Episode 36: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (Fanny Hill)

If you thought porn originated in 1972 or 2017 or with the invention of the pizza delivery man, goodness madam are you mistaken. We’re reading John Cleland’s Fanny Hill (1748/49), which reminds us that porn has existed ever since the media to make it have been around (see also: the very hornt paintings from Pompeii ca. 79 CE). Our young heroine Fanny boinks her way through this touching novel, revealing a staggering knowledge of profuse pubes and metaphors for penetration.

We discuss the bildungsroman, sex and commerce, eighteenth-century liberal philosophy, John Locke, and John Cleland being a shameless size queen. We also feel the need to mention that this is a listener request, and we take those extremely seriously except we still won’t read Infinite Jest so don’t ask.

We read the Oxford edition edited by Peter Sabor. For a landmark account of the interlinkages between eighteenth- and nineteenth-century pornography and philosophical discourses, see Frances Ferguson’s Pornography, the Theory: What Utilitarianism Did to Action.

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