DIRTY BERTIE
Guide tells all on prostitutes
insanity and illnesses including cancer. But they also prescribed pelvic finger massage for women with hysteria – and, this being the age of invention, a labour-saving device called a “massager” was created for the job.
Behind the strict moral values, the secretive world of Victorian sex only served to inflame rampant prostitution, paedophilia and venereal disease. Syphilis was one symptom of social and moral decay, the other being rank hypocrisy.
“We know 8-10% of the male population in the Edwardian period had VD and there wouldn’t have been much of a drop or increase since the Victorian age,” says Dr Hanley.
Infection among wives and children was common across all social classes and the Contagious Diseases Acts in the 1860s led to prostitutes being taken off the street to protect customers
– mainly the
Army and Navy. Dr
Hanley says: “Any policeman who thought a woman looked suspicious could take her to a magistrate and she could be compelled to submit to a genital examination. And if she was suspected of being infected, she could be locked up for months and forcibly treated.”
Ignorance was equated with innocence and purity, and doctors treating wives for an STD would often keep the truth from them. “Sadly, the Victorians thought women not knowing about these diseases would protect them from infection,” says Dr Hanley.
This was all mainly in response to public angst at declining moral standards after scandals including a raid on a gay brothel and revelations on the exploitation of working class girls.
Many brothels were shut, forcing 5,000 prostitutes on to the streets and into the hands of fiends like Jack The Ripper. And while upstanding men such as future PM William Gladstone patrolled at night to persuade girls to quit vice, they enjoyed the salons of well-known courtesans.
Puritanical Gladstone was a lover of Catherine “Skittles” Walters, so named as she worked in a bowling alley before becoming a plaything of the aristocracy. So renowned were her skills, Bertie also became a lover.
Dirty Bertie, who would become Edward VII, was also well known for his affair with actress Lillie Langtry and his sexploits among the Marlborough House set, including society hostess Alice Keppel (great-gran of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall).
Dr Hanley says: “The Marlborough House set clustered about the Prince of Wales. Divorce could only be afforded by the very rich and most of our knowledge of that time comes from press reporting on the divorce courts.
“There were many sensational cases in the 1870s and 80s where the Prince was cited in some as a co-respondent. In other words, the couple were getting divorced because the woman was having it off with the Prince!”
The Prince was also a regular at bordellos. One Parisian brothel built a special chair so the portly royal could enjoy two women at once – before
Swell’s book sold for £4,000 “FAT, fair and 50” is how a Victorian guide to prostitutes that recently sold at auction for £4,000 describes a brothel worker from London’s booming sex trade.
The Swell’s
Night Guide
Through The
Metropolis, from 1841 – just three years after
Victoria’s coronation – rudely shows a drawing of each lady, scores them on their looks and reveals in which fleshpots they can be found. Aptly named, as it turns out, as the women were treated little
better than meat on hooks. Prostitutes depicted in the guide getting in a bath full of champagne. And the sex lives of Victorian authors such as HG Wells and Robert Louis Stephenson were also stranger than their fiction. War of the Worlds author Wells practised “free love” while Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde author Stephenson spent much of his time frequenting the brothels of Victorian Edinburgh.
Attitudes are more relaxed now but the Victorians left us with hang-ups.
Dr Hanley says: “The Victorians cast a long shadow across the 20th century. As a result, homosexuality wasn’t decriminalised until the 1960s. Also, the way in which femininity was constructed in response to Victoria’s ideal family determined gender roles.
“Even now, it’s very difficult to have an open conversation about sexuality.”
More a case of... shhh, no talking about sex, please, we’re British!