"He didn't resist temptation. He pursued it": The Libertine Culture

Apart from Johnny Depp being deliciously hot, I love the film the libertine. As historical romps go, it is historically quite factual but what gets me the most is how the film captures the beginning of this type of English culture. Libertarianism.

The libertine culture arose from the reassertion of the "one-sex" theory of sexuality caused by the formation of the materialist ideas that emerged with the enlightenment. These materialist ideas were based on the belief that the only thing proven to exist was matter (resulting in spiritually nonexistent discourse) and therefore sex became, as Erasmus Darwin penned: "the purest source of human felicity, the cordial drop in the otherwise vapid cup of life". The "one-sex" theory in the 18th century was based on these materialist ideas and also the humoral model, which believed men and women were anatomically the same.

The "one-sex" theory promulgated that both men and women were to enjoy sex. They both had the same genitalia according to the humoral model; the male genitalia, due to their dry and hot nature, had descended unlike women's, who were cold and wet and remained inverted. It was for this reason that women were supposed to crave sex with the men to obtain the male's semen because their imperfect organs were unable to produce it. Women were also supposed to enjoy sex because otherwise they would not be able to conceive a child.

Eighteenth century thinkers came to consider the pursuit of pleasure a human obligation. The senses were the primary mediators between the individual and the world, which compelled individuals to avoid pain and to pursue pleasure, which came to license sexual indulgence. The tagline to the film The Libertine, based on the dissolute life of John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester a notorious rake and poet, was : "He didn't resist temptation. He pursued it". This is interesting. I know that the film is about a man and therefore "He" is a suitable prenoun to use in this tagline. However, I think it also shows, perhaps accidentally, the underlying hypocrisy and gendering of the libertine culture. In theory, based upon the "one-sex" model, men and women are to both equally enjoy sex because they were fundamentally the same. But was this the case? Did all women enjoy this freedom? Or were they called, as they had been for years before a whore or harlot?

Marriage was a mode of business and was not based on the later Romantic ideal of marrying for love. The wife could consider herself free after producing an heir to choose and enjoy other sexual partners, but until the heir was born the wife was under her husband duress. If the husband misbehaved however, it was usually tolerated. This double standard remained a constant throughout the centuries and was not removed fully in this era. Women were still bound to their maternal obligation and materialist libertinism failed to overcome this pillar of patriarchy. It was acceptable for men to keep mistresses and to recognise their bastard children, as men's promiscuity was seen less harmful than women's. The "natural" discourse that had dominated the Enlightenment (eg. Locke and his discussion on the state of nature) both liberated and incarcerated women. It allowed them to enjoy sex but the woman's biological role as a mother was considered a sacred duty and hemmed her back into the her separate sphere of the home.

Yet among many of the female elites there was a brutal frankness and indifference to the religious taboos that had held sway under Charles I's reign and earlier. In Restoration England until the late 18th century elite women rivaled men in their sexual activities, as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu criticises: female adultery was "esteemed a fashionable vice than a crime".

She was not the only one to criticise. Another lady remarks that there was a group of ladies "who would have all been affronted, had you supposed there had been a grain of conjugal fidelity among them"!! This shows that not all practiced this sexual libertinism themselves and many distanced themselves from it, but they unreservedly accepted it as a matter of course. It is notable, however, that these remarks come from the 18th century. Now, libertinism seems to be grating against the English culture, particularly the one to emerge in the late 18th century: Evangelicalism.

The Enlightenment world was still patriarchal. The film The Libertine is particularly good at showing the relationships between men and women in the Restoration era. John Wilmot/Rochester is in control of many of his relationships. His wife panders to his needs unable to do anything about his drinking, sexual conduct and his sharp wit, which got him expelled from Charles II's court for a time. His wife knows what is going on when he is in London but cannot stop him from going there, neither does she have a lover or a sexual life outside of him. London is seen as the centre of vice and folly, and indeed many ways it was with its numerous taverns and brothels. Rochester with his mistresses also demonstrates his complete control over them. "You're not falling in love with me, are you?" He asks. She shakes her head and gives some pithy reply but the audience knows that she is smitten! She dare not say otherwise or she will lose him. In the end however, the woman he truly loves has complete control of him. Love conquers all, I suppose. Regardless of this, she manages to refuse to let him control her whilst he teaches her the art of acting, she doesn't tell him she has a child as she provides her own way, and she makes her own way. However, she is different from Rochester's wife. She had to provide a heir. It was her duty and it was her social status as an elite that hindered her. Arguably she was almost more moral than Rochester's acting mistress. Still, overall the male was in control.

The film The Duchess continues the theme of this licentious sexual behaviour but in the 18th century. The husband here is also in control. He treats her appallingly, but she takes her lovers after this. She is both the neglected wife and the mistress. This film too is based on a real life person, one Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire in the 1790s who lived in a real life menage a trois with her husband who had taken her close companion Lady Elizabeth Foster, as his mistress. She in turn took a lover, an up and coming political figure for the Whig party. Together, her and her husband, his mistress and her lover caused so much gossip.

Determined to be a player in the wider affairs typically male, she proved that she could out-gamble out-drink and outwit most of the aristocratic men. She helped usher in sweeping changes to England as a leader of the forward-thinking Whig Party. Her power and popularity grew.
But when she tried to be true to herself and loyal to her duties she found herself pushed to the brink of risking banishment by her husband, family and all of London society when her controversies and convoluted association creep up on her. Even she had restrictions upon her life. This libertinism seems a fallacy. Was it really a libertarian society at all?

John Wilmot/Rochester ends up dying a most grusome death from syphilis, a reminder of his naughty ways in life. It hardly shows libertinism as liberating in the end. John Wilmot is a character tortured by his own nature and ways. Of course, films aren't the way to judge how it actually was, but they do popularise history and shows the basic facts.

Essentially these are good watches and have a genuine historical basis. I love it! Libertinism is a complicated matter in this time...

Tune in next time folks to hear about the 'change' from libertinism to Evangelicalism and the "moral panics"!