Some notes on the 18th century in England
Because it seemed like a thing that might be useful.
The 18th century was a rowdy, rowdy time on a personal level. A huge amount of popular misconcepetions about the era come filtered to us through the Victorians, who spent a whole lot of time cataloguing – and in the process, rewriting and censoring – history. Even the Victorians were nowhere nearly as prudish as Victorian revisionism would have us believe.
Our man Ichabod came of age in the 1760s and 1770s in England, and we know he was a miitary man. So what sort of thing would he have been exposed to in his formative years?
Condoms, for one thing. Made of lambskin, linen or silk, reusable (hopefully after you washed it), and used with prostitutes to prevent the spread of syphilis. They were porous, so not much good at all at preventing pregnancy.
In order to actually prevent pregnancy, since no woman of good repute would ever use a condom with her husband, couples used withdrawal, the rhythm method, spermicides applied internally (including olive oil, cedar oil, or frankincense). The most common and most effective was an internal device called a pessary. An organic base (sometimes moss, sometimes other things – citrus rind was popular) was mixed with honey and sodium carbonate, and inserted like we would use a tampon today. This blocked the cervix to prevent conception.
They cursed, and not at all in the ‘vile son of a misbegotten goat’ sort of way we associate with Shakespeare. The word ‘fuck’ has been around since at least 1475, and used the same way we use it now. The first written record of the phrase ‘I’d not give a fuck’ is from 1790.
Prostitution of varying sorts was extremely common, from kept mistresses and exceptionally expensive courtesans, to bawdy houses, brothels and streetwalkers, women and men of all sorts plied the oldest trade.
“By the 1770s it was reported that the streets were ‘more thronged’ with prostitutes than every before. Attempts by Sir John Fielding, the Lord Mayor London, to suppress the trade came to nothing in the 1780s, but over the next 50 years concern began to emerge about morality, venereal diseases, public order and the kidnapping of virgin children to supply the ever-growing demand.
“Sir John Fielding, the magistrate, called Covent Garden ‘the great square of Venus’. He said, ‘One would imagine that all the prostitutes in the kingdom had picked upon the rendezvous’”
When a fellow had some extra cash and a fancied a bit of fun, he only had to look in his handy pocket guide to local prostitutes to see which girl might be best suited for what he wanted, who was any good, and what services he could afford. Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies was essentially Yelp for London Call Girls, published annually between 1757 -1795, and sold in the thousands.
Oh, and did you know there was a thriving gay community in London in the 18th century? Sodomy was still illegal, of course, but for the most part the men were left alone. There were famous drag queens, gay bars (called ‘molly houses’), same-sex couples participating in secret marriage ceremonies with each other, common cruising grounds, and culturally-specific slang terms of their own.
There were lesbian prostitutes, who served exclusively female clientele.
They liked buttsex, even though it was illegal.
They liked buttsex without lube.
Since I have bugger’d human arse, I find
Pintle to Cunt is not so much inclin’d.
What tho the letchery be dry, ‘t is smart;
A Turkish arse I love with all my heart.
— King Bolloxinion in the Earl of Rochester’s play Sodom, or The Quintessence of Debauchery (1684)In fact, just about the only thing that the 18th century English were dubious about was… oral sex.
Also called ‘gamahauching,’ oral (blow jobs and eating out alike) was taboo, and viewed as suspect and dirty. Think of how a lot of people view rimming today – some folks say “dude, you don’t know what you’re missing!” but the majority reaction is more along the lines of “you want me to put my tongue where??”
It was ‘well-known,’ in fact, that oral sex was a lewd practice and a foreign vice, that had only been brought across to England by those wild and sexually uncontrolled Americ…
Ooh.
Katrina, you vixen.
I think someone had a very exciting wedding night.
So useful.