat with love and devotion, and in some contexts with an exclusive and supportive subculture of women who loved women. Legendary tales identify the “first lesbians” as an interfaith couple (Christian and pre-Islamic Arabic) in what is now Iraq. The earliest surviving Arabic erotic treatise (10th c) includes this tale of Hind Bint al-Nu`man and Hind Bint al-Khuss al-Iyadiyyah and places them in the 7th century. They were held up as an icon of love and loyalty.

The historicity of this story is less important than how it was presented in the Arabic literary tradition as a symbol of the greater love and devotion women have for each other than men have for women. Arabic literature embraced stories of female couples, twelve of which are named in the literary catalog Al Fihrist (al-Nadim, 10th c) although nothing except their names and the fact of their relationships is preserved. Amer provides a list of the titles of the twelve books (which are the names of the characters) with translations of what the names mean, if relevant. I’ll reproduce it here because I’ve never seen it spelled out before.

The Book of Rihana and Qoronfel (“Basil” and “Clove”)
The Book of Ruqayya and Khadija
The Book of Mo’ees and Zakiyya
The Book of Sakina and al-Rabab (“Calm” and “the Mistress of the Household”)
The Book of al-Ghatrifa and al-Dulafa’
The Book of Hind and Bint al-Nu`man (“India” and “the daughter of al-Nu`man”, the “first lesbian couple” mentioned above)
The Book of `Abda al-`Aqila and `Abda al-Ghaddara (“the Wise Slave Girl” and “the Treacherous Slave Girl”)
The Book of Lu’lu’a and Shatira
The Book of Najda and Zu’um
The Book of Salma and Su`ad
The Book of Sawab and Surur (“Justice” and “Happiness”)
The Book of al-Dahma’ and Ni`ma (“the Dark One” and “the Gift from God”)

Amer notes parallels with the Kama-sutra (from which some elements may have been borrowed) where lesbians formed groups, held meetings, and led schools of pleasure for other women. The 13th c Tunisian writer al-Tifashi offers descriptions of such a community and the teachings of its leader Rose [note: I assume this is a translation of her name]. Organized communities are also implied in the (otherwise negative) writings of Leo Africanus (15th c, from Granada but writing about Morocco) about a community of female diviners in Fez for which he uses the name suhaqiyat.

Al-Tifashi describes teachings about sexual practices, such as the a woman should “snort heartily while wiggling lasciviously” during sex and that lovemaking should be accompanied verbally by “wheezing, panting, purring, murmurs, and heartbreaking sighs.” He also includes a detailed, step-by-step description of a sexual technique called “the saffron massage.” [Note: I’ve included a translation of the full passage in this entry for mutazarrifat, the same terms applied to cultured upper-class women with lesbian-like interests. [Note: Amer doesn’t give specific examples, but if you follow the tag “

The Book of Hind Nuzhat al-Albâb fîmâ lâ Yûjad fî Kitâb (The Diversion of the Hearts by What is Not to Be Found in Any Book) (Ahmad Ibn Yusuf al-Tîfâshî)Leo Africanus Qamar al-Zaman and the Princess Boudour Wallada

Amer, S. 2009. “Medieval Arab Lesbians and 'Lesbian-Like'” in Journal of the History of Sexuality, 18(2), 215-236.

Project ID number:

240

Introduction:

[The following is duplicated from the associated blog. I'm trying to standardize the organization of associated content.]

Even when Sahar Amer is largely recycling topics that the Project has covered from her before, there's always enough new material to provide intriguing glimpses of what's out there in the field of medieval Arabic same-sex literature. One of these years, if I continue the fiction series on the podcast, I dream of getting an own-voices story drawing on this material. (Or lots of them! But I don't want to dream too high.) The topic of women's same-sex relations in the Islamicate world has too often been treated through an Orientalizing or male-gaze lens when depicted in fiction. And as scholars like Amer note, the contemporary association within Islamic societies of homosexuality with "Western corruption" can be a bar to the exploration of these themes from within those societies. But there's such a wealth of tradition here. And it provides such a delightful contrast to the treatment of women's same-sex relations in the texts of Christian Europe in the same era.

# # #

Event / person:

Blog post:

Someone Write me a Tale of Witty Elegant Lady-Lovers in Medieval Andalusia

LHMP #232 Fernandez 1997 The Repression of Sexual Behavior by the Aragonese Inquisition

Heather Rose Jones — Sun, 20 Jan 2019 03:31:19 +0000

This is a data-heavy examination of cases under the Spanish Inquisition for sexual-related offenses during a critical period from the mid 16th century to the end of the 17th century. There is very little in the article that speaks directly to sexual activity between women, but it provides a context for attitudes and risks during that period.

The question being addressed is why there was a significant increase in the prosecution of sexual offenses in the Kingdom of Aragon beginning around 1560, and how and why that focus tapered off over the course of the 17th century. The official focus of the Inquisition was on eradicating heresy, but in the mid 16th century that focus expanded to overlap with the jurisdiction of episcopal and royal courts with regard to four categories of sexual offense that were considered to represent not simply moral offenses, but offenses against the natural order or against the sacraments. These four categories were solicitation, bigamy, sodomy, and bestiality.

The documentary record shows the court working its way through the process of categorizing offenses under these headings, and determining their relative gravity and appropriate penalties. Simple fornication (i.e., extramarital sex between a man and a woman) was a moral and legal offense but did not come under the scrutiny of the Inquisition under ordinary circumstances and so is not included in this data (although far more common).

A great deal of the article is taken up with detailed discussions of data trends, categories, and statistics, of which I’ll only hit the highlights. Overall, this increased focus on sexual offenses ran from 1560 through around 1620, then tapered off steadily until the end of the 17th century when the Inquisition functionally lost interest in the topic.

Of the four categories, the only one of relevance to the LHMP is sodomy, and even there the overwhelming majority of the cases involve relations between men. Out of 1829 cases included in the data overall, 691 (38%) fell in the category of sodomy. But of those, only 8 cases involved women, with 7 of them concerning sodomy in the context of a male-female relationship. Only one case (keep in mind, this is in the entire kingdom or Aragon in the course of nearly a century and a half) involved a female couple. The case occurred in 1656, the women were unmarried, and (if I’m reading the article correctly) the sentence was banishment from their home city for 8 years and being forbidden from cohabiting.

While this may seem like a small tidbit on which to include this article in the Project, it provides a context for other previous mentions of the prosecution of female couples within the authority of the Spanish Inquisition. Clearly the overall risk of coming to their attention, or of receiving a significant punishment, was low, despite the fearsome reputation of the organization.

LHMP entry type:

Fernandez, André. 1997. “The Repression of Sexual Behavior by the Aragonese Inquisition between 1560 and 1700” in Journal of the History of Sexuality 7:4 pp.469-501

Project ID number:

232

Introduction:

[The following is duplicated from the associated blog. I'm trying to standardize the organization of associated content.]

As I mention in the discussion below, given how very little information this article has relating to women's same-sex relations, one might wonder why I bothered to include it. And the answer is, because often negative information is as important to understanding the context of people's lives in history as the positive information is. We often have an impression that women in sexual relationships were in constant danger of persecution and repression. That they must have lived in constant fear of discovery and the consequences thereof. But once you sift through the data in this article (and it's packed full of numbers and pie charts and trend graphs), the take-home message is that in the entire kingdom of Aragon in Spain, for the century and a half when the Spanish Inquisition was most fixated on the sexual lives of ordinary people, only one (1) female couple is recorded as being tried by the Inquisition for the offense of sodomy. And they were punished by exile and being forbidden to live together, not by death or even imprisonment. (Though exile was nothing to sneeze at.) While this data doesn't address how this compared with attention from the secular courts, and while it doesn't give us a baseline for how many women engaged in acts that might have been considered sodomy, we can make some reasonable extrapolations and suggest that legal prosecution of women solely for engaging in same-sex acts was not a major risk factor.

