Exploring female sexuality and female agency in Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland (1748)
Active female sexuality always represents female agency: that is why it is feared.
A discussion
Gender “norms” dictated the eighteenth-century female as modest, demure and virtuous. Active female sexuality transgresses these social boundaries, proving women capable of traits outside those prescribed by a patriarchal society, and can therefore be seen as a symbol of strong female agency. This essay argues that although female sexuality can represent female agency, in Fanny Hill it is contained within a male fantasy, rendered tame and unthreatening for male readers.
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