pallas_athena (
pallas_athena) wrote2010-08-21 02:08 am
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Entry tags:
Samuel Pepys is a dick, again
I subscribe to the pepysdiary LJ feed, and we're now up to 1667. Samuel Pepys is now stinking rich and, of course, being a total dick to all and sundry. This week: frottage in church!
Well done, that resourceful modest maid.
The Restoration, we're all taught, was an age of sexual freedom. Puritanism was over and done with; there were actresses portraying witty, desire-driven characters on the stage; stays and dress styles combined to give one's cleavage the old heave-ho (and breeches did similar things for the male erogenous zones.) The poet's pen, the painter's brush, the engraver's blade and the sculptor's tool all united to celebrate sex. So, loud huzzahs for sexual freedom... right?
What you get from Pepys's diary, however, are a plethora of boastful anecdotes of what would now be called sexual harassment. He talks about handling the breasts of his servant girl; he cops a feel on an actress who's ill and barely conscious in his wife's bed; he gropes strangers in church. He's on fire at the sight of breasts-- but angrily chastises his wife when he perceives her dress to be immodest. If we take Pepys to be a fairly average upper-middle-class Restoration man, then-- well, then we have to concede that Restoration guys were annoying as all fuck.
Anyway, the pins didn't deter Samuel from trying it on with the next girl:
"Amours" must be French for "disgusting strange women with your horndoggery."
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Pepys is missing out on the best part of being cheated on: the guilt gifts. You'd think that, given the amount of extramarital hide-the-smallsword Sam gets up to, he could at least buy his wife something nice, right? But no:
Samuel Pepys: tight of fist and fundament, but of breeches mighty loose. Also, a dick.
[...] and I walked towards White Hall, but, being wearied, turned into St. Dunstan's Church, where I heard an able sermon of the minister of the place; and stood by a pretty, modest maid, whom I did labour to take by the hand and the body; but she would not, but got further and further from me; and, at last, I could perceive her to take pins out of her pocket to prick me if I should touch her again -- which seeing I did forbear, and was glad I did spy her design.
Well done, that resourceful modest maid.
The Restoration, we're all taught, was an age of sexual freedom. Puritanism was over and done with; there were actresses portraying witty, desire-driven characters on the stage; stays and dress styles combined to give one's cleavage the old heave-ho (and breeches did similar things for the male erogenous zones.) The poet's pen, the painter's brush, the engraver's blade and the sculptor's tool all united to celebrate sex. So, loud huzzahs for sexual freedom... right?
What you get from Pepys's diary, however, are a plethora of boastful anecdotes of what would now be called sexual harassment. He talks about handling the breasts of his servant girl; he cops a feel on an actress who's ill and barely conscious in his wife's bed; he gropes strangers in church. He's on fire at the sight of breasts-- but angrily chastises his wife when he perceives her dress to be immodest. If we take Pepys to be a fairly average upper-middle-class Restoration man, then-- well, then we have to concede that Restoration guys were annoying as all fuck.
Anyway, the pins didn't deter Samuel from trying it on with the next girl:
And then I fell to gaze upon another pretty maid in a pew close to me, and she on me; and I did go about to take her by the hand, which she suffered a little and then withdrew. So the sermon ended, and the church broke up, and my amours ended also...
"Amours" must be French for "disgusting strange women with your horndoggery."
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Pepys is missing out on the best part of being cheated on: the guilt gifts. You'd think that, given the amount of extramarital hide-the-smallsword Sam gets up to, he could at least buy his wife something nice, right? But no:
So home... and so called my wife and walked in the garden. She mighty pressing for a new pair of cuffs, which I am against the laying out of money upon yet, which makes her angry. So home to supper and to bed.
Samuel Pepys: tight of fist and fundament, but of breeches mighty loose. Also, a dick.
no subject
And YAY for that clever maid.
If we take Pepys to be a fairly average upper-middle-class Restoration man, then-- well, then we have to concede that Restoration guys were annoying as all fuck.
I think, alas, we probably do. :-/
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
The company being all gone to their homes, I up with Mrs. Pierce to Knipp, who was in bed; and we waked her, and there I handled her breasts
(24th January 1666/67)
So not only does he pop up to grope and harass the poor ill actress but he takes along a friend's wife to watch.
no subject
...also, using the pepysdiary.com search function to search for rude words is way more amusing than it should be.
no subject
I also love it when he uses cod-Spanish in a sad attempt to mask the dirty bits:
February 9, 1668: Lord's Day. Up, and at my chamber all the morning and in the office, doing business and also reading a little of L'escholle des Filles, which is a mighty lewd book, but yet not amiss for a sober man once to read over to inform himself in the villainy of the world....[later that afternoon] I to my chamber, where I did read through L'escholle de Filles a lewd book, but what doth me no wrong to read for information sake but it did hazer my prick para stand all the while, and una vez to decharge; and after I had done [the book], I burned it, that it might not be among my books to my shame; and so at night to supper and then to bed.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
My joy in this made me send for wine, and thither come her sister and Mrs. Cragg, and I staid a good while there. But here happened the best instance of a woman’s falseness in the world, that her sister Doll, who went for a bottle of wine, did come home all blubbering and swearing against one Captain Vandener, a Dutchman of the Rhenish Wine House, that pulled her into a stable by the Dog tavern, and there did tumble her and toss her, calling him all the rogues and toads in the world, when she knows that elle hath suffered me to do any thing with her a hundred times.
So just because Doll's been his lover, by choice, she has no right to complain of rape! She's 'false' because she is distressed: WTF?
Kind of also infers that Sam would consider it ok to have non-consensual sex with any lass who he knew to already have taken lovers, and that's _really_ not a good thought (although arguably a judgement on women that persisted long after the Restoration).
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject