Sappho's Poetic, Aesthetic Influence on Sidney (15.10)

Below is the script for Season 15, episode 10 of my Philosophy Fluency podcast. 

You can listen to this episode here.

🎧 

Hello and welcome to the last episode of this Season 15 of Philosophy Fluency. Over cinnamon and cream coffees today, I shall extend my recent theme of lesbian Ancient Greek women writers into the relevance of and explicit references to Sappho in the Early Modern period, with a focus on Sir Philip Sidney. In this episode 10, I shall discuss a well researched and excellently argued paper which fills this very gap in scholarship: titled: 'Sidney's Sapphics and the Role of Interpretive Communities' authored by Julie Crawford in the journal ELH, Vol. 69, No. 4 (Winter, 2002)¹. 

Although Crawford doesn't mention Margaret Cavendish at all in this paper, I argue that the availability and usage of Sappho's works in the 16th century, and especially the presence of Sappho in Sidney's works, shows that, via Sidney and perhaps other 16th century sources, Cavendish must have been familiar with both Sappho and Early Modern Sapphic allusions. Therefore, it is plausible that Cavendish has Sapphic, and generally gender and sexuality themes, in her works, both from drawing inspiration from Sappho herself, as well as from Sidney's literary example of how to appeal to women readers through Sapphic content. As I've said in previous episodes, given that Sidney was a key source of inspiration for Cavaliers, this makes his usage of Sappho and lesbian, genderqueer scenes particularly pertinent. 

Here's the main points in Crawford's article that I found especially fascinating and relevant to Margaret Cavendish: 

One of Crawford's main arguments is that sexist and homophobic and lesbophobic attitudes in scholarship means that even where there is clear textual evidence of queer desire, it is ignored, dismissed, downplayed or misconstrued. Hence her main thesis is that Sidney was not only basing his poetic technique on Sappho, he was also knowingly emphasizing gender and sexuality ambiguities and queerness and deliberately highlighting them to his readers, particularly the select, trusted women in his milieu who avidly read and critiqued his manuscripts before publication. Which briefly brings me to an important feminist point that Crawford makes: it is often assumed that women were left out of literary readings and critiques because researchers overemphasize those who were involved with the printed copies of works. However, poets such as Sidney were in fact heavily reliant on how their female readers assessed manuscripts of their work, especially during the time of Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Henrietta Maria. 

Another biased argument in academia and society is that lesbians have always been either invisible or denigrated in literature and history until perhaps very recently. Nevertheless, Crawford shows with her strong argumentation, close textual analysis and background historical information that if we take Sidney's Arcadia, we see this is not true. 

Briefly, an example she gives is that the woman who is wooed and seduced by the Sapphic poetic allusions of a person she believes to be a woman, is responding positively, sexually and desiringly to this lesbian vibe, and not merely appreciating it in a literary way. Moreover, Crawford refutes those who claim that Sidney and writers in the Early Modern period did not intend to depict homoerotic and lesbian desire, and that they simply didn't know the full implications of what they were writing. She argues that this simply is not plausible at all. For instance, there are passages in which Sidney directly addresses his female readers and draws their attention to the Sapphic content. This was not exactly a taboo literary activity, given that writers and poets even presented Queen Elizabeth I with their creative works which included clear Sapphic content, so there was nothing especially socially hidden about such lesbian allusions. Indeed, in his Arcadia, Crawford interprets Sidney as paralleling gay and lesbian desires with those of heterosexuals.

Furthermore, Crawford informs us that Sidney was familiar with Henri Estienne (sometimes known by his scholarly name Henricus Stephanus), a scholar of the Classical period and a printer of books. Estienne published volumes of books on Ancient Greek literature, within which he included Sappho and other gay writers, and dedicated them to Sidney. And in turn, Sidney, like other writers in his era, used his books when working on Ancient Greek literature and used his editions for his creative use of Sappho's poetry in his Arcadia. In this way, because Sidney included distinctive Sapphic poetics during his synthesizing of Ancient Literature with English Literature, Sappho entered the national English Literary tradition. So it's worth bearing in mind that Sappho is not stuck within the field of Classics, she's also integral to the long-standing British literary tradition. 

