Tipping the Velvet

Tipping the Velvet explores different expressions of sexuality and gender in late-19th-century Britain. The 19th century is foundational for contemporary ideas of sexuality and gender expression. German sexologists coined the terms “homosexuality” and “heterosexuality” in the 1870s. In England, sexuality and gender expression were the subject of legislation and moralization, including laws in the 1890s that criminalized sex between men. Britain is also notorious for exporting anti-gay and anti-transgender biases to many other places in the world through colony penal codes. As a result, Victorian England is often viewed as sexually prudish and conservative. This common misconception doesn’t match all the available evidence. The novel explores often-forgotten history that suggests sexuality and gender were freer and more diverse in Victorian England than believed. Tipping the Velvet offers a nuanced version of sexuality and gender, showing that class and location in Britain affected how non-normative forms of gender expression and sexuality could be expressed.

Victorian law restricted sex acts and gender expressions outside of cisgender and heteronormative standards; current ideas about normative gender expression and sexuality are often traced back to Victorian England. Sodomy (any sexual act that does not involve vaginal penetration with a penis) remained a criminal offense in England until the 1960s, when sodomy was decriminalized. Oscar Wilde’s (1854-1900) 1895 sodomy trial is the most infamous example. The author of The Importance of Being Earnest and The Portrait of Dorian Gray sued the Marquess of Queensberry for defamation after he accused Wilde publicly of being a “somdomite.” The Marquess’s son Lord Alfred Douglas was reputed to be Wilde’s lover. After a disastrous defamation trial, Wilde went on trial for sodomy.

The barristers used a line from Lord Alfred Douglas’s poem “Two Loves” as evidence of Wilde’s crimes: “I am the love that dare not speak its name” (Douglas, Lord Alfred. “Two Loves.” Poets.org, Line 74). This line has taken on an afterlife of its own, referring to same-sex attraction throughout the 19th century since. Wilde had numerous lovers before his trial; his sexuality was by no means a secret. This activity would have been nearly impossible, considering Wilde’s celebrity, if claims about widespread repression of gender expression and sexuality were universally true. The extent of repression was never absolute, and LGBTQ+ identities and expressions often found a way to thrive despite legality.

While male same-sex acts were criminalized, same-sex acts between women were not. Women were often left out of the law entirely concerning LGBTQ+ identity except where clothing was concerned. Tipping the Velvet explores this gap in the laws surrounding sexuality and gender. The novel demonstrates that Victorian ideas about repression and censorship were challenged by the working and lower classes. Victorian ideas about normative sexuality and gender appear most widespread in the middle classes, who gained immense social power in the 19th century due to the Industrial Revolution. The lower classes and upper classes did not adhere to middle-class norms. As Nan and Florence discover in Tipping the Velvet, what was considered acceptable sexuality and gender expressions deviated in working-class and socialist environments—Wilde was a notable socialist of his time.