Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present

Description

Introduction 15 PART 1: THE SIXTEENTH THROUGH EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES 21 A. Lesbianism in a Phallocentric Universe 21 Chapter 1. Lesbianism and the Libertines 23 Chapter 2. What Do Women Do? 31 Chapter 3. Eighteenth-Century Fantasy and the Lesbian Image 38 Chapter 4. Transvestism: Persecution and Impunity 47 B. The Enshrinement of Romantic Friendship 63 Chapter 1. The Revival of Same-Sex Love: Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries 65 Chapter 2. The "Fashion" of Romantic Friendship in the Eighteenth Century 74 Chapter 3. The Battle of the Sexes 85 Chapter 4. Romantic Friendship in Eighteenth- Century Literature 103 Chapter 5. Romantic Friendship in Eighteenth- Century Life 119 PART II: THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 145 A. Loving Friends 145 Chapter 1. The Asexual Woman 147 Chapter 2. Kindred Spirits 157 Chapter 3. New Women 178 Chapter 4. Boston Marriage 190 Chapter 5. Love and "Women Who Live by Their Brains" 204 B. The Reaction 231 Chapter 1. The Rise of Antifeminism 233 Chapter 2. The Contributions of the Sexologists 239 Chapter 3. Lesbian Exoticism 254 Chapter 4. Lesbian Evil 277 PART III: THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 295 A. Sophistication 295 Chapter L The Last Breath of Innocence 297 Chapter 2. The Spread of Medical "Knowledge" 314 Chapter 3. Keeping Women Down 332 Chapter 4. Fiction as a Weapon 341 Chapter 5. Internalization and Rebellion 357 B. When It Changed 375 Chapter 1. The Rise of Lesbian-Feminism 377 Chapter 2. Writing Lesbian 392 Chapter 3. Romantic Friendship and Lesbian Love 411 Notes 417