Sloane Street: An Erotic Edwardian Tale

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Today, girls remain stranded between this fetishisation of their chastity and the commodification of their femininity. On one side, public discourse polices their burgeoning sexuality. Burge accurately highlights how the language of sexualisation invokes “a right-wing moral agenda” to advocate for abstinence and the perpetuation of patriarchal gender roles under the pretext of the protection of innocence. Misogynist practices of public “slut shaming” regularly make headlines, stigmatising girls’ desires and sexual expressions. On the other side of the spectrum, consumer culture crudely reduces girls’ erotic appeal to a disposable commodity. These polarised characterisations leave little room for girls to negotiate their identities, explore their sensualities, and express their individualities. Studying this postcard suggests, however, that the image of young femininity has been deeply bound to ideological and consumer concerns, both of which negate girls’ senses of self. It also invites us to critically rethink the contemporary debate on sexualisation outside of disempowering and exploitative narratives that perpetuate gendered patterns of inequality.

With life this pleasant, it's no wonder that nobody was smiling in the creepy pictures taken in the Victorian era. Everybody looks so severe that it seems as if people in the 1800s just didn't have the time, or strength to have fun. But as these rare vintage photos prove, that wasn't always the case.Miss BIRCH.—"You should have thought of the consequences before you drew such filthy pictures; the very idea of one of my young ladies being capable of such productions is horrible to me; these prurient ideas cannot be allowed to settle in your mind for an instant, if I can whip them out."

Latin and English) Translated by L.C. Smithers, notes by Sir Richard Burton [1890] This is a collection of bawdy epigrams to the rather comicly over-endowed phallic god You may imagine I was anxious for the next morning to arrive. We were no sooner in our little sanctum, than I exclaimed, "Now, Alice, make haste into bed, I'm all impatient to hear your tale."This book gives a fascinating glimpse into the hidden world of upper and lower class gay Victorians. Unfortunately, it cannot be found online. 7 The Nunnery Tales Searle's work lives somewhere between Downton Abbey (its historical contemporary) and Bridgerton, diving into the blossoming romance between new housemaids Patience and Esther, a more experienced maid to the progressive Lady Blythe. The Pearl"(subtitled "Journal of Facetiae and Voluptuous Reading") appeared monthly between July 1879 and December 1886, Miss BIRCH, looking seriously round as she flourished the rod.—"Now, all you young ladies, let this whipping be a caution to you; my Lady Beatrice richly deserves this degrading shame, for her indecent (I ought to call them obscure) sketches. Will you! will you, you troublesome, impudent little thing, ever do so again? There, there, there, I hope it will soon do you good. Ah! you may scream; there's a few more to come yet." Also know as Miss Bellasis Birched for Thieving, this book is one of the classics of Victorian erotica showcasing the 19th century fascination with discipline. It was first published in two volumes with illustrations. When naughtiness like theft ensues at a fashionable girls’ boarding school, the wishy-washy headmistress calls in a stern male disciplinarian to oversee the lovingly described chastisements and intimate encounters of students and staff. Applications of punishment effect positive changes to everyone’s morality and character. The authorship of Verbena House has been in dispute for over a century.

As soon as we had recovered our serenity a little, I asked her what she meant by calling me her dear boy.Another paranormal romance writer who writes some great erotic scenes into her books is Barbara Clark. Her Tears of the Hawk is excellent. I bought my copy at Fictionwise, but more of her books are available at Amber Quill, which sells all varieties of romance and erotica. Ann Radcliff's *Castle of Otranto* hauntings and imperiled young heroines by Walpole and Lewis. Samuel Coleridge's long poem *Christabel* is also part of this genre, and it is intriguing not only as the first vampire story, but because both the heroine and the vampire are female. This poem fascinated Byron, and it was this he was reading aloud to his guests, Percy and Mary Shelley, on a certain stormy night. The friends, along with Byron's physician, John Polidori, decided to each write a gothic story, and from this contest came not only Mary Shelley's novel, *Frankenstein* but John Polidori's vampire story (some say he based his vampire on Byron himself). This story started a veritable plague of vampire stories, including *Dracula*. Themes of the erotic intertwine throughout these vampire stories, and they have provided not only the basis for much of what is today referred to as dark fantasy, or dark erotica, or erotic horror, but also provided an outlet for a genre of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, supernatural fiction. What is interesting is that women poured out such writing, filling the magazines of the times with such tales (refer to *What Did Miss Darrington See?* by Jessica Salmonson, available through the NLS). An etext of the *Kamasutra* along with much more information about Burton and his translations of Indian and Arabic sex manuals is available on the Sacred Texts Archive, under the sections titled "Sacred Sexuality" and "Tantra" Sacred Texts: Sacred Sexuality.