page_title: Victorian erotica
section_title: The female sexual object
hierarchical_section_title: Victorian erotica / The female sexual object
caption_attribution_description: Wikipedia page - the model for the girl with the cards is Jane Frith
context_page_description: Victorian erotica is a genre of sexual art and literature which emerged in the Victorian era of 19th-century Britain. Victorian erotica emerged as a product of a Victorian sexual culture. The Victorian era was characterised by paradox of rigid morality and anti-sensualism, but also by an obsession with sex. Sex was a main social topic, with progressive and enlightened thought pushing for sexual restriction and repression. Overpopulation was a societal concern for the Victorians, thought to be the cause of famine, disease, and war. To curb the threats of overpopulation, sex was socially regulated and controlled. New sexual categories emerged as a response, defining normal and abnormal sex. Heterosexual sex between married couples became the only form of sex socially and morally permissible. Sexual pleasure and desire beyond heterosexual marriage was labelled as deviant, considered to be sinful and sinister. Such deviant forms included masturbation, homosexuality, prostitution and pornography. Procreation was the primary goal of sex, removing it from the public, and placing it in the domestic.
context_section_description: A main component of Victorian erotica was the female sexual object. Women were increasingly being defined in terms of femininity, subordination, and the object of sexual desire. Aesthetic and medical procedures were targeting women to accentuate their sex appeal.  In real Victorian life, female sexuality was problematic, and was only to be expressed in terms of domestic life.
  On the stage, in art, or in literature, women were inscribed with sexuality, positioned as the sexual object. Societal expectations tied women to ideas of purity and virginity. Erotic plot lines and themes sought to shatter these expectations, crafting women as whores, prostitutes, and adulterers. Women were symbol of vice and temptation. Men were thought to be victims of the female seductress, and were the primary spectators and consumers of female erotica. Themes of same-sex erotica was avoided.
  Erotic stimulation was usually implied or suggested. Female erotica was marked through clothing, hairstyles, corseted silhouettes, shoes and headgear. Explicit nudity was rare, with arousal coming from the process of undressing. Rather than the breast or buttocks, legs were a major source of sexual arousal. Veiling and silhouetting were popular modes of titillation, with brief uncovering of legs, or silhouetted outlines of naked women creating voyeuristic arousal.  
caption: Augustus Egg's Past and Present. Picturing the "Fallen Woman".
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