So when you're imagining the lives of your fictional characters and thinking of setting them in 16-17th century Spain, maybe--just maybe--the Inquisition isn't something that needs to be a constant threat looming over their lives. In fact, coming to the notice of the Inquisition must might be more historically inaccurate than otherwise.

# # #

Blog post:

No one expects...the jokes write themselves

LHMP #205 Lanser 2007 The Political Economy of Same-Sex Desire

Heather Rose Jones — Mon, 09 Jul 2018 02:47:00 +0000

Lanser opens her article with the bold hypothesis that “in or around 1650, female desire changed.” That there was a conceptual shift in gender relations reflected in literature, politics, religion, and individual behavior in which private intimate relationships between women became part of public life, and that this shift shaped women’s emergence as political subjects claiming equal rights. The mechanism for this was an appropriation of the emerging importance of elite same-sex friendships between men and the use of parallel friendship structures among women to support struggles for autonomy and authority. Although these friendships were enacted in the context of an erotically-tinged discourse, elite women often deflected suspicions of lesbianism by developing a class-based conservatism.

In this article, Lanser goes beyond her previous analysis of the social results of this shift, and argues that the shift may be considered a collective strategy to create a context for emerging feminist consciousness and actions, not simply a reflection of individual, pre-existing desire. A “sapphic” consciousness (encompassing both private and public expressions of same-sex desire) acted to dismantle the logic of patriarchy and thus formed the basis for the emergence of modern feminism.

One objective observation is that in the 17th and 18th centuries, the representation of female same-sex intimacy in print experienced something of an explosion. Sapphic scenarios in the late 16th century were primarily generated by men and tended to express male anxieties and fantasies (i.e., that women could “become” men and lay claim to male spaces and privileges). Female same-sex desire was attributed to abnormal physiology, moral degeneracy, or the mistaken direction of an underlying heterosexual desire. The most positive representations in that era tended to invoke abstract and distanced images of desire between women, as in John Donne’s “Sapho to Philaenis”.

But with the 17th century, women’s expressions of same-sex desire begin to come into print circulation. Lanser offers the following catalog, focusing strongly but not exclusively on poems addressed by one woman to another:

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz - Mexican nun who wrote poems addressed to her patroness, the Condesa de Paredes
Sor Violante del Cielo - Portuguese nun who wrote love sonnets addressed to “Menandra”
Marcia Belisarda - Spanish nun who wrote love poems to women, using both male and female personas
Anne de Rohan - French poet who addressed a poem to a female “beloved”, distinguishing her love from friendship
Madeleine de Scudéry - French writer who described female friendship in ecstatic and erotic terms
Louise-Geneviève de Sainctonge - French writer whose letter urging a widowed friend not to re-marry closes with an expression of romantic love
Pauline de Simiane - French poet who expresses anxiety over her erotic response to a woman’s kisses
Catharina Questiers - Dutch poet who uses suggestive Ovidian allusions in a poem about a woman who left a garter in her room
Titia Brongersma - Dutch poet who writes of her desire for a woman’s kissses
Katharyne Lescailje - Dutch poet who uses a male persona to write love poems to women
Elizabeth Rowe - English religious poet who expressed desire for an absent friend
Aphra Behn - English poet who, among other topics, expressed desire for “the fair Clorinda” in gender-blurring terms
Katherine Philips - English poet who addressed love poems to a number of women
Margaret Cavendish - English writer who embedded homoerotic scenes in her novel The Blazing World
Anne Finch - English poet who wrote of her desire for a woman’s caresses
Mary Astell - English writer who dedicated her published letters to her close friend using sensual language

Scholarship has traditionally attempted to explain the homoerotic elements in these on the basis of individual biography, but taken as a whole, this literature calls for a more systemic analysis. Why would this explosion of women into published literature include such public expressions of private same-sex desire. [Note: Lanser doesn’t quite state it outright, perhaps assuming her readership doesn’t need it pointed out, but the 17th century is when women began having their personal writings published in significant numbers are all. So this isn’t a case of the body of published woman-authored literature suddenly introducing same-sex desire as a topic, but that the expression of same-sex desire is part and parcel of women entering the world of published literature.] The question is not simply “do these works represent their authors’ personal desires?” but “why would the authors choose to include representation of same-sex desire in their published work?”

One traditional argument has been to connect sapphic topics with women appropriating masculine forms and conventions, i.e., inhabiting an underlyingly male authorial position addressing a female object because that was how the literary genre was structured. This strategy works to erase the sapphic potential by essentially transforming women writers into “male” voices. [Note: this is, of course, a strategy with a long history in western culture for managing anxiety around same-sex activity. If you can re-define anyone who expresses desire for a woman as inherently masculine, then you don’t need to acknowledge same-sex desire.] This position is difficult to maintain in the face of women’s literature that explicitly elevates same-sex relationships over cross-sex ones.

From a different angle, more recent arguments have been that the homo-desiring elements in this work are used to re-direct the authors’ same-sex desires into an acceptable literary form, creating an image of “chaste femme love” (per Valerie Traub) to distinguish and distance themselves from the “taint” of both tribadism and masculinity. But this explanation fails to support why the authors would include same-sex desire in their work at all if the goal was to avoid attracting suspicion.

Scholarship around the poetry of Katherine Philips and whether it can be read as “lesbian” is a useful lens for examining all the various academic approaches to the topic. Was Philips simply imitating an existing heterosexual “poetic love language” that did not reflect her personal desires? Does her work provide unquestionable evidence that both Philips and her poetry can be classified as “lesbian”? Whether one considers Philips’ poetry to represent only homoerotic desires, regardless of her behavior, the history of Philips scholarship is an object lesson in methods of erasing lesbian possibilities.

Lanser returns to the argument that the inclusion by Philips and other writers of sapphic themes in publicly circulated work must be viewed as a communal reshaping of discourse that operated on levels beyond the simply personal. This argument holds even more strongly for authors who included sapphic themes in their writing with no corresponding motivation in their personal life, such as Margaret Cavendish and Delarivier Manley. Assuming that homoerotic content in their writings necessarily corresponds to homoeroticism in their lives erases women’s agency in using literary themes for public ends.

Perhaps the pertinent question is, “why would women--regardless of their individual private lives--include sapphic themes in their public writing?” Here Lanser returns to her thesis that those themes represent and support a larger social and political movement towards women’s equality and empowerment. And specifically that those themes are part of a deliberate (if diffuse) strategy to create that movement. Simone de Beauvoir is cited as noting that one barrier to women’s collective agency is that individual women are dispersed among patriarchal structures that hinder the ability to see themselves--much less act--as a unified group. But Lanser points out the “agency of print”--the ways in which creation of a published body of literature can become a collective act and can represent itself as the voice of the larger population. Print technology offered a new and powerful means of constructing a collective voice.

Pre-modern literature that made feminist arguments did so largely by comparing women to men and begging for men’s good will and recognition of women’s worth, as in Christine de Pisan’s City of Ladies. Beginning around 1600, feminist treatises (such as the pseudonymous Jane Anger’s 1589 Protection for Women or Moderata Fonte’s 1600 treatise The Worth of Women) argue from the premise that women’s social power can only derive from separating themselves from men and focusing their resources in support of other women. Other authors who took a “women first” stand included Lady Mary Chudleigh, Marie de Romieu, and a semi-anonymous group of six London maidservants who published an open letter in 1567 appealing to their female employers to make common cause.

