Mighty Lewd Books: The Development of Pornography in Eighteenth-Century England

Julie Peakman’s Mighty Lewd Books is the first attempt to give a comprehensive overview over erotic material in eighteenth-century England since Peter Wagner’s magisterial Eros Revived in 1988, and as such it is welcome. Furthermore, Peakman’s book is impressive in the depth and breadth of her research—the bibliography of primary sources lists over 200 works for a book of about 200 pages of text. The author’s contention that British pornography was different from its French counterpart in its focus on the transgression of family values is probably true, and her fascination with flagellation is interesting. At the same time, Peakman’s argument could have been stronger if she had presented less taxonomy and more analysis.

At the beginning of Mighty Lewd Books, Peakman defines her topic, analyzes the literary scene (with respect to pornography), and explores some themes. In the vexing discussion over terms, she defines ‘erotica’ as material that describes sexual desire by insinuation and ‘pornography’ as literature that intends to excite the reader sexually—a pragmatic, if theoretically untenable, distinction. Describing the literary marketplace, Peakman shows that erotica would have been available in all parts of England, to members of all classes, and to both genders—she even documents that some women were involved in the production of pornographic literature. However, her suggestion that all classes and both genders did actually read erotica is not necessarily supported by these facts. In terms of themes, Peakman is most interested in bodily fluids, which men were supposedly in charge of, while women lacked control. More specifically, erotic and pseudo-medical texts reveled in menstrual blood and blushes as well as genital fluids—but not breast milk.

In the rest of Mighty Lewd Books, Peakman offers a detailed taxonomy of erotic literature, distinguishing between ‘scientific’ erotica, sexual utopias, anti-Catholic erotica, and flagellation pornography. For example, erotica responded to developments in three separate fields of science in the 1730s, 1750s, and 1770s, respectively, to produce botanical, reproductive, and electrical erotica. In the first instance, works like Thomas Stretser’s Arbor Vitae (1732) and Frutex Vulvaria (1732) used botanical metaphors to portray sexualized bodies—men as trees, women as shrubs. Erotica dealt with second area by engaging in the discussions over the importance of the two genders in reproduction and over the necessity of female orgasm for reproduction. At opposite extreme of most ‘scientific’ findings, Lucina Since Concubita (1750) affirmed the importance of female pleasure and even suggested that men might be unnecessary for conception. Finally, such works as The Torpedo (1774) and The Electrical Eel (1777) raised questions about conception and pleasure. Similarly, sexual utopias responded to three major changes in the British landscape in the eighteenth century—enclosures, designer gardens, and the exploration of the world—by developing into agricultural, topographical, and nautical erotica. Anti-Catholic erotica came in four main forms: polemics against priests and the church, reports of priests’ trials, convent narratives, and French anti-clerical pornographic novels.

As these examples show, Peakman has an astounding command of her material and classifies it in a way that helps the reader get a handle on the otherwise overwhelming amount of publications. However, Peakman’s focus on taxonomy does not always contribute to a better understanding of the texts. For instance, it might have been more helpful to organize the chapter on scientific developments around the scientific controversies: As it is, the topics of conception and female pleasure come up in all three sections in almost identical form, but are not assessed or discussed critically in a central argument. Also, interesting ideas such as challenges to gender hierarchy in pornography get lost because they are spread over a variety of material. Rhetorically, the book similarly over-organized, each chapter ending in a section titled “Conclusion.” Transitions like, “Having looked at… the next section will explore…,” could have been more elegant.

These criticisms apply least to the last section, where Peakman investigates what is clearly her main interest, erotica on flagellation. Various forms of such sexual violence were visible in eighteenth-century English society as wife- or maid-beating, as birching in schools, and as a cure for impotence suggested in pseudo-medical literature. In addition, there was at least one instance of a legal case involving flagellation. In the last quarter of the century, these facts spilled into the fictional mode to form the subgenre of flagellation pornography, which was prominent until about the 1830s. Major aspects of flagellation pornography included blood as an essential ingredient; plot location in schools and parlors; governesses, mothers, and stepmothers as conservative major characters making the works more disciplinarian and almost incestuous; and dress such as purple gloves and nosegays advertising the sexual predilection. In this material, two developments come into focus that constitute the most important findings of Might Lewd Books. First, erotica on flagellation expose such parts of the body as thighs, buttocks, and forearms, so pleasure no longer resided exclusively in the genitals and in coitus—a development that points straight to sexual fetishes analyzed in later centuries. Secondly, this material shows the interesting ideological negotiation of much eighteenth-century pornography: On the one hand, it was mostly conservative, representing sexuality as a threat, but on the other, it displayed a transgression of moral values, particularly the ideal of the family, making it radical. It is not always easy to find these kinds of critical insights in Mighty Lewd Books, but their occasional presence—as well as Peakman’s encyclopedic knowledge—makes the book worthwhile overall.