The Spinster and Her Enemies - Feminish

WOMEN’S FRIENDSHIPS AND LESBIANISM
other ideas, such as the masculine stereotype, which clearly
does not derive from his case studies, come from a similar source.
There are other examples in the sexological literature of men’s
sexual fantasies about lesbian sexuality. Krafft-Ebing invented
a form of ejaculation for women: ‘The intersexual gratification
among these women seems to be reduced to kissing and
embraces, which seems to satisfy those of weak sexual instinct,
but produces in sexually neurasthenic females ejaculation.’ 18 A
form of ejaculation in women is another common motif of
contemporary men’s pornography.
Women defining themselves
One of Ellis’s case studies illustrates how this confusion around
self-definition was operating amongst women at the time that
Ellis was writing. The case study is of a woman who specifically
denied herself genital sexual expression with the woman she
lived with and loved in order to avoid having to fit herself into
the definition of homosexuality being offered in the sexological
literature of the 1890s. She writes that her woman friend had
been having a ‘tryng time’ and moved into her bed on the advice
of a doctor so that she would not have to sleep alone:
One night, however, when she had had a cruelly trying day
and I wanted to find all ways of comforting her, I bared my
breast for her to lie on. Afterwards it was clear that neither
of us could be satisfied without this…. Much of this
excitement was sexually localised, and I was haunted in the
daytime by images of holding this woman in my arms. I
noticed also that my inclination to caress my other women
friends was not diminished, but increased. All this disturbed
me a great deal. The homosexual practices of which I had
read lately struck me as merely nasty; I could not imagine
myself tempted to them. 19
The woman continues by saying that she consulted an older
man friend who advised her to be very careful and not give in
to her impulses. She told her friend of her anxiety and of her
decision, which was clearly to forego genital sexual expression.
The friend was unhappy, none the less they went on sleeping
together. The result was that they continued to have a passionate
emotional and physical relationship which merely omitted
genital contact:
110