All of these texts highlight the idea of a homosocial economy of women that allows for equality in relationships (an equality not possible between women and men) that can stand against patriarchal structures. The specific activities of constructing these homosocial bonds point out the inequality of male-male friendships and female-female ones: men’s same-sex friendships act within and support patriarchy while women’s same-sex friendships act to subvert and negate its power. For women to create non-marital bonds outside the family was an inherent act of challenge to the status quo which expected women’s loyalties to be to husband, household, and extended family in that order.

Such female alliances were not necessarily or inherently erotic, but given the ways in which women’s oppression was enacted through control of female bodies, for women to claim control of the disposition of their own bodies in ways that excluded men had significant symbolic importance. This sentiment is embodied in the ca. 1700 poem “Cloe to Artimesia” which praises love between women as being above “the dangerous follies of such slavish love” (i.e., love of men) and urges women to “scorn the monster (i.e., man) and his mistress too,” staking out a position reminiscent of late 20th century feminist arguments that the only true feminist position was to reject relationships with men entirely.

Thus female same-sex relationships became almost a pre-requisite for envisioning women’s equality and empowerment, even when such relationships were not practical to enact, and regardless of whether the women envisioning them had an individual erotic orientation toward women. The vision of utopian sapphic relationships created the framework for the practical and material enactment of “friendship as kinship” when other shifts in the social and economic landscape put its realization within reach. That utopian vision might be limited, as in Cavendish’s The Convent of Pleasure where the premise of the female-only society ultimately resolves into heterosexual marriage, but one could argue that the disguised prince who marries Lady Happy must “become as a woman” to earn that goal. Other works by Cavendish, such as The Female Academy, create women’s separatist communities without the same overt frisson of homoeroticism, but still operating on the premise that women best support women by operating outside of male structures. And her works are regularly infused with the images of female friendships and female intimacies as utopian spaces.

These are only some of the texts that create a direct connection between female homoeroticism and resistance to male authority. Within this context, personal homoerotic desire may have been awakened within the context of political rhetoric, rather than necessarily the other way around.

One parallel theme that emerges from these writings is the depiction of female homoeroticism as driven by an appreciation of similarity. While authors such as Valerie Traub caution against taking this “erotic similitude” as the only theme within early modern sapphic discourse, Lanser considers it plausible that the emphasis on similarity enabled women to construct themselves as authoritative agents by recognizing that authority in other women. This is not to deny the material embodiment of the homoeroticism of these early modern texts, nor to suggest that their imagery is only metaphorical or that none of these writers were reflecting their own romantic and erotic lives. But the expression of those images and ideas could also have political purposes and consequences. And the expression of those ideas could, in turn, give women a context for recognizing and expressing their personal erotic desires. Here Lanser returns to her somewhat tongue-in-cheek proclamation at the start that “female desire changed around 1650.”

In closing, Lanser notes that the ideas she presents here were at play in the 1970s in the concepts of “political lesbianism” and “cultural feminism” as well as the (re)introduction of similitude as a model for female homoeroticism (alongside the earlier 20th century butch-femme model that invoked the concept of desire being driven by difference). Just as the dynamic interplay of lesbian discourse and feminist political action created a synergy for women’s empowerment in the later 20th century, there is evidence for that same interplay in the 17th century.

LHMP entry type:

Aphra Behn Katherine Philips The Convent of Pleasure (Margaret Cavendish)Sappho to Philaenis (John Donne)To the Fair Clorinda (Aphra Behn)On a Lady Named Beloved (Anne de Rohan)Juana Inés de la Cruz Love and Friendship: A Pastoral (Elizabeth Singer Rowe)The New Atalantis (Mary Delarivier Manley)Friendship between Ephelia and Ardelia (Anne Finch Countess Winchilsea)Cloe to Artimesa Mary Astell Margaret Cavendish Violante del Cielo Marcia Belisarda Catharina Questiers Titia Brongersma Katharyne Lescailie

Lanser, Sue. 2007. “The Political Economy of Same-Sex Desire” in Structures and Subjectivities: Attending to Early Modern Women, ed. Joan Hartman and Adele Seeff. University of Delaware Press, Newark, DE. ISBN 0-7413-941-4 pp.157-75

Project ID number:

205

Introduction:

[The following is duplicated from the associated blog. I'm trying to standardize the organization of associated content.]

One of the themes mentioned by several authors in the collection The Lesbian Premodern was that social understandings of gender/sexuality in Western culture behave in cyclic ways, not as a linear evolutoin of understanding and expression. Lanser's article here looks at one of those cycles: the association of female homoerotic discourse, feminist philosophy, and woman-centered socializing. Understanding cycles such as these can be critical to grounding fiction in a particular time and place. I could easily see a historic novel set in early modern England that deliberately evoked resonances with aspects of lesbian-feminism of the '70s while still remaining true to it's own time.

# # #

Event / person:

ISBN:

0-7413-941-4

Blog post:

"Political Lesbianism" in 17th Century England

LHMP #149g Velasco 2011 Lesbians in Early Modern Spain Chapter 7

Heather Rose Jones — Sun, 23 Jul 2017 03:47:26 +0000

This chapter looks at the role of imagination, spectacle, and accusation in shaping understandings of female same-sex relations. These understandings, in turn, could create or enable same-sex erotic possibilities for their consumers. There is a contrast between writers who denied the possibility of desire between women and the regular use of female homoerotic imagery in popular culture. Spectacles involving female homoeroticism were meant to warn and punish, but could also inform and educate. Accusations against specific women assumed general knowledge of homoerotic possibilities and expectations regarding types of homoerotic activity.

Probable intersex cases tested the understanding and judgement of same-sex activity. Beliefs about the possibility of spontaneous physical sex change problematized investigations into potential transgressive relations when physical sex was ambiguous or did not match gender performance. Medical opinions presumed that people had an innate sexual orientation, though they differed on the underlying cause.

When same-sex relationships were performed in public (for example, when the specifics of relationships came out in public arguments or lawsuits) the evidence suggests that individual fear of punishment for sexual transgression was not an absolute deterrent for entering those relationships. [Note: when has it ever been?] Within all this, what was the public expectation for being able to identify lesbians from their appearance? How could you know you were looking at one?

Catalina de Erauso was depicted in a portrait from life by Francisco Pacheco, and that portrait was further publicized by engravings based on it. Her features were interpreted differently depending on how people perceived her gender. Physiognomy--the pseudo-science of identifying innate characteristics based on facial features and physiology--was not only applied to Catalina during her lifetime, but was taken up by psychologists and sexologists in the early 20th century to “diagnose” her in terms of supposed psychological and medical abnormality.

Simple economics meant that homoerotic scenes of women in art were typically designed to cater to the male gaze for the purposes of titillation. One exception was depictions of lesbian erotics in genre scenes of witchcraft that often drew on male anxiety about powerful and dangerous women, conflating lesbian sexuality with anti-male magical activity. (That is, the scenes may still have been created for the male gaze, but not likely for titillation.)

In religious art, images of close emotional bonds betwen women were often depicted using physical gestures to indicate spiritual connections and conferral of authority. This appears in art showing Saint Teresa and her rival spiritual heirs in a sort of religious propaganda art staking claims to her legacy using imagery of closeness and inseparability.

Velasco includes a discussion of visual art associated with Nicholas Chorier’s pornographic Satyra Sotadica showing a frontispiece with a group of upper class Spanish women shopping in a “dildo market” with wares hung up on display as in a butcher’s shop. This seems to be included on the basis that Chorier’s work was alleged to be a translation of a dialogue by the 16th century Spanish poet and humanist Luisa Sigea. Sigea did write dialogues between women expressing passionate friendship. [Note: Velasco seems at first to treat the connection to Sigea as solidly evidenced but then appears to agree with other sources that the connection with Sigea is entirely fictitious and was, in part, intended to imply a genuine female authorship for Chorier’s female-voice dialogue.]

Beliefs in gender essentialism with regard to sexuality led to an emphasis in descriptions of women with same-sex desires as being masculine in appearance (or at least unfeminine). Contemporaries of María de Zayas suggest she may have been viewed as “manly” in appearance as well as in literary talent. Other writers compared her poetic talent to Sappho, possibly intending implications about her sexuality. Zayas herself excluded Sappho from her list of dedicatory “foremothers” possibly suggesting that she herself was anxious about what people would read into the comparison. There is some evidence that Zayas lived with a fellow female poet, Ana Caro, but the nature of their relationshp must be entirely speculative.

The Mexican poet Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (later 17th century) wrote poems to multiple women (including her patroness) that used amorous language and imagery, such as, “I love you with so much passion...My love for you was so strong I could see you in my soul and talk to you all day long...Let my love be ever doomed if guilty in its intent, for loving you is a crime of which I will never repent.” And in another work, “I aspire that your love and my good wine will draw you hither, and to tumble you to bed I can conspire.” Historians writing of Sor Juana and other examples of suggestive evidence between nuns often dismiss the possibility of same-sex desire out of hand on a presumption that they would have needed to learn about homoerotic love before being able to experience it, and that they were “too young” to understand the implication of such desires. [Some things never change.]

LHMP entry type:

Catalina de Erauso Satyra Sotadica (Johannes Meursius)The Academy of Women (L'Academie des dames) (Nicolas Chorier)Luisa Sigea María de Zayas Sappho Juana Inés de la Cruz

Parent:

Velasco, Sherry. 2011. Lesbians in Early Modern Spain. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville.

Velasco, Sherry. 2011. Lesbians in Early Modern Spain. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville. ISBN 978-0-8265-1750-0

Project ID number:

149

Project ID letter:

Sub-reference:

Chapter 7: Looking Like a Lesbian

Introduction:

[The following is duplicated from the associated blog. I'm trying to standardize the organization of associated content.]

Can you know a lesbian when you see one? What characteristics did people in early modern Spain think a lesbian would have? And what did that say about how they conceived of sexual orientation? The concluding chapter to Velasco's book covers an assortment of loosely-connected topics having to do with visual signifiers. It's interesting how old the trope of the "masculine-looking ugly lesbian" is. One aspect in this regard that I don't recall seeing addressed is the extent to which "feminine beauty" as a concept is actively and deliberately created rather than being a natural and spontaneous state. Is the mythical "ugly lesbian" simply the resting bitch face of sexuality? The trope also points out that the understanding of sexuality was still very much focused on an active/passive definition. Only the "active" desiring woman risked evoking the "ugly, masculine-looking" accusation.

As we come to the end of Velasco's book, I'd like to step back and once again marvel at how much material the author found to address her topic, and what that implies for many other historic cultures that have not yet had the benefit of a knowledgeable and interested researcher. I'll reitereate one of the main lessons I've gained from this project: the assumption that information is scarce and skimpy regarding the history of women's same-sex desires derives from a history of the field that often focused on types of data that were more relevant to men, and interpretations of the data that assumed "heterosexual unless clearly proven otherwise." Historians don't find things that they aren't looking for. Once you start looking, there is a greater wealth of data than we've been led to believe.

# # #

Event / person:

ISBN:

978-0-8265-1750-0

Blog post:

Looking for Lesbians in Early Modern Spain

LHMP #149f Velasco 2011 Lesbians in Early Modern Spain Chapter 6

Heather Rose Jones — Sun, 23 Jul 2017 03:27:55 +0000

Female same-sex flirtation is a regular feature in popular Spanish drama of the early modern era. Erotic attraction to cross-dressed actrresses was cited in moral warnings. Velasco discusses the “meaning” of same-sex flirtation in cross-dressing scenarios, based on the several layers of “real” versus “apparent” gender, and considering different audiences. If female attraction to cross-dressed actresses isn’t quite all-out lesbian desire, it at least acknowledges its possibility. In-play dialogues about the attractiveness of the cross-dressed characters is coded in ambiguously androgynous terms.

Another context for dramatic ambiguity is the use of female actors for roles where a male character takes on a female disguise (within the story), as in the legend of Achilles. While this may have avoided having an actual male actor cross-dress as a woman on stage, it created the potential for female same-sex desire within the layered “woman playing a man playing a woman” scenario.

Moralists of the 17th century warned parents that their innocent daughters would be corrupted by consuming plays and novels. The expressions of concern are not specifically focused on homoeroticism, but the general idea is that young girls will “get ideas” from popular culture.

There is an extensive discussion of Cubillo de Aragón’s play Añasco el de Talavera (ca. 1637) which depicts lesbian desire without the mechanism of male disguise. The “manly woman” Dionisia’s desire for her female friend Leonor is an open topic of discussion within the play. Dionisia complains about the restrictiveness of female gender roles and has a serious case of “not like other girls”. She specifically expresses the desire to be touched (implied: sexually) by Leonor and say she loves her. Leonor demurs about the concept, but Dionisia presents her argument in terms of platonic love, and argues for the supremacy of (same-sex) platonic love over heterosexual desire. The dialogue acknowledges that women may “sin” together, i.e., that activity counting as forbidden sex is possible between women.

Leonor, alas, is irredeemably heterosexual, and the play ends up shoehorning Dionisia into a heterosexual resolution. But the resolution implies that Dionisia is still controling the situation driven by desire for Leonor. Dionisia marries the man who is mutually in love with Leonor (thus interfering with their competing relationship) and leaves Leonor to marry the man who has been vainly attempting to woo Dionisia.

Velasco considers the effect of homoerotic art and literature on female viewers. For example, homoerotic scenes of Diana and her nymphs may have been intended for male voyeurism, but had female viewers as well. Literary depictions of Diana were viewed as potentially corrupting and parents of daughters were specifically warned against Jorge de Montemayer’s 1559 work Las siete libros de la Diana (known more typically as La Diana). The same-sex love depicted in this work has traditionally been dismissed as neo-Platonic friendship, but it is expressed in terms of physical affection and verbal flirtation.

Two characters, Ysmenia and Selvagia, enjoy a passionate interlude, then Ysmenia falsely convinces Selvagia that she is a man in disguise and that Selvagia has been tricked into a heterosexual liaison. Selvagia remains steadfast in her love for Ysmenia, despite this apparent trick. Enter Ysmenia’s Convenient Twin Cousin (male) who takes advantage of the situation to take over Ysmenia’s affair with Selvagia. The story can be compared with other pastoral romances, most of which involve some type of gender disguise. But La Diana is unusual in showing Selvagia’s love beginning when she believes that love to be homoerotic. The steadfastness of Selvagia’s love regardless of the (believed) gender of the object supports the image of same-sex love being equivalent to heterosexual love.

In other similar works, there is more often uneasiness expressed about apparent or real same-sex desire, which is resolved by either the reality or a fantasy of a magical sex-change to permit a heterosexual resolution. These may include sexual interludes that could be interpreted as lesbian and involving an artificial penis. There is often a phallocentric assumption that only a penis can provide a woman with pleasure and that real female same-sex relations must remain unfulfilled.

In the romance Tirant lo Blanc there is an episode of a woman engaging in sex play with another woman supposedly for the voyeuristic benefit of an observing man. Later, the sex play continues in the dark and the man substitutes in (unknown to his partner). The woman in this interaction is shown protesting that the supposed same-sex act is against nature, but she does not deny its possibility. The in-story implication is that sex between women is permited as long as it’s really a performance for the male gaze or for the reader. But the fact that both La Diana and Tirant lo Blanc were popular among female audiences suggests other possibilities. Heterosexual resolutions kept the text “safe” while allowing transgression between the covers (of the book).

The rest of the chapter takes a close examination of the novels of María de Zayas, which interrogate heterosexual relations and support the concept of female community and marriage resistance (although in the form of the convent). The themes send conflicting messages about heteronormativity and female same-sex love.

“Love for the Sake of Conquest” uses a male-to-female disguise plot to assert the superiority of love between women, though the arguments are put in the mouth of the male character (disguised as a woman) who it turns out is making those arguments purely for the sake of getting the other protagonist in bed. This creates a context for articulating the attractions of same-sex love and desire without the transgression of enacting it. After the male character reveals his identity and succeeds in initiating a sexual relationship, he loses interest and moves on, while the female protagonist is then murdered by her father for her (heterosexual) sexual transgression, whereas her apparent attraction to another woman was considered odd but not equivalent to fornication.

In “Aminta Deceived and Honor’s Revenge” a woman expresses romantic attraction to another woman without the artifice of a disguies plot, and her attention is found flattering. But it turns out the first woman was acting out of ulterior motives in order to further her relationship with a man and to deceive the supposed female object of her affection.

The third story considered, “Marriage Abroad: Portent of Doom”, includes a rather hostile depiction of male homoerotic relations, raising the question of whether this indicates that Zayas judged male and female relations entirely differently, or whether it’s evidence that she didn’t intend her female couples to be read as having physical relations.

Overall, although Zayas' novels include themes of the superiority of love between women, the actual plots undermine this message, showing deception and falsehood. Only in the framing story for the novels does the messge of that superiority prevail in truth.

LHMP entry type:

Añasco el de Talavera (Alvaro Cubillo)Diana (Jorge de Montemayor)TIrant lo Blanc (Joanot Martorell)María de Zayas

Parent:

Velasco, Sherry. 2011. Lesbians in Early Modern Spain. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville.

Velasco, Sherry. 2011. Lesbians in Early Modern Spain. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville. ISBN 978-0-8265-1750-0

Project ID number:

149

Project ID letter:

Sub-reference:

Chapter 6: Lesbian Desire on Center Stage

Introduction:

[The following is duplicated from the associated blog. I'm trying to standardize the organization of associated content.]

In the research I read though for this project, I regularly come across references to pieces of historic literature that come tantalizingly close to being positive queer stories. A few of them have been added to my "to write" list where I want to tweak them ever so slightly to overcome the deficiencies of the past. Aragón's play Añasco el de Talavera is one of those tantalizing near-misses, with its open homoerotic desire and the "mannish" woman who has the power to order people's lives within the story. It doesn't tempt me quite enough to add it to the list, but I'd love to read through a full translation of it some day.

# # #

Event / person:

ISBN:

978-0-8265-1750-0

Blog post:

Lesbian Desire on Stage in Early Modern Spain

LHMP #149e Velasco 2011 Lesbians in Early Modern Spain Chapter 5

Heather Rose Jones — Sun, 23 Jul 2017 02:27:27 +0000

Concerns about same-sex relations in convents date back at least to the time of Saint Augustine in the 5th century. Those concerns covered even trivial actions like hand-holding and terms of endearment, showing that some of the concern was for the particularity of the friendship, not specifically the possibility of sex. Activities that were a cause for concern could be discouraged with corporal punishment as well as lesser penances.

Co-sleeping was a special concern, and care was taken that two women would not have private sleeping arrangements together. Sleeping arrangements in convents might involve single-person cells or communal dormitories, generally with rules against two people having privacy together. The forbidden activities that were specified included “talking together late at night” and thus breaking the rule of silence.

The rules against developing “special friendships” often mentioned a purpose of preserving harmony in the convent and avoiding favoritism. These concerns were not limited to same-sex interactions--there were similar concerns about relations between the nuns and the priests that attended to the spiritual needs of the institution, or visiting male relatives--but of course the demongraphics made female same-sex interactions the greatest temptation.

Visiting priests were sometimes instructed, in essence, to spy on the prioress to ensure that she herself didn’t have favorites (since she was supposed to prevent it in others). There’s an acknowledgement that the prioress may reasonably spend more attention on nuns “who are more discreet and intelligent” and thus might be assisting in administrative duties. In addition to the cautions and rules, there are regular loopholes, such as this type, that created the potential for a variety of approaches and responses. The visiting priests were also advised not to make a big deal out of unimportant behavioral infractions, lest the convent’s reputation be damaged. But visiting priests were not always on the enforcement side, witness an 1819 Inquestion investigation of a (male) confessor who urged the nuns in his care to engage in same-sex activity for his gratification.

Saint Teresa of Avila, in her instructions for convents, laid out the potential consequences of allowing particular friendships. They could cause jealousy between nuns, but also interfered with focusing one’s love on God. Even as instructions like this provided lists of detailed prohibiltions, they normalized the expectation that “particular friendships” woud occur in ordinary circumstances. And there was a contradictory expectation that nuns should show love and affection for each other--just not too much, and not too specifically.

Saint Boniface listed seven potential signs of forbidden carnal love between nuns. (Note that “carnal” is contrasted with “spiritual” and doesn’t necessarily imply “sexual”.) 1: Conversation that includes jokes and laughter, 2: looks of affection and accompanying each other everywhere, 3: experiencing worry and anxiety, 4: jealousy, 5: anger between the two women when they fight, 6: exchanging gifts and favors, 7: defending each other or covering up for each other.

Why was the primary focus on non-sexual behaviors? Were sexual activities considered less important, or was there concern that if sex were specifically mentioned it would “give women ideas”? Recall that lesbianism was called peccatum mutum “the silent sin” because it often was not mentioned in specific terms.

These concerns about favoritism played out in Saint Teresa’s own life and her special friendships with two protegés who laid claim to continuing her legacy. The description of Teresa’s relationship with Ana de San Bartolomé reads like a template for forbidden “particular friendships”. They shared a cell, talked together regularly, and were inseparable. After Teresa’s death, Ana had other particular friendships with nuns, resulting in jealousy and protestations of exclusive love, as recorded in her letters. Letters are a fertile ground for data on the actual emotional relationships between nuns that express particular love and longing and a desire for affirmation. Convent records of the 17th century record numerous investigations of passionate friendships, all of which are recorded as having successful reform as a conclusion, often with supernatural elements in how the issue was discovered.

The text digresses somewhat curiously into a Chilean folktale that is clearly based on the medieval tale of Yde and Olive. A woman takes on male disguise to escape her father’s incestuous advances, had adventures, and eventually marries a princess who is delighted to discover that her “husband” is actually a woman. When this secret is betrayed and they are near discovery, the disguised woman is granted a miraculous sex-change. The connection with the rest of the chapter is that, like one of the convent investigations, there is a magical flying crucifix involved. [I included the reference here to keep track of the Yde & Olive variant.]

Not all same-sex relations in convents were consensual. An early 18th century Colombian nun recourts unwanted sexual advances from other nuns and becoming a cause of jealousy between other women.

There is a discussion of theatrical performances in convents, including nuns performing as actors. This was not considered a sin if done only for entertainment. Topics of the plays could include passionate friendships between nuns, as well as similar allegorical themes. This is another indication of the normalization of these relationships.

Another source of potential concern, espeically in Spanish colonial areas, was relations between (upper class) nuns and the lay serving women who lived with them. This pattern seems to have been less prevalent in Spain itself.

LHMP entry type:

Parent:

Velasco, Sherry. 2011. Lesbians in Early Modern Spain. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville.

Velasco, Sherry. 2011. Lesbians in Early Modern Spain. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville. ISBN 978-0-8265-1750-0

Project ID number:

149

Project ID letter:

Sub-reference:

Chapter 5: Special Friendships in the Convent

Introduction:

[The following is duplicated from the associated blog. I'm trying to standardize the organization of associated content.]

The image of Spanish convent life in the age of colonial expansion often overlooks the social consequences of convents being the sole alternative to marriage for women of good birth and good reputation. That meant that a lot of the nuns were educated, sophisticated, and relatively lacking in religious vocation. Convent rules tried to find a middle gound between the ideals of exclusive devotion to God and the recognition that they were dealing with a lot of young women who were lonely and desperate for affection. While the dynamics discussed in this chapter are inspired by a consideration of lesbian desire in convents, a great deal of the material is less about sex and more about trying to manage that sort of hot-house emotional environment.

# # #

Event / person:

Yde and Olive

ISBN:

978-0-8265-1750-0

Blog post:

Un/Conventional Desires in Early Modern Spain

LHMP #149d Velasco 2011 Lesbians in Early Modern Spain Chapter 4

Heather Rose Jones — Sun, 23 Jul 2017 02:03:19 +0000

This chapter focuses on three specific individuals whose gender and sexuality brought them celebrity status in 16-17th century Spain: Catalina de Erauso, Queen Christina of Sweden, and Elena/Eleno de Céspedes. In comparing them, we can see the influence of race and class on how gender transgression was received.

Catalina de Erauso ran away from a convent in Spain at age 15 before taking final vows, began living as a man, and had a violent and turbulent career in the Spanish colonies of the New World before deciding to tell her history publicly. She returned to Spain where she was greeted as a celebrity and successfully petitioned the crown for a pension, went to Rome where she received dispensation from the Pope to continue wearing male clothing, wrote her memoirs, and eventually returned to the New World where she lived in relative obscurity working as a mule driver for twenty years until her death. [I’ve abbreviated her background due to its more detailed coverage in Steptoe & Steptoe 1996 and Velasco 2000.]

Elena/Eleno de Céspedes was a black enslaved person in 16th century Spain who, after a failed marriage and giving birth to a child, began living as a man and eventually embarked on a successful career as a surgeon. Eleno testified that he had undergone a spontaneous physical change of sex and, after obtaining testimony supporting this claim was given persmission to marry a woman. This assessment was later challenged and a second examination did not support the claim of male physiology. Following that, Eleno was tried for sodomy and “consorting with demons” along with “contempt for the sacrament of marriage”. The eventual conviction, somewhat confusingly, was for bigamy. That is, Eleno had failed to provide documentation of the death of Elena’s husband prior to Eleno marrying a woman. Eleno was sentence to whipping and to serving a sort of community service providing medical care in a hospital for indigents, whose administrator later complained of the crowds of curious people who came to see the celebrity. [For more details, see Burshatin 1996.]

Queen Christina of Sweden may seem an odd person to become a celebrity in Spain, particularly as she never actually traveled there. Spanish connections were a major influence on Christina’s decision to covert to Catholicism (necessitating her abdication from the Swedish throne). Christina had a lifelong habit of crossdressing and her romantic interest in women, including specific members of her household, was open knowledge. But these issues that Spanish culture, in theory, disapproved of, were overlooked due to her social rank and the high-level approval of her in Spain because of the coup her conversion was considered.

These three people had three very different receptions by the Spanish authorities. Eleno was a person of color whose life as a man included marriage to a woman and (at least the accusation of) performing sex with an artificial penis. Eleno went to significant lengths to establish an official male identity in the face of physical signs of female sex. An interesting contrast to Eleno is the situation of the nun María Muñoz, who developed male physical characteristics (possibly as a result of an intersex condition) but manufactured signs of femaleness (such as apparent evidence of menstruation) in order to conceal the issue and continue to be accepted as a woman.

Eleno’s transgression (in addition to being non-white) was laying claim to male priviledge despite anatomy. In contrast, although Catalina (white and upper class) didn’t dispute the judgment of female status once her story was told, even in the context of requesting permission to continue performing as male. Catalina never tried to marry a woman. There were several situations where the possibility of marriage was raised and Catalina deceived the potential brides for her own gain, but in all cases these women were mestizas and this may have contributed to a lack of concern over their experience.

Christina’s interest in converting from Lutherinism to Catholicism motivated positive reactions to her from Spanish authorities, despite regular comments in the Spanish diplomatic correspondence on her masculine appearance and rumors of her affairs with women. These were sometimes coded in phrases like “not being the marrying type.” After Christina’s abdication, Spain was excitedly preparing for a visit from her in 1656 when everything fell apart at the last minute due her choice to support Spain’s enemy France in certain concerns. Spanish rhetoric about her made an abrupt change from praise to satire, focusing specifically on romors of heterosexual affairs, including a fictitious illicit pregnancy, but curiously avoiding mention of her relations with women.

This omission of the lesbian rumors was not universal. There was a thinly veiled depiction of Christina as the character Cristerna de Suevia in the play Afectos de Odo y amor, which portrays her using the stock character of a mujer esquiva, a woman averse to love and marriage, and to men in general. The character in the play is defending her right to rule as a woman, in conflict with the antagonist/romantic lead Casimiro. The play toys with implications of same-sex desire in giving Cristerna a lady-in-waiting named Lesbia, and setting up a bait-and-switch marriage plot in wich Cristerna agrees to marry Casimiro’s sister (that is, within the play this is overtly a same-sex marriage plan). When Cristerna has committed to the marriage, the sister substitutes in her brother Caisimiro and Cristerna inexplicably capitulates all her feminist positions and declares that women should be men’s vassals.

LHMP entry type:

Catalina de Erauso Elena/Eleno de Céspedes Queen Christina of Sweden Afectos de odio y amor (Pedro Calderón de la Barca)

Parent:

Velasco, Sherry. 2011. Lesbians in Early Modern Spain. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville.

Velasco, Sherry. 2011. Lesbians in Early Modern Spain. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville. ISBN 978-0-8265-1750-0

Project ID number:

149

Project ID letter:

Sub-reference:

Chapter 4: Transgender Lesbian Celebrities

Introduction:

[The following is duplicated from the associated blog. I'm trying to standardize the organization of associated content.]

The blog comes around again to Catalina de Erauso, who kicked off the current thematic grouping. It's an odd trio: Catalina the cross-dressing soldier of fortune in the New World, Eleno de Cespedes the transgender doctor who began life as a slave, and Queen Christina of Sweden who became the darling of the Spanish aristocracy (at long distance) when she decided to convert from Lutheranism to Catholicism--a decision that made them willing to overlook her long-rumored romantic relationships with women. And I am now imagining a buddy movie...

# # #

Event / person:

ISBN:

978-0-8265-1750-0

Blog post:

Early Modern Spanish Gender Outlaw Celebrities

LHMP #149c Velasco 2011 Lesbians in Early Modern Spain Chapter 3

Heather Rose Jones — Mon, 10 Jul 2017 04:47:07 +0000

This chapter looks at evidence regarding lesbian activity that can be found in specific court cases, as well as perceptions of the role of lesbian relations in criminal activities and contexts. The point here is not that lesbians were inherently criminal in early modern Spain (though some official opinions were that one type of deviant behavior was expected to lead to other types), but that the nature of legal records can provide a wealth of detail that is not available for other contexts.