I also maintain that it's informative and revealing to interpret Margaret Cavendish's play The Convent of Pleasure in light of the cross-dressing lesbianism and the ambiguities and fluidity of gender and sexuality in Sidney's Arcadia. Crawford demonstrates to us how to read such Early Modern texts from the historically accurate perspective of people who lived in those times, rather than through the biased, often homophobic contemporary lens. 

For instance, contrary to what TERFS would have us believe today, the Early Modern writer, audience and reader would consider cross-dressing, genderqueer behaviour, changing pronouns to fit the character's gender change as well as the resulting gay and lesbian innuendos and plot, to be erotic, exciting and fascinating. It was also not considered an insult to women, quite the contrary, such genderqueer and lesbian themes were intentionally placed there to gain the approval of women readers. 

Crawford points to crucial textual evidence to support her positive reading, such as when Sidney, through the narrator, tells his 'fair ladies' that the heroic  Pyrocles is referred to by female pronouns when he presents as a woman, simply because that's his wish. 

In addition, when he is cross-dressed and wooing her with Sappho's poetics, this was traditionally seen in that era as a compliment to women and a show of thraldom, certainly not a show of supremacy and subjugation of women. Or as Crawford conveys this romantic, genderqueer, lesbian gesture of servitude, and I quote:

"When  Pyrocles crossdresses as the Amazon Cleophila, he sets himself up not only as a servant to love but as a servant to women."²

So I suggest that we should read Cavendish's The Convent of Pleasure in keeping with these historically accurate readings. For instance, it does not seem at all plausible to interpret the Prince / Princess as a misogynistic actor entering the convent in disguise to deceive women of his/her identity and romantic intentions in order to re-establish patriarchal control of the women-only space. 

This approach, I suggest, even extends to literary motifs such as shepherds wooing women with poetry and entering competitions. Indeed, in Crawford's article we learn that, in the Early Modern period, pastoral themes were used by authors as a cover for politically and socially controversial topics, as Puttenham pointed out in his work of literary criticism: The Arte of English Poesie. 

So I think there are parallels to be drawn between the pastoral scenes where The Princess speaks in poetic verse to woo Lady Happy and pastoral passages in Sidney's Arcadia. 

Do join me for the upcoming Season 16. There isn't a sneak preview on Tuesday 17th of March as I take my customary research week off after a Season. Nevertheless, do follow the Philosophy Fluency Instagram and Threads accounts for regular posts and updates. You can also find Philosophy Fluency social media accounts on Facebook and X. 

In the meantime, until the next episode, have a good read of Early Modern literature such as Sidney and Margaret Cavendish in light of Crawford's unbiased, LGBT+ inclusive interpretation and enjoy some Sapphic literary allusions as women in literary groups did in the past. Have a good week! 

¹Crawford, J. (2002). Sidney's Sapphics and the Role of Interpretive Communities. ELH 69(4), 979-1007. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/elh.2002.0032.

²Ibid. p989

Contextualising Cavendish the Cavalier (14.8)

Below is the script for Season 14, episode 8 of my Philosophy Fluency podcast. 

You can listen to this episode here.

🎧 

Hello and welcome to Philosophy Fluency, Season 14 episode 8. During gingerbread mocha coffees today, I shall continue my analysis of Margaret Cavendish, by deepening my discussion of my historical, social, and literary contextualising of her in my research, whilst relating what I'm currently working on to Susan James's three Cavendish talks that I attended this year. 

Last week I was setting out an overview of the generic framework of contextualising Cavendish. This period in history is quite complex and since I'm concerned with only Margaret Cavendish's writings, I'll stay with a relatively simplistic historical overview. 

I mentioned how Queen Henrietta Maria's court heavily influenced the literature that emerged from it and how eminent male writers, such as Davenant, also required approval from the Queen and her circle of women. I also mentioned how 'fancy' was a key concept and tool of the Cavalier writer.

Who is a Cavalier? The word started as an uncomplimentary nickname for wealthy people who were Royalists and believed in the divine right of kings, which, in their day, meant supporting King Charles I and his son, Charles II. I suggest Margaret Cavendish's Royalist views may have influenced her character of the Prince/Princess in her play, The Convent of Pleasure, since the character claims they are wanted as a ruler of a foreign land. Cavaliers would thus assume that this meant the Prince/Princess might have the potential social status of a divine king-like ruler who might only be answerable to God. Given this, it would follow that they can marry the woman of their choosing, irrespective of whether a puritanically pious woman agrees with the marriage or not. 

The ideal Cavalier man combined masculine pursuits, such as knowing how to ride a horse into battle during a war, with being scholarly, especially in the fields of Philosophy, Poetry, and Science. 

So, I suggest, Cavendish is being a typical Cavalier in her writings in not only her subject matters such as war but also in her writing style which drew on poetic techniques together with the scholarly disciplines of natural science and philosophy. She was known to wear a scholars hat so clearly identified as one. 

Furthermore, Cavendish also dressed as a Cavalier, not only when dressing in women's clothes but also when dressing in men's attire. However, her Cavalier allegiances are more obvious when she dresses as a typical male Cavalier because it was a distinctive, visually striking fashion. Hence, I argue, Cavendish was perhaps making a political statement about her Royalist loyalties by choosing to wear men's Cavalier attire specifically, as opposed to men's clothing per se.

I wish to put forward the idea that her Cavalier fashion strongly indicates that this was also part of her identity which is highly relevant to both her style of writing and the content of her works. Therefore, I place Margaret Cavendish and her works within the Cavalier tradition. 

On the opposing side of the Cavaliers were the Roundheads, a political group who were Parliamentarians and anti-monarchy. Therefore, they wanted Parliament to be the main source of power, rather than the Monarch. Most Roundheads also belonged to the Puritans, which was a religious ideology, who wished to impose a strict Christian morality; opposed the monarchy on religious grounds and tried to ensure that all semblance of Catholicism be stripped away. This was unfortunate since the queen, Henrietta Maria, the wife of Charles I, was a Catholic. 

Oliver Cromwell was the leader of both the Roundheads and Puritans. And it was he who replaced the king, Charles I, becoming Lord Protector of the land.

What was distinctive about Cavalier writers? Cavalier writers were usually referred to as Cavalier Poets, even if they didn't exclusively write poetry. They weren't simply Cavaliers who happened to write. There was an entire style and approach that they mostly had in common so they formed a somewhat cohesive group but with many individual differences within it.

The hallmarks of their writings include: the glorification of honour (a favourite topic of Cavendish); the value of fancy and fantasy (which is a theme in Cavendish); being flamboyant (which Cavendish certainly was); valuing and praising pleasure and advocating being the best version of yourself (which reminds me of how the women in Cavendish's play want to become their best selves and live their best life by entering the Convent of Pleasure). 

Cavalier writers used more direct language so it was easier for readers to understand their meaning. This was sometimes denigrated as sounding somewhat uneducated, despite their class. So I wonder whether Cavendish isn't merely talking like a Cavalier when she seems to excuse her uneducated style of writing. 

It's easy to take this too literally these days and jump to conclusions that she's referring to her level of educational attainment and that of Early Modern women.

How elaborate or scholarly a reader finds the style is also relative to the era of the reader. For a Cavalier, a mixture of almost uneducated simplicity together with the use of beautiful poetic devices struck the right scholarly, social and political balance, especially if it was written in such a way that it avoided sounding like the style and values of the Parliamentarian Roundheads, the Puritans or the Metaphysical Poets such as John Donne.

A word of caution here: Don't get confused by the word metaphysical here. These poets were far more religious and spiritual than the Cavaliers and their idea of philosophy conformed to it, hence they favoured topics such as, free will, the existence of God and so on. The Cavalier poets, however, favoured secular subjects and earthly, not transcendent, pleasures.

Thus, when I refer to the way Cavendish has a somewhat ornate style of writing, I'm not referring to the way in which the Metaphysical Poets could be ornate. Theirs was ornate in a more transcendent, artificial, religious way, whereas the Cavaliers were ornate in a more flamboyant, Royalist style, like a beautiful palace, and preferred references to the natural world and romantic love. 

Unlike the Roundheads, the Cavaliers did have a few women writers, so Margaret Cavendish was not the only one. Others included Aphra Behn and Katherine Phillips who both wrote plays and poems, amongst other forms of writing. 

Do join me next week for more Philosophy Fluency which will be a continuation of contextualising Margaret Cavendish's writings. Meanwhile, have a good week and take care.

Contextualising Cavendish (14.7)

Below is the script for Season 14, episode 7 of my Philosophy Fluency podcast. 

You can listen to this episode here.

🎧 

Hello and welcome to Philosophy Fluency, Season 14 episode 7. On Wednesday, 19th of November, I attended the Symposium ‘Exercises in Early Modern Thought: Philosophy, Arts, Science, Theology, Politics’ at the MFO in Oxford, where Professor Emerita Susan James presented an excellent paper which stems from her longer paper that she presented at the 'Cavendish on Literature' 3 day conference at Southampton University in June this year which, as you all know, I also attended. 

So, over caramel coffees today, I shall resume my discussion of Margaret Cavendish, but by springing off from Susan James's three Cavendish talks that I attended this year. 

Therefore, although I have further ideas to explore about Cavendish's play 'The Convent of Pleasure', I shall nonetheless share with you another aspect of my research on Cavendish that I've been working on for a long time, that is: The historical and literary context of, and environment within which Cavendish worked and how it sheds light on her writings and perspective. 

Immediately after attending the Cavendish on Literature conference in June this year, I was inspired by Susan James's talk to research more closely how the historical and the literary contexts are intertwined and mutually supportive and how and why it's useful to look at both when gaining an understanding of Cavendish's various writing styles and books. 

Just like with Spinoza, Susan James and I ended up with our research on him being like two sides of the same coin: We've both taken a contextual approach: She situated Spinoza within the context of the Dutch society, politics, religion and intellectual debates around him; I situated him within the context of being a Dutch Jew with a Portuguese Jewish background, therefore I focused on his Jewish identity, the Jewish education he received at his Dutch synagogue and the Jewish people and Rabbis around him within his Jewish community. 

In much the same way, we seem to be taking two sides of the same coin again, as we contextualise Margaret Cavendish within her historical era and the environment she lived in. For both of us, this includes the backdrop of the English Civil war, during which the royal family and their court were forced into exile. Susan James saw the relevance to the English Civil war during the paper she gave on January the 27th this year titled: “Margaret Cavendish and the Unavoidability of War”. 

We also both look at some influential poets who moved within royal circles, namely Davenant and Philip Sidney with a view to understanding and contextualising Cavendish within her intellectual environment. 

However, because Susan James is responding to the themes set out by the Cavendish on Literature conference, she has expanded on Cavendish's views on writing, as well as the relevance of the context and impact of the literary criticism of others, hence she includes the literary criticisms of George Puttenham (1529–1590), and Philip Sidney (1554 –1586) who wrote critical essays. This is especially apparent in the conference description which asks: 

"How do Cavendish’s claims about literature relate to those of her contemporaries, such as Philip Sidney, Ben Johnson or William Davenant, or to ancient views in circulation in the early modern era."¹

My focus, however, is not on literary criticism but rather on the literary circles that Margaret Cavendish moved in. Since I didn't submit an abstract for the Cavendish on Literature conference's call for papers, I can simply build on my previous research thoughts and add to them as I respond to the latest Cavendish scholarship. I, therefore, outline where my interpretation of Cavendish is situated within the Cavendish research papers presented at talks I've attended this year. 

For instance, this means that I have chosen to add in women's history and women's literature more explicitly as I contextualise Cavendish in my research. This includes the context of the achievements of historical women during the English Civil war and their relevance to Cavendish's views on gender and war. 

I also expand out to look at the sister of Philip Sidney: Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, who left a legacy for other women writers like herself to follow in her footsteps; together with Philip and Mary Sidney's trailblazing niece, Mary Wroth, who was a bold and inventive poet and writer much like Margaret Cavendish herself. 

When it comes to the literary figures of Philip Sidney, Davenant and so on, I'm narrowing down their relevance to the Royalist Cavalier literary movement together with a general awareness of the historical, political and literary context of that movement, such as, the Renaissance, Jacobean and Baroque eras. The early baroque period started in the early 17th century but morphed into the Late baroque period, which is often referred to as the Rococo period, in the early 18th century. But strict demarcations are not always helpful. 

There's always somewhat an overlap between eras.

And so it proves to be in this case which is why I also draw parallels between the light-hearted, witty, entertaining style of the Cavaliers and the lighter, more playful, ornamental style of the Rococo period that follows it. I politically and aesthetically contrast the Cavalier literary and social movement with their opposition: the Puritans, who had a distinctively moralising, stark style, partly due to their aversion to ornamental rhetoric, such as the type used during the Renaissance. The Puritans objected to Royal power for religious reasons so tried to panic people into what they deemed a moral life. 

Early modern Puritans clashed with the attitudes of the Cavaliers in ways relevant to Cavendish, for instance, by being against pleasure, even to the extent of seeing normal public entertainment, such as putting on a play at the theatre, as encouraging vice. Whereas Cavaliers, in their writings, emphasized pleasure and living a flamboyant life.

So, whilst not being bound by the agenda set by these conferences I nonetheless build on them. I'm extending my research into a deeper understanding of the historical context of the royal court of Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I, who went into exile, to France, during the English Civil War when the monarchy was overthrown and Oliver Cromwell ruled in its stead. 

The Puritans were the dominant force in England at this time hence I think this is an important political, cultural, aesthetic debate and clash within Cavendish's environment within which she writes her works. Cavendish, of course, was not a Puritan as I've shown when discussing her play 'The Convent of Pleasure'. So the title of her play is also telling. The word 'pleasure' aligns with the Cavalier writings which, as I have already mentioned, emphasized pleasure.

As maid of honour to the queen Cavendish moved in royal circles. Therefore, I maintain her greatest influence was the inner royal circle around Henrietta Maria, although, unlike Cavendish, Queen Henrietta Maria was a Catholic. The queen and the women in her inner circle set the standard for literary works. This didn't just affect women writers but men too, such as, Davenant. So, I suggest that Cavendish, being scarcely out of her teens at this point, would have been greatly influenced by, and maybe even intimidated by, this group of women literary critics within the royal court of Henrietta Maria.

Hence, Susan James and I perhaps have slightly different, although not incompatible, purposes for discussing the same literary people such as Davenant: hers is from the point of exploring literary criticisms which may underpin Cavendish's writing style, choices and so on; mine is to explore the Royalist Cavalier environment and social milieu within which Cavendish created her works. 

For me, this extends to my research question I have set myself: Should we also contextualise Cavendish's works and writing style within the context of the debate surrounding her that argued for and against the value of what was termed 'fancy' when trying to attain knowledge in science and natural philosophy? 

For example, in 1668, the Royal Society criticised the use of imaginative fancy because it argued that it was inferior to, and a barrier to, the sciences, which, they claimed, should be rooted in empirical observation only. 

Margaret Cavendish, in turn, was critical of the Royal Society and its narrow attitude. She argued that imagination or imaginative fancy was similar to thought experiments and scientific hypotheses and reason superior to experimental method and equipment.

On Cavendish's view it would be more scholarly and erudite to draw on poetic devices and ornate rhetoric such as was found in the classical period. She disliked the Royal Society's stark, simplistic style, possibly because for her it was reminiscent of the Puritans.

Do join me very soon for more Philosophy Fluency. Meanwhile, have a good week. At least the weather will be warmer.

¹Margaret Cavendish on Literature Conference, Southampton, UK, 10-12 June: Call for Abstracts. Held at: Avenue Campus, University of Southampton

https://margaretcavendishsociety1.wordpress.com/tag/earlymodernwomen/

Cavendish on Witchcraft (Season 14.6)

Below is the script for the Halloween special on Margaret Cavendish's writings, published as episode 5 of Season 14 for my Philosophy Fluency podcast. 

You can listen to this episode here.

🎧 

Hello and welcome to Philosophy Fluency's Halloween themed episode 6 of Season 14. Did you all hear the storm in London, UK this evening, on Halloween?! That wasn't forecast but if you are the superstitious type, it was so bad, you'd think the witches were out in force for Halloween! 

So to comfort ourselves on this cold, wet, windy, thunderstorm night let's all enjoy some pumpkin spiced coffees with chocolate covered slimy witch marshmallows on top. 

I've prepared about 4 versions of this episode, but at the last minute I've decided to go with the Halloween theme by saying a few words about the relevance of witchcraft and superstition to Margaret Cavendish's philosophy. It's not some wacky topic I've just thought up. It's a thing. You can read more about it in scholarship, such as Jacqueline Broad's 2007 paper: 'Margaret Cavendish and Joseph Glanvill: science, religion, and witchcraft' published in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A; and Stewart Duncan's 'Cavendish on the Supernatural' written for the Oxford Handbook of Margaret Cavendish. 

There's also some interesting general knowledge articles freely available on the internet that explain the historical context of the persecution and suffering of ordinary women falsely accused of witchcraft. I'll share some of these sources on the Philosophy Fluency Facebook page for ease of reference. 

Margaret Cavendish mainly analyses the topic of witchcraft in her work: Philosophical Letters, in which she details her natural philosophy. Cavendish was ahead of time in arguing that witches were not some bizarre, dangerous, supernatural women and she's absolutely right. Witches were just innocent women falsely accused and persecuted by religious people and the patriarchy. 

In England this persecution was at its height during Cavendish's lifetime, especially during the puritanical era. 

Cavendish wrote how normal women were even put to death, simply due to the false accusation of witchcraft. As a scientist and materialist, Cavendish thought witchcraft was merely the product of people's superstitious tendencies. It's important to remember that she doesn't believe in immaterial things, hence she even argues for a material, natural soul, as opposed to a supernatural, divine soul. Cavendish's explanation for the fear and superstition surrounding so-called witchcraft was that it arises whenever there's a failure in understanding a cause. So ignorance about causation generates superstitious, false beliefs. 

To give you a flavour of the original wording and arguments in Cavendish's Philosophical Letters, I'll read the opening section of Letter XVI: 

 "MADAM,

MY opinion of Witches and Witchcraft, (of whose Power and strange effects your Author is pleased to relate many stories) in brief, is this; My Sense and Reason doth inform me, that there is Natural Witchcraft, as I may call it, which is Sym∣pathy, Antipathy, Magnetisme, and the like, which are made by the sensitive and rational motions between several Creatures, as by Imagination, Fancy, Love, Aversion, and many the like; but these Motions, be∣ing sometimes unusual and strange to us, we not know∣ing their causes, (For what Creature knows all moti∣ons in Nature, and their ways.) do stand amazed at their working power; and by reason we cannot assign any Natural cause for them, are apt to ascribe their effects to the Devil; but that there should be any such devillish Witchcraft, which is made by a Covenant and Agreement with the Devil, by whose power Men do enchaunt or bewitch other Creatures, I cannot readily believe. Certainly, I dare say, that many a good, old honest woman hath been condemned innocently, and suffered death wrongfully, by the sentence of some foolish and cruel Judges, meerly upon this suspition of Witchcraft, when as really there hath been no such thing; for many things are done by slights or juggling Arts, wherein neither the Devil nor Witches are Actors."¹

So, as we see here, Cavendish, like Spinoza, is against superstitious mental habits and patterns of thinking as a lazy, unscientific way of filling in gaps in our knowledge. I've only begun researching this aspect of Cavendish's philosophy so I'll expand on this at a later date. Do join me next time for more Philosophy Fluency. Have a fun Halloween and weekend. 

Cavendish, Margaret 'Philosophical letters, or, Modest reflections upon some opinions in natural philosophy maintained by several famous and learned authors of this age, expressed by way of letters / by the thrice noble, illustrious, and excellent princess the Lady Marchioness of Newcastle.' 1664, 

published in London, available at:

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A53058.0001.001/1:6.3.16?rgn=div3&view=fulltext 

Lady Happy's Sexual Orientation (Season 14.5 Part 2)

Below is the script for Season 14, episode 5 of my Philosophy Fluency podcast. 

You can listen to this episode here.

🎧 

Hello and welcome to Philosophy Fluency Season 14 episode 5. This week has been rather rainy and stormy here in London, UK, so let's settle in and make ourselves comfy on the sofa with our large mugs of warming gingerbread coffees as I continue my research thoughts on the possible sexual orientation of the character of Lady Happy in Margaret Cavendish's play The