a little queer history

[kindkit]

I made an attempt at reading Fanny Hill recently, and found it fairly unreadable but, in its way, remarkably queer. It's porn written by a man from a woman's POV, featuring lots of lovingly detailed descriptions of handsome young men with enormous cocks. (The cocks are generally referred to as "machines," which I suspect is a transliteration of the

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[halotolerant]

I'd never thought of it that way before, but I had found it on [skim] reading to be surprisingly sensitive as a woman's POV (yeah, OK, of course unrealistic and fantasy-driven in many ways, but more human and subtle than I'd expected) - Cleland being queer makes a lot of sense in that context. The story of the pamphlet is fascinating (not least for, yet again, providing evidence of queerness from precisely the institutions that were attempting to remove it) and indeed awesome historical awesomeness.

This reminds me of a book in the 'people discover lost historical document' vein with a queer slant, which if you've not read I recommend: 'London Bridges' by Jane Stevenson. It's technically a murder mystery, but the archaeological/historical stuff was what I enjoyed.

[kindkit]

I didn't mean to imply that only a queer man could write a woman's POV--I don't think that's true and I don't think a queer man's POV automatically aligns with a woman's. It's more specifically the porn, the desiring gaze the novel turns on male bodies, that struck me as queer coming from a male writer. Especially because it's not just about cock size, which god knows straight men are obsessed with too, but about a man's overall good looks.

A.S. Byatt's loathesome Possession kind of ruined me for "modern academics discover amazing Sooper Sekrit lost documents" novels, but London Bridges sounds better than that. At least I assume it doesn't turn queer characters straight. And hopefully Stevenson has a better sense than Byatt of how academic works (or if it doesn't, archaeology wasn't my field so I wouldn't notice the problems as much!) I'll check it out if I get the chance, though it doesn't seem to be readily available over here.

[halotolerant]

No, I didn't mean that either, sorry if it sounded like I did. What I meant was that when I read Fanny Hill I thought it would be like the more aggressive, mindless kind of porn, written in the third person, with shopping lists of men visiting Fanny Hill and no emotional insight. I was surprised that she was a more rounded character and that she had some more agency than just 'attractive woman likes men' and that there was an idea that she enjoyed being with some men more than others, and other more subtle elements. If Cleland was queer or had queer experiences, then he would not be the sort of unenlightened unimaginative straight man that I had imagined writing the book I had imagined, if you see what I mean. Added to which, of course, as you point out, the desiring gaze on the male body.

I've never read Possession as it didn't appeal on reading the blurb and Dan Brown ruined 'historical document quest!' for me. But I do enjoy books about engagement with history when well or subtly done, and I think Stevenson falls into that