The conflicting professional opinions on female sodomy in Spain played out in criminal prosecutions. The outcome of trials could depend both on the specific nature of the behavior and situation as well as on how successful the accused woman was in contesting the charges. The summary of this chapter will largely be brief outlines of the cases.

Ca. 1400 a woman dressed as a man served as a judicial official and married two women (presumably sequentially). She was convicted of sodomy because she used a penetrative instrument for sex, but recognition of her government service resulted in leniency. Specifically, she was hanged rather than the prescribed sentence of being burnt to death. The accusation had come from her second wife.

In 1502 in Valencia a woman passed as a man and married a woman, using an artificial penis made of lambskin for sex. She had also had sex in that way with other women. Her gender was discovered in the context of an accusation of theft. She was sentenced to hang but was pardoned on the basis of a legal technicality with regard to how the trial was handled. In a number of these cases, it is an open question whether the “femme” partner was truly ignorant of the sex of the passing woman or whether she was relying on the legal tendency to focus on gender transgressions rather than the sexual relationship per se.

In 1503, two women--Catalina de Belunçe and Matiche de Oyarzún--were accused of having sex “like a man and a woman”. No other specifics of the offence were given and there was no mention of the use of an instrument. Only one of the pair was sentenced to banishment and confiscation of her belongings, but with capital punishment if she returned from banishment. But rather than accepting this leniency, she appealed to the royal court, claiming innocence and that no evidence had been offered. The charge had been based on “public reputation” of her activities. She impugned the witness and accused the prosecutor (the local mayor) of a profit motive in pursuing the case. She was pardoned, the sentence reversed, and her possessions were returned to her. The true story behind the case is hard to decipher. Why was her partner not also accused (given that there doesn’t appear to have been a “butch-femme” dynamic in the accused behavior)? Who was the witness?

In 1560, the Inquisition in Aragon debated whether a case involving several women fell under the category of sodomy as no sexual instrument had been used, though there was genital contact (which was described in heterocentric terms). They ended up not prosecuting.

In 1656, the Inquisition in Aragon judged a case against a 28 year old widow Ana Aler and a 22 year old laundress Mariana López who were accused of sodomy by nosy neighbors (two men and three women). The specific behaviors involved were hugging, kissing, putting a hand under the skirt to touch the genitals, expressions of jealousy followed by protestations of loyalty and pledges of love. The women were said to follow each other around. It was claimed that Ana boasted of having sex with “the best woman in Zaragoza” who was willing to pay her for it, but it’s unclear if this was an actual reference to female same-sex prostitution or just boasting. The neighbors testified they overheard the sounds of passion and sex talk , “Give it to me, I can’t wait any longer!” as well as to seeing the women lying on top of each other and evidence of “emission of semen” (i.e., orgasm). Although there was no evidence of a penetrative instrument being used, the verdict was still labeled “sodomy” but the sentence was limited to whipping and exile and the women were forbidden to live in the same location in the future.

Inés de Santa Cruz and Catalina Ledesma were arrested in 1603 in Salamanca as “bujarronas” (female sodomites). They had previous sodomy convictions in Valladolid. A complex background story emerged from the trial. Inés had at one point claimed to be a nun and was soliciting donations and assembling a group of “wayward” young women to take them to a convent (the implication being a house of penitence for reformed prostitutes). The suspicion was that instead she was recruiting for the sex trade. The sexual accusations against Inés and Catalina included use of a penetrative instrument and they were given a death sentence which was appealed and reduced to whipping and banishment.

Among the details of the testimony it emerged that the two women had enjoyed a long term domestic partnership “eating at the same table and sleeping in the same bed.” Their love for each other was public knowledge. Catalina had left her husband to live with Inés. Among the witnesses was a maid from Catalina’s father’s house where the two lived for a time. The detailed testimony reveals the witnesses’ fantasies as well as facts. The existence of sexual activity was assumed from overheard activity including panting and grunting and comments like, “Does that feel good?” as well as love talk.

The defendants admitted to the sex but each tried to frame her own role as less culpable based on minor technicalities such as who was lying on top. The sexual acts they admitted to included rubbing vulvas together and manual stimulation. They were inconsistent with regard to the use of an instrument. (Witnesses said they had used an instrument made of cane, but Inés described one made of leather that they stopped using because it was painful.)

During one temporary separation, they may have had sex with other women and there was reported discussion of the advantages of lesbian sex: no pregnancy, it was more pleasurable than heterosexual sex, they found men repulsive. In this context, Catalina reported on knowing of other female couples in the convent where she stayed for a time. Much of the evidence may have come out during fights between the women. Catalina felt that Inés was stalking and harassing her to renew the relationship, though witnesses said their relationship ran hot and cold and was not one-sided. Inés seems to have been the more jealous and controlling. Neighbors described them as being so close a couple “like man and woman” that all attempts to break them up failed. All this happened over an extended period of time during which their relationship was public knowledge. The neighbors would insult them (and they each other) with terms like bujarronas (female sodomites), puta bellaca (cheating whore), somética (fem. sodomite), bellaca baldresera (dildo-wielding scoundrel). Velasco compares their reported behavior to modern patterns of domestic violence among lesbians. Inés was significantly older, more economically stable, and was the more aggressive and controlling. The trial was instigated when Catalina went to the authorities to complain about Inés’s violent behavior.

Despite the admitted use of a penetrating instrument, they were not given the death penalty and had received similarly lenient treatment in a previous trial. Velaso notes that these trial records contradict the idea that sexual relationships between women were invisible but also contradict the idea that they were tolerated or considered insignificant.

In 1745 in Colombia, two mestiza seamstresses named Margarita Valenzuela and Gregoria Franco had a long-term public romance that was disrupted by the reappearance of the father of Margarita’s child. This resulted in a conflict that came to the attention of the law. Gregoria was banished for a short term and warned not to reinitiate the relationship on penalty of permanent banishment.

In 1597, the Inquisition in Mallorca found a 30 year old single woman Esperanza de Rojas guilty of various offences, including practicing love magic to re-attract the passion of two women she’d been sexually involved with while all three were at a home for fallen women. She was sentenced to whipping and exile with the mitigating factor that she had acted in anger. The major concern was the accusation of demonic magic and the recorded testimony included specifics of the rituals. These included claims that she used Jewish and Muslim prayers as well as using a demonic statuette as a focus. The nature of the rituals was consistent with descriptions of heterosexual love magic at the time. Esperanza claimed she had learned the rituals from another woman while traveling to Rome and Naples.

Further investigations by the Inquisition at the institution where the three women had lived that took place in 1597-8 turned up other accusations of same-sex activity. Catalina Lebrés was accused of “illicit relations with other female residents.”

Velasco spends some time discussing the nature and context of female penitential institutions in early modern Spain. Their general purpose was to control women who were not successfully under patriarchal authority. There were concerns about women’s misbehavior inside the institutions, but that concern might either focus on, or be oblivious to, the possibility of lesbian sex. Overcrowding was a regular concern, as well as the potential for women to learn new forms of criminality from the other inmates.

Concerns regarding the potential for sexual relations between women were shared by religious penitential institutions and regular convents. Convent rules often proscribed sleeping together or forbade two nuns to be alone together behind closed doors. The code word for the concern was “special friendships”. Specific behaviors that were considered a sign of danger were talking together at night, sleeping together, hugging, “joining their faces together.”

