Sexualities in Art 2: Pascin & Lautrec

Jules Pascin, The Siesta

It’s often alleged that same sex activity between females was never criminalised in England because no-one could convince Queen Victoria that such relationships existed. This may be apocryphal, or else the queen was very sheltered and unobservant. It seems highly likely that she will have met numerous women from a wealthy background who had attended boarding schools and had same-sex experiences whilst there; inevitably, she must have met some for whom this was more than a ‘passing phase.’ Lesbian brothels had existed in eighteenth century London and, in the Victorian capital, there were still discreet ‘houses of assignation’ for women to visit. Lesbian houses with an international reputation certainly existed in Paris during the later nineteenth century, focused around the district of the Madeleine and the Chaussee D’Antin quarter (8th & 9th arrondisements).

Lesbian relationships were often only openly acknowledged between between prostitutes. Both Toulouse-Lautrec and Jules Pascin have left us a record of the tender partnerships between women living and working in Parisian brothels. Writing in the 1900s in his Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Havelock Ellis stated that lesbian relationships appeared to be common between actresses and ballet dancers and also between prostitutes. He cited statistics that estimated that 25% of the prostitutes in Berlin were lesbian, that 75% of those in Paris were and that, in Germany overall, the figure was something like 60%. French army physician, Dr Jacobus X (Louis Jacolliot) recorded that couples were well-known amongst the sex workers in Paris. They often dressed alike and were known as inseparables or petites soeurs (‘little sisters’) in the cafes and bars. Both Jacolliot and Havelock Ellis ascribed the women’s sexuality to the their circumstances: to primarily female company and exposure to the worst aspects of masculinity. Other than in these instances, same sex female relationships were quite well concealed in Victorian times, other than as sources of titillation for men in paintings and prints.

Pascin, Trois Nus, 1931

Straddling the gap between porn and authentic reportage is the book, My Secret Life, published in 1888 by a man calling himself ‘Walter.’ It is an explicit account of a lifetime’s sexual experiences and it is very open about the full range of sexual practices, including gay and lesbian sex, as well as quite a few fetishes.

In the rest of this post, I quote passages from Walter’s book. They are unexpurgated and direct, if not coarse, in their language and what they describe (although I have censored his vocabulary slightly). If you might be shocked by his descriptions, it’s best not to read on!

Pascin, Two Girls on the Ground

Pascin, Deux Jeunes Filles

Courbet, Sommeil, 1886

In volume 10, chapter 4, Walter describes how his current girlfriend Helen also liked to seduce her female maids:

“Soon after, Helen had a little servant barely fourteen years old, a ragged-headed but not bad-looking lass, short for her age. She’d lightish brown hair and a bawdy expression of eye. I did not take notice of her at first, she was such a slovenly, dirty, ragged-headed little bitch, was impudent, disobedient, and chuckled at whatever was said to her as if it were a good joke- Helen had the greatest difficulty to make her clean: she bathed her herself and boxed her ears to make her allow her to do so. “She hasn’t a bit of hair on her c**t, yet is a randy little devil, and often goes into the water-closet and I know it’s to frig herself,” said H. “She looks like it when she comes out.” I thought that perhaps Helen and her [other male] lover had played enough pranks before her to make the girl’s q**m tingle, she being just of an age when sexual heat was getting into her little c**t, and f**king occupied her mind.”

Walter then proceeds to try to seduce the girl, called Nell, in front of his lover- and he even exposes Helen naked to the maid to try to get her excited: “Then I made her feel her mistress’ c**t, and she seemed more delighted with that than feeling my prick… [she] put [her hand] on to her mistress’ motte, looking at the c**t in silent admiration. ‘Hasn’t she a handsome c**t?’ ‘Ho, yeas, hain’t it?’ the girl breathed out in a whisper.” He touches her: “I wiped the little vulva, and then with her permission gamahuched it, but could not make her spend, I think. Then I gamahuched Helen again, and when I had done, telling the lass to do the same, to the astonishment I think of Helen she knelt down at once, and eagerly licked her mistress’ q**m, licked as if she had been used to it- perhaps she had. ” A threesome follows soon after “Then the girl licked Helen’s c**t… and so we rung the changes till I f**ked Helen with her bum towards me, the lass standing naked by us, lost in delight and wonderment… “

Another time “I licked the beautiful little q**m, gamahuched Helen- the girl gamahuched her afterwards- we looked at bawdy pictures which I’d taken, we drank champagne… the lass had her fingers on Helen’s q**m whilst my finger was up it. ” Not long after this, though, Nell left Helen’s employment.

Toulouse-Lautrec, The Sofa

Later, in chapter 8 of the same volume Walter describes:

“I found there one day a little servant about fourteen years old, fairly pretty, sprightly and pleasing, and thought I should like to investigate her privates as soon as I set eyes on her… Helen had found out that this girl frigged herself- I suppose all girls of fourteen do- and wanted to be f**ked, knew all about it, had said so. H. and she had already looked at each other’s c**ts- women like doing that- and she had frigged the girl…” Another threesome follows: “Then the girl after a little persuasion felt Helen’s c**t. We had wine, I gamahuched H., the girl got tight with the drink and also gamahuched her…” Next visit, Helen told me that since my absence, she had been gamahuched by the lass who loved doing it, and she’d again frigged the lass who was longing to be f**ked.” Another threesome followed with the girl in bed with Helen and her other lover.

Walter mentions plenty of other lesbian activity. He is told by one woman that her first sexual experience was with her ‘ayah,’ or nanny, in India, who licked her before she had even reached fourteen (Book 11, c.1). He picks up two pairs of very young street prostitutes, a couple aged 14 and 15, who tell him they masturbate together from time to time, and two sisters, aged 13 and 19, who also sleep in the same bed and sometimes have sex together, to keep warm (Book 9, c.8 & Book 11, c.9). Walter also several times pays women to perform ‘the flats’ for him, experiences he describes at some length (see Book 8, c.8, Book 9, cc.7 & 12 and Book 10, cc.3 & 15). The women seem all to be prostitutes and to regularly have sex together, some preferring female to male partners. As one couple asked him perfectly reasonably: “We like it, so why shouldn’t we?” As a popular song of the time said:

“Men hire our persons for the night

Keep us awake and kiss and tease

But ah, how different the delight

I have in cuddling dear Elise.”

Toulouse-Lautrec, Deux amies

Because of its coarse style and explicit content, Walter’s Secret Life is very little known, but it offers to us a picture of Victorian England in the decades before 1888 very much at odds with our usual image of a staid and repressed society. A variety of sexualities and sexual practices were common place (Walter himself had gay experiences and indulged in play with dildoes several times). Walter’s intention may very much have been to produce pornography (eleven volumes in total) but he also recorded facets of real life (primarily that of the working classes) that could otherwise have been lost. It’s evident that- within certain limits- same sex attraction could be expressed and same sex partnerships openly conducted- with a reasonable degree of toleration and acceptance. Same sex experiences (especially amongst servants required to share cramped sleeping conditions) were fairly common. All of this would be hidden from us if we just relied on Dickens, Thackeray and the like.

Lastly, the French doctor mentioned earlier, Louis Jacolliot, also recorded the prevalence in Paris of pretty girls aged from only ten to fifteen who sold flowers on the city’s streets and in the bars and dance halls as a cover for offering sexual services to women. These self-possessed and precociously assured girls were, we are told, “well known for the Sapphic manoeuvres they perform, for a more or less high price.” The gap between then and now suddenly seems much narrower and reminds us that people have not changed very much at all over many centuries.

For more information, see my recommended reading page.

Notes & Sketch by Heinrich Zille