Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - Flagellation Brothels: Georgian Spanking Houses

Episode Date: July 23, 2024

18th century London was a haven for kinky connoisseurs, and flagellation houses were at the heart of it.Whatever your preference to be spanked by - birches, whips, paddles - they had you covered.What went on behind closed doors? Who was being spanked, and why was it all the range for upper class men?Taking Kate into this naughty underworld today is Julie Peakman, author of Lascivious Bodies: A Sexual History of the Eighteenth Century.This episode was edited by Tom Delargy, the producer was Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.Voting is open for the Listener's Choice Award at the British Podcast Awards, so if you enjoy what we're doing, we'd love it if you took a quick follow this link and click on Betwixt the Sheets: https://www.britishpodcastawards.com/votingEnjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Sign here for up to 50% for 3 months using code BETWIXT.You can take part in our listener survey here.Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister. I am here once more to educate and horrify. But before we can do that, I have to tell you, this is an adult podcast spoken by adults to other adults about adulty things in an adulty way, covering a range of adult subjects and you should be an adult too.

And now you have heard that. Don't be writing as angry letters because fair do's, we have warned you. But if you listen to this and you like it and you don't want to write as angry letters, then maybe you could vote. for us at the Listeners Choice Awards at this year's British Podcast Awards. And you can do that simply by going to the website www.w.w.com forward slash voting and clicking on Betwixt the Sheets. If you've already done that, thank you so much.

You can have a gold star. And I should remind you that you can vote more than once. You didn't hear that from me. Right, on with the show. Come with me, betwixters, as we enter the door of one of Georgian London's finest flagellation brothels. Don't worry, I am good mates with some of the ladies who work here, and they are an absolute scream. Hidden away amongst the lavish velvet decor in the shadowy corners, look, some of society's most respected individuals who are all keen to keep hold of their anonymity.

The air is heavy and scented with candles and perfumes and, well, sweat. What can I tell you? But let's breathe it in. It's hushed, and anticipation is high, because in the adjoining rooms, if you love, Listen closely, there are the wooshes flagellation. Awesome, good old-fashioned spanking, if you want to just call it what it is. Whatever your weapon of choice, be it whips, canes or birches, the outcome is always the same. They are being brought down across some very delicate flesh indeed.

Curious to know how such a culture came about and what its origins are, well, I know that I am. So gimp masks at the ready betwixtors, let's do this. What do you look for a man? Oh, money, of course. You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you. I make perfect coppence of whatever my boss needs by just turning it up and pushing the funny. Yes, social courtesy does make a difference. Goodness, my beautiful time. Goodness has nothing to do with it, Derry.

So, and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society. With me, Kate Lister. If you were a kinky gentleman on the town in 18th century London, well, you are in for a treat. If the historical records are anything to be believed, London is a haven for the kinky connoisseur. But who ran these flagellation brothels? Are its origins really in the corporal punishments of posh private schools? Were they really the birth of kink culture as we know it today?

I think that's just a nice story. But joining me today is Julie Peekman, author of Lovicious Bodies, A Sexual History of the 18th Century, who is going to take me back in time to peep inside this mischievous world. And if you're curious to know more about the sexual subcultures of this period, you should definitely scroll back and have a listen to our episode on Molly Houses,

the hidden bars slash brothels slash meeting places, where queer men risked their lives to meet up for a bit of companionship and, well, a damn good time. Birch Whips at the Ready Kids, let's do this. Hello and welcome to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Julie Peekman. How are you doing? Fabulous, thank you. All the better for speaking to you, Kate.

I love speaking to you, Julie. And you must be riding high on the success of your latest book. Well, one hopes it's going to be successful. You never know, because you don't get much feedback from the sales fitness. But fingers crossed. It's a book launch went fabulously well. Oh, did it. Have you recovered? Yeah, just about. But we are here to talk about, this is such an interesting subject, flagellation. Fladulation in the 18th and slightly into the 19th century. But just for any innocent delegates who are listening to,

who aren't sure what we're talking about, what is flagellation, Julie? Well, flagellation became known as the English spice during the 19th century, but in fact it originated much earlier. In the 18th century, it was advocated as a cure for impotence, and it was used as a school discipline and as a public punishment. So it was really out there. It was in the society. And it would have been dispensed to wives and servants as a household correction. And then it was taken up as a sexual activity in the home and in the brothel,

and later developed as a theme in erotic literature. And two of the main elements influencing sexual flagellation, which I'll go into here, were influences in the medical and religious arenas. Shall I give you an idea of the medical influences? I would love you to. Before we get to that, just flagellation is hitting somebody with something, right? That's what we're talking about here. Spanking, whipping, anything like that. That's what we're talking about. Yeah. And there are lots and lots of devices that clients had to choose from, which would include things like riding crops, cat of nime tails, birches, twigs, you name it. Anything, really, anything goes. I don't want to yuck anyone's yumb, but I've never quite got the, it turns me on to be spanked by something. I mean, there'll be people listening to it and it's absolutely their bag baby, they love it.

But just, I'm not sure what that one's about. Like, hit me with something. Well, I'm a bit vanilla myself, so it's not my bag either. But there was a doctor, a German doctor called Johann Heinrich, who was around in the early 17th century. And he promoted flagellation as a curative measure for impotence. And he believed it was an aid to erection because it included the circulation of the blood. And therefore, this was something that was quite important for blokes who basically couldn't bend it up. Wow.

And he actually printed a treatise on this called on the use of rodzine venereal matters. This is taken up by a bonoboth called Edmund Curl, which a lot of people might have bird off. and he renamed it a treatise of the use of flogging, which obviously attracted greater attention in the early 18th century. But originally it was intended as a serious medical work, but you can sort of understand where the idea for people as a sexual predilection or necessary implementation. Is that the earliest example of sort of the medical profession

getting involved in flagellation? But sort of like a medic... I'm going to presume people have always like being spanked. since day dot. But this sounds like an important point is that a doctor's got involved and said, yes, it's medically necessary now. There was actually earlier evidence, for example, one of the medical books from, I think it was 1642, Sinibaldi's Genran Robbia, actually stipulated the same sort of medical results for flagellation. So it was something that was evident before. But of course, Once it was taken up by people like publishers like Edmund Curl,

once it was seen to be something that might be on the cusp of naughtiness, it was sort of rehashed in English translations, and it became quite popular. How popular. I'm really interested in what you said right at the beginning, that it was called the English vice. Why was it called, were we particularly notorious for this? It was called the English vice in the Victorian era.

not necessarily at this time, because it was much more discussed for things like discipline for children. And if you look at the sort of broader part of life in the 18th century and where it actually came from, there was discussions in quite respectable magazine, sort of the Gentle Magazine, gentleman's magazine of the 1730s, for example, and the Bon Ton of the 1790s. So throughout the century, physicians strongly recommend punishing children. with a birch for their faults, that sort of thing. So it was something that was discussed generally. And the flogging of children was a reality,

and you can see how the general aspect of flogging as a discipline for children affected mainstream life. An example of that would be, if you look at the confessions of the French philosopher, Jean-Jabbrousseau, he recollected in his memoirs, the effect of beatings from his nanny, which led to his predilection for flagellation in later life. And of course, then there's all the knowledge that we know about public schools and flogging and the whole link there.

And Dr. Busby of Westminster College was well known for his beating of children. And there's lots of examples of this. One very big scandal that evolved in the 18, it was in 1815 of Lieutenant General Sir Aya Coo. He was charged with indecent conduct, having been caught in a boys' school with his breaches down, asking for the boys to birch him. Oh, dear. So it was generally spoken about. And even girls were whipped, supposedly, in their schools. One story which was circulating around about the 1770s was around a charity school in East Barkham run by the so-called Lady Marjorie, where the girls were being whipped for any old misdemeanistam.

So it's really widespread. It's not just flogging in a kinky context, although maybe we could make the argument that it kind of crosses over. But flogging, whipping, spanking, corporal punishment, I suppose, that was just a part of daily life in the 18th century. Yes, but there were sort of real live incidents of flagellation that were popping up, that we obviously connected to sexual flagellation. We can see that, for example, the people who were in middle-class homes were becoming more interested in flagellation.

We know about one of the cases of flagellation because of a trial report that came out in 1709. And there's a group of young professionals in Norwich. So it could be people like us, you know, just getting together with your lodger and people who were living in the same household. A chap called Samuel Self, who was a bookseller, was reported to. who puts Jane Morris over his knee in the kitchen or the upstairs bed and spiked her naked butters. And this all came out in the trial. And they were also involved in other exotic games like voyeurism and group sex and why swapping and even the trimming of pubic hair. So there's a lot went on as well as flagellation in those days. That's quite shocking. It sounds like this is a

well-known practice and lots of people are talking about this at the time. Yeah. And even specialist brothels were emerging at the time. Oh, hello. A journalist called Ned Ward reported his visitation to a flagellation brockle. He was a journalist who used to go around London and reporting his journal, the London spy, in the early 1700s. He reports coming across what he calls flogging colours. And similarly, in the London Journal, they referred to Hawes who provided flagellation services.

Ned Ward seems to have got around a bit. He was the one that wrote about all the Mollie houses as well. wasn't he? Oh, he wrote about everything and he wrote about clubs like the no-nose club, which was a group people met who had no noses because there were little with syphilis and the farting club. I mean, he reported on all these ridiculous clubs that, but you never know how much to take Ned Ward as the truth or not because he was a bit of an exaggeration. He exaggerated quite a bit on his, in his London spy. There were lots of evidences of other trials as well, not just the group in Norwich. There was people like Mary Wood.

She was involved with her a chap called John Tenants and he supplied his own rods and paid her to whip him. So there's various reports of trials like that. So a trial like that, that sounds like it's consensual sort of kinky spanking. So what would they end up in court for that? I mean, forcibly spanking someone or turning up at a school and demanding children spank you, I can totally see why you'd end up in court for that. Good. But this sounds like it's consensual spanking. So why were they in court?

Various things are usually associated with it. People who would have been caught would either have been caught for being in a baudy house that was a known baudy house or they were making too much noise. There was usually commotion involved when they were brought to trial. They'd have probably been brought to trial for other things rather than for what they were actually doing consensuality or flagellation. So what Ned Ward got to say about these flogging cullies then, these spanking brothels around London?

Well, there was lots of reports about them, and this was going throughout the whole of the 18th century. They're hard to find, actually. I had to delve quite deep into research to find these things. But apart from Ned Ward, at the other end of the 18th century, there was a report by the Bon Tonn magazine of female flag. who met every Thursday night at London's German Street, which we all know. I don't know. I don't know German Street. Where's German Street?

It's up in town just behind Piccadillo. Wow. Okay. So quite central. Yeah. Well, I suppose if you wanted a rather specialised club, you'd have to put it centrally, so it would be known. These women were married and they'd obviously got tired of the routine of the marriage and took a couple of other activities that they reported that there's about 12 women involved in the group and they enjoyed slogging each other. Did we get any names? Do we know who was attending these clubs?

No, because it was in the Bonham magazine as well, just like Ned Ward. We have to take it with a pinch of salt, whether it's relating fact or fiction. But as they say, no smoke without fire. So why be so specific as to say it's in German Street when it could have been anywhere? it sounds to me like there's something going on there. Wouldn't you just give anything to be able to go back and find out how that was working? Who set it up? Who's attending?

How did they find out about it? Well, this is it. It's just so fascinating. But of course, it was worse for the prostitutes who were getting caught as vagrants or usually for disorderly conduct. They were, of course, being flogged at the time. And that was publicly. And there was often a stipulation that went with that,

that they should draw blood when they were within the women. Oh, my God. And, of course, that was something that would be a public site, so people would go up there to watch it. So it's very much circulating the whole idea of flogging in the whole of the 18th century. And people would get whipped. And one of the names that come up was Whipped at here, again, it's another trial, is Eleanor Wilson,

who was wits of being drunk on a Sunday in the marketplace. So they were actually getting whipped for very small misdemeanors. And that would be public, would it? Like, where would they be doing that? If you were found pissed up on a Sunday, where would this punishment take place? Well, the sentence was usually carried out either tied to a whipping post or at the end of the car or being whipped through the streets. But public flagellation of prostitutes, although a common sight actually became something that people, although they enjoyed watching it, it was recognised that this was something that probably was more exciting for the people to walk rather than something that was continuous a punishment, but it should be done privately.

And again, Ned Ward actually relates how parties of young men made excursions to witness the public flogging of course. And as you know, the Society for the Reformation of Manners was responsible for arresting a lot of these women who were streetwalkers and would eventually get ripped. And of course then those people like Henry Fielding who talked about Mary Hamilton, the lesbian who supposedly married about 14 times, she was actually done for fraud, fraudulent behaviour rather than lesbianism because that wasn't considered a crime in those days. She was actually publicly flogged so much so that her back fled. And this was very often stipulations that people must be whipped until they're bloody. Well, there's a story. there's a history. So she managed to marry 14 times and then was done for fraud.

Well, that's supposedly what Henry Fielding wrote about in a female husband. But there was lots of proper sexual services that were emerging. And we know about flagellation services in particular because there was a person called Theresa Berkeley who wrote her memoirs called Vita Schoolmistress or Birken Sports. And she gave all the addresses of the flagellation brothels, which was like, you know, advertisement for men where they could go, where they could see these women to get a good flogging. And I've got a list here if you're interested on where... I think we are interested. Where these women could be found.

There was a Mrs. Emily who could be found at number 50, Marbury Place in Regent Street. And again, these are all pretty central. Mrs. Phillips was in Upper Belgrade Place in Kimlipo and a Mrs. Shepherd in Gilbert Street. And Teresa herself ran a whiffy parlour in Charlotte Streets, which we all know that's up near Tottenham Court Road now. Yeah. But she was actually known as the best gladulator in the business. And so she got sort of five stars who got the best clients. And she describes the clients as well, which is they sent in letters.

Once they read her memoirs, they all got so excited they sent her in letters of excitement about how lovely it was. and which flagellant they enjoyed most of all. Do we know if those memoirs were written by a real Teresa Berkeley, or as if that was just a pen name that someone else was using? Well, Henry Ashby, who was a bibliographer, a Victorian bibliographer, he examined lots and lots of these types of books, particularly pornography and these sort of memoirs, and he's convinced that they were real.

And also the letters that were written in, It reminds me of something like the Playboy magazines or these men's magazines where they're writing, where they've had a good time, you know, the letters that they sent in. And they used to say things like, then I've got a list here of this chap who's written a letter. And he says, Mrs. Brown has a pretty strong arm. Mrs. Wilson is no chicken at all. And Mrs. Chalmers has a very experienced hand. So it was like an advertisement for all these places. I think it's interesting that when they are BDSM madams, they're always misses.

I wonder if that's important. It's always misses this and misses that. It's never misses. Oh, but Kate, it was so they could still be respectable. It was a sort of attempt at respectability when, of course, they were anything from. And also they've got, I mean, all their clients with people like old generals and abrules and captains. and maybe they just felt more comfortable with what they see as a more respectable sur-title.

Do we know what services were on offer at Teresa's establishment? Because I don't know what it was like in the 18th century, 19th century, but it's quite posh today. So she sounds like she's quite an upscale establishment. Yeah, I guess that there were sorts of different scales, but she was definitely one of the most luxurious brothels. You could pick your birch that you wanted, so she'd have leather-wipped. and riding crops and birches and twigs tied together,

and you could look at the arrangement that she'd got and decide what you wanted. Perhaps one of the best sex toys of all time, I think, was one that she reported, and she had designed for her, which was called the Berkeley horse, and it was a machine which allowed the prostitutes to strap their clients into any position that they wanted and to be whipped, so they could choose the positioning of this. which I thought was rather amazing.

That is, isn't it? And you can look this up online, by the way. I mean, don't get caught in a BDSM porn loop, but you can find this contraption that Teresa invented, the Berkeley horse. Yeah, it was, well, the original machine was presented to the Society of Arts at the Adelphi, but unfortunately, I couldn't find it anymore. I did go in search, but there was no evidence. My God.

And there's a chap also called Chase Price, who, invented a flagellation machine, which was claimed to be able to take care of 40 victims at once, but God only knows how that was. I can't imagine that contraction, to be honest. One of the most interesting things I discovered in a description of what Teresa offers was that she used nettles. I thought that was so inventive and clever, like stinging nettles, just like strands and strands of them to whip people with. Well, this is the thing about Theresa Berkeley is that because she was at the top of the game, She was inventive, and that's why she had so many clients and why she was known as the exemplar of the trend.

I'll be back with Julie after this short break. Let's talk about pornography, because you kind of alluded to it a little bit. So the 18th century, and certainly to the 19th century, there are big changes in production methods and mass production, which means that people can produce porn on scales that it hasn't been seen before. But are there trends and changes in porn? What's 18th century porn look like? Well, a lot of it, first of all, looked like French pornography because it was translations of French phonography,

because the French were the first on the pornographic scene, particularly regarding flagellation. Okay. And in chronography generally, they came out with title such as the Histoire de Dom B, which was known as Don Borgre or the Masterbugger, and Therese philosophies. which is perhaps better known.

And these delved into anti-clerical material. The British were very fond of anti-clerical material because we were Protestant, so we took this up with a vengeance. We loved it. And these types of books depicted debauch clerics having sex incombents and monasteries. So we got this whole different setting emerging in pornography, which became very popular in Britain.

And these were often presented in translations in Britain. And it also influenced what was going to happen to the English material because it derives on these sort of Catholic penitential practices that the British so are bored. And therefore, the British were just so keen to satirise the clerics and the French clerics and the Catholics that they used these settings and these characters

very much in there and pornography. Again, Edmund Curl was perhaps the first, catching on to all this. He was the first to translate in the early 18th century, a book called, in translation, Venus in the Cloister, and this was about naughty nuns in the convent. And he was actually fine for this and put in the pillory, but the crowd so loved him and this book, that they carried him off the loft, Cheevering. So he got out of it fairly on stay. Who was Edmund Curl? Who was he? Just paint us a quick picture of this man. who ended up in the stocks for producing porn.

He's actually one of my heroes. He was one of the first pornographers in the 18th century. He actually published anything that he thought would sell. It wasn't just pornography. He published tracks and sermons and medical treaties and poems, anything he thought that would sell. And as I said, he was the first to publish the My Bones Treatise on Flogging, the doctor, the German doctor that I spoke about,

and Venus in the cloister. And from there, he took on lots of other pornographic books and published them throughout his life. Was there British homegrown pong, or were we just imparting the French stuff? No, it started off probably sort of the late 17th century, is the best area to look at for flagellation, early material, the can I had in Britain.

One of the first was called the Wandering Corps, which was published in 1660, and that referred to men who needed flogging in order to gain an erection. It's something written by John Garfield, but there are also plays connected to flagellation. One example I'll think of is that something called the Presbyterian Lash or Nottroughs made a whit. And that made a connection between flogging and sexual stimulation. It was supposedly acted out in a great room at the Pye Tavern by Notroft. This chap Nottrov was supposedly Zachary Crofton, who was a non-conformist reverend who ran the church at St. Otto's Church in Oldgate, and he actually got imprisoned, mainly because of his prejudiced views and his temper, I think, rather than anything else connected to the play.

But you'll know, Kate, the first British pornography was John Cleland's memoirs of a woman of pleasure, or better known as Fanny Hill, which, you know, Kate. the first British pornography was John Cleveland's memoirs of a woman of pleasure, or better known as Fanny Hill, which came out in 1748 and 49 in two separate volumes. And this really was the defining moment in pornography as far as I'm concerned. It was no doubt influenced by French Liberty literature. Shall I give you a rundown of the main flagellation scene? I think so, yes. The first part of the memoir sort of tells of a young woman, Panny Hill, who is enticed into the world of prostitution by a madam under the pretext of offering border lodges, which, of course, is you know, one of the main things that madame's did

to entice young girls into prostitution and into their brothels, was to set them up with clothes and sort of entrap them into their lodgings. And memoirs of a woman of pleasure was one of the earliest erotic novels to mention sexual flagellation. The character of Fanny Hill was introduced to a client called Mr. Barville, who was a 23-year-old gentleman client. And Fannie was quite surprised because this young man was so eager for flagellation because it was usually older men who required the services. So she didn't particularly mind flogging him that she didn't want to be flogged herself. So Fannie herself wasn't really into flagellation.

I'm trying to think how much flogging there is in that book. It's such a completely bonkers book when you read it from a modern perspective. My favourite bit is the euphemisms, because didn't Cleland famously say that he'd written this book without any swear words in it at all? Yeah, well, he got it so pitch-perfect because his book, and this is why for me it's one of the best examples of the novel of it, is how he did the scenes.

So it went from sort of mutual masturbation between women, which was hardly sexy at all, according to how the 18th century themes went, to fully penetrative vaginal sex between a man and a woman, and then gradually into orgies and flogging, and finally the homosexual scene, which was considered the most naughty of all. But, of course, that was cut out of later editions because it was deemed an offence. That's where the line's drawn. Yeah, yeah, less than it, though.

Are there changes in themes in 18th century pornography? I'm sensing a religious theme in the earlier stuff with naughty nuns and bishops and people doing things in convents. But is there a shifting theme as the century progresses? I think so because we were developing more of our own particular tastes. The earlier anti-Catholic material was inherited from the French. And we wanted to develop our own specific, or Cleland did, wanted to develop our own specific ways of looking at that sex.

And some of the main themes that we developed were incest, which was something that was to do with the huge taboo around incest. But also, we developed our own specific flagellation material. And you can see that around about the 1770s. There was a huge flurry of flagellation novellas that developed. And some examples of those can be seen in the Birken bouquet, exhibition of female flageants, the spirit of flagellation, quintessence of birch discipline. They all had these sort of racy names, so you could pick up a theme of what we wanted

on flagellation very early on. And the themes in those books, of course, were defloration. Most definitely the exposing of blood was the turn on. And what was important was the positioning of the bodies. So writers began to explore the excitement that was created through erotic and erogenous zones, which were beyond just genitalia. So they wrote about white thighs and snobby bellies and red buttobs and plump forearms. And that was something that was developing, particularly in these 1770s flagellation of them. God, they really loved it, didn't they?

It was like a real thing, a real, I don't want to say fashion, but it seems like it was a weird. old thing, fetish interest at this time. Yeah, and what was interesting, there was this whole development of the setting that had moved from the early convents, you know, the nunneries and the monasteries, into boarding schools and parlours and governesses and stepmothers. And they became integral to this new setting for flagellation, phonography. And the other strange and weird thing that I came across when I was looking at all this, the Mighty Louie Books, which was 20 years ago and when I was sat in the British Library, reading all this corn.

This type of flagellation material was all about nosegays and purple gloves. What was that all about? It was like a symbol of the female flagellant. They'd pull on these purple gloves or kid white gloves and wear these huge lapels of nosegays, flowers that were supposed to make people swoon. Wow.

So it's like a symbol of the female flagellant. You could spot them. I'd never heard of that before. That's incredible. You'll have to tell us what flowers they are, Julie, just so people aren't out there giving people the wrong idea. The strange thing is they don't mention that. I'd love to have known. Damn it.

But they just call them nosegays of lecturies they call them. Wow. Okay. Which was fun, but doesn't give us much incited to what flowers, presumably flowers that smell quite a bit. What did the Victorians make of all this? Because they sort of inherited this sudden, in flagellation, did they develop their own porn or did they look at them and go, we're not going to do that anymore? Or what did the Victorians make of this? Well, that's what's interesting.

We can see that the medical and religious and punishment practices were also feeding into this broader understanding of flagellation, which would turn into sexual fantasies. But that did actually lead into Victorian pornography as well. And what's interesting, first of all, is that they took on 18th century pornography and started doing reprints of it. And so by the 1870s, this is sort of a whole century later, we've got complete reprints of the exhibition of female flagellants and my boehm's treatise on the use of flogging by a publisher called J.C. Hutton, who became quite famous in the pornographic train. And there was a series of books that came out, which included, There was eight books, seven books altogether in this series, and they included those two books that are mentioned.

And newer titles such as, I mean, these are so funny, Lady Bum Tickler's Rebels. Nice. And Madame Buccini's Dance, supposedly published by a Lady Turkmen, Laybom, and the Sublime of Flaggillation. And these were all sort of books that were particularly new development, supposedly. in the 1870s, but they had that sort of same rhetoric, same narrative of the 18th century, which is strange. So there was obviously an interest in retaining those 18th century books. Other books obviously came out, which were in a similar vein, such as William Dougdale's

The Convent School. Whippington Papers. Yeah, we did get new development of pornography. And of course, there's magazines as well, or journals like the Pearl, which William... Laysenbury issued. And that came out in, I think, 18 issues, limited to only 150 copies. So it was by subscription, like a lot of these things were. Usually the subscribers being gentlemen and upper classes who could afford the 25 pound subscription,

with an added Christmas issue of three guineas. And you could still read them online and they are mad. Exactly. There's still also, some of them heart back to earlier scandals. I mentioned General Airy Coots scandal earlier on, and the Pearl actually covered things like incest and sex in high society and flagellation. But one of the delights, which was called Miss Coots Confessions, the Coots was referring to that earlier scandal.

And it was also that particular article was thought to loosely be based on Teresa Berkley's memoirs. So you can see that these tales still have an influence from the 18th. century material. The Victorians loved a bit of slap and tickle. Do you think it was that people in the 18th century and the 19th century were more interested in flagellation than they are at any other time? Or do you think that this was, I don't know, what do you think? Was it just that it was in fashion?

Well, it's funny how the fashion's changed as well, because, as you know, Swinburne liked a bit flage. In fact, two of his poems, by the way, were in the pearl. to have flagellation during. But what's interesting is the theme of slavery and flagellation erupted, which is something that obviously hadn't been in very early pornography. And it was particular references to slavery in America, for example, in something called My Grandmother's Tale in the Pearl,

which covered the beating of slaves. So it's a very different angle than we had from the 18th century in those types of particles. Just to finally bring it right up to the modern day, it's interesting you said that a lot of the Victorian pornography and the ways of exploring flagellation do hark back to much older stories and tales and novellas. Do you think we're still doing that? Is there any impact left on today? How does flagellation in the 18th century, does it have any relation to what's going on to today? Well, I've recently been looking at Pulp Fiction, and there was a big eruption from the 1950s onwards of a re-emergence of the classical pornography from Victorian period. And that was something that really took off. And so there's obviously still an interest because otherwise there wouldn't have been repeating it in various editions right throughout the 20th century.

And of course by the time we get up to our own century, we've got things like, well, I suppose we have to mention 50 shades of grey, although I think some people have given it a bad rap. I think it was quite fun. But we've got BDSM dungeons and dens we can explore now. And anybody can find somebody to share a passion in a good whipping. So I think life's a lot easy. And particularly with the internet, you can find what you want wherever you want now. For anybody who wants to try anything, out. Again, you know, it's in podcasts like this, so it's easier to find and discuss about. Oh, Julie, you've been wonderful to talk to. And if people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you? On my website, www.julypeepman.com.com.com Another array of books that I've written over the past 20-odd years. They're very good. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for talking to me today. You've been marvelous. Thank you so much, Kate, for inviting me. Love you, as a lot. always.

For listening. Thank you so much to Julie for joining me. And if you like what you heard, please don't forget to like, review and follow along whatever it is that you get your podcasts. If you'd like us to explore a subject, or maybe you just wanted to say hello, then you can email us at betwixt at history hit.com.

We've got episodes on everything from the history of grief to the history of medieval chastity, all coming your way. This podcast was edited by Tom Delagie and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long. Join me again between the sheets, the history of sex scandal in society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.