Another intersection of concern is the long historic association between lesbianism and prostitution, dating as early as Roman times (Lucian, Alciphron). Velasco notes the contrast laid out in a 16th century Italian text on women’s friendships by Firenzuola, that contrasts the “chaste” love between Laudomia Forteguerra and Duchess Margaret of Austria with the lascivious love of Sappho and of “the great prostitute Cecilia Venetiana.” But within the same century, Brantôme in France imputed a more sexual relationship to Margaret and Laudomia, and grouped them with a noted Spanish prostitute in Rome, Isabella de Luna, who kept a mistress. Moving our attention back to Spain, there were conflicting opinions whether the existence of legal brothels successfully kept men away from sodomy (by making women available) or whether one sin would breed other sins and thus men who frequented brothels were more likely to move on to sodomy.

The intersection of prostitution, love magic, and “medical” manual stimulation, as well as the possibilities of sex between women appear in Fernando de Rojas’ La Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea more commonly known as La Celestina. Velasco spends some time reviewing the details and implications of this work.

There was an association of witchcraft and lesbian desire, along with aspects of heresy. Several authors repeat a description from Leo Africanus of North African sahacat witches, who seduce or pleasure other women under the guise of medical treatment. (It isn’t clear whether the repetition of this motif is in reference to Africa or gives the appearance of generalizing it to Spain. Note that sahacat is from the Arabic root sahq with the same general meaning of rubbing as fricatrix.)

The chapter concludes with one last case study in Mexico of an accusation of lesbian seduction (or predation) by a female couple of their female boarder, who then used witchcraft to try to take revenge on the couple.

LHMP entry type:

Catalina de Belunçe & Matiche de Oyarzún Ana Aler & Mariana López Inés de Santa Cruz & Catalina Ledesma Margarita Valenzuela & Gregoria Franco Esperanza de Rojas Catalina Lebrés Laudomia Forteguerri Margaret Duchess of Austria/Parma On the Beauty of Women (Agnolo Firenzuola)Lives of Gallant Ladies (Pierre de Bourdeille seigneur de Brantôme)Cecilia Venetiana Sappho Isabella de Luna La Celestina (Fernando de Rojas)Leo Africanus

Parent:

Velasco, Sherry. 2011. Lesbians in Early Modern Spain. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville.

Velasco, Sherry. 2011. Lesbians in Early Modern Spain. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville. ISBN 978-0-8265-1750-0

Project ID number:

149

Project ID letter:

Sub-reference:

Chapter 3: Criminal Lesbians

Introduction:

[The following is duplicated from the associated blog. I'm trying to standardize the organization of associated content.]

Using the records of court cases to research lesbian lives in history is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, they often present a wealth of detail not found in any other type of record unless--by miraculous luck--a personal diary or set of candid correspondence is unearthed. But conversely, court cases, by their nature, present a skewed view of people's lives. They show people in conflict and distress. They arise when relationships go bad, or were never particularly good in the first place. They are typcially the records of only those classes of people who aren't able to conceal their activities through priviledge, or to evade legal penalties if concealment is impossible. It would be all too easy, when looking at the trials of criminal lesbians, to conclude that lesbianism inherently leads to criminality. (Consider as a parallel how early psychiatrists studying homosexuality in their patients--patients who had come to them for help with severe problems--concluded that homosexuality was an inherently deranged condition. Because, after all, all the homosexuals they knew were people with serious emotional problems!) With that caveat, the court records studied here provide a rich and extensive (sometimes very extensive) record of the details of how some women lived together in romantic and sexual partnerships. Of what some of their sexual practices were. And how their relationships were sometimes viewed by the neighbors and family members who were aware of them.
One interesting take-away is that these romantic relationships between women were sometimes public knowledge in their communities, and sometimes apparently accepted by their families. (At least, that's the implication when they are living as a couple in a family member's house.) And although the cases that came before the law demonstrate that any sort of sexual activity between women was considered worthy of punishment, the severity of that punishment depended strongly on the specific sex acts involved. Reading between the lines, there seems to be plenty of scope to imagine lesbian relationships that never came to the interest of the law for the simple fact that they never turned sour enough to disrupt the community, and where the women lived openly as a couple with at least tolerance from family and neighbors.

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Event / person:

ISBN:

978-0-8265-1750-0

Blog post:

A Vast Wealth of Detail of Spanish Lesbian Lives

LHMP #149b Velasco 2011 Lesbians in Early Modern Spain Chapter 2

Heather Rose Jones — Mon, 10 Jul 2017 04:33:24 +0000

This chapter looks at the context of non-normative sexuality as discussed in “professional” texts (legal, medical, theological). They show the variety of practices considered to be present and of concern. A great deal of this chapter is something of a “review of the field” and concerns not only texts specific to early modern Spain, but ones that would have formed part of the background understanding of the time.

Religious prohibitions included interpretations of Romans 1:26 that more clearly positioned the text as referring to “female with female” vice, as in Aquinas. Some texts straddle the divide between law and theology, such as Cino da Pistoia’s interpretation of 3rd century Roman law as condemning both “active” and “passive” participants in sex between women, or the recommendation by Bartholomaeus de Saliceto in the 15th century of the death penalty for female sodomy.

Spanish law saw an increase in intolerance for unorthodox sex in the 16-17th centuries. Under Ferdinand and Isabella, the recommended punishment for male sodomites increased from castration to death by burning, as for heretics. The increasing association of sodomy with heresy motivated transferring jurisdiction for sodomy cases to the Inquisition beginning in the early 16th century. But there was an active debate regarding whether what women could do together could be classified as “sodomy”. A 1532 edict by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V explicitly included women under sodomy laws. This interpretation was also confirmed by a 1555 opinion discussing the medieval law code Las siete partidas. But competing legal opinions held that sex between women was inherently less of a transgression than male sodomy and recommended leniency on this basis. Technical decisions often focused on whether a dildo had been used. This question could feature in testimony against specific defendants and affect the resulting sentence.

The chapter offers a brief summary of classical medieval theories of lesbian desire, including Islamic and Jewish writers such as Avicenna and Maimonides. These sources, while disapproving of sex between women, did not necessarily prescribe legal penalties. Arabic sexual texts discuss a variety of sexual practices between women, or generally on non-heterosexual practices that focused on women’s sexual fulfilment. There is a brief discussion of theories of physiognomy and astrology regarding sexual orientation. Pseudo-medical theories about innate sexual orientation include humoral theories or attribute it to the results of prenatal (maternal) experiences. These approaches tend to be strongly gender-essentialist, seeing lesbian desire as a type of masculinity.

Velasco reviews literature on the Renaissance “rediscovery of the clitoris” and theories of the relationship between lesbianism and an enlarged clitoris. There is a medical acceptance of the possibility of spontaneous sex change from female to male, situated within a general fascination for “monstrosity”. A detailed Spanish case history of such a transformation in mid life is offered. (Note: I’m once again disappointed that the author omits any discussion of the possibility of intersex interpretations of this topic.) In 1700, the medical writer Sinistrari puts forth the opinion that women cannot commit sodomy, apparently defining sodomy narrowly in terms of penetration by a natural organ and the “transmission of seed”, but he makes a possible allowance for women with an enlarged clitoris and considers this phenomenon to be the basis of “spontaneous sex change” stories. The discussion notes the racist strain in discussions of the “enlarged clitoris” phenomenon. Clitoridectomy is noted as a treatment for an enlarged clitoris, though Sinistrari deprecates it due to the risk of fatal consequences.

Thus lesbianism could be seen as a medical issue due to abnormal anatomy, rather than a legal or moral one. But if two women were known to have lain together and one was found to have what was considered to be an enlarged clitoris, then the law considered that sodomy could be presumed to have happened.

Theological sources of information include guidelines for confessors, listing possible questions to elicit details of sins. These, like many of the other “professional” texts discussed in this chapter have a heterocentric bias, assuming that sex between women will be an imitation of heterosexual (penetrative) sex.

LHMP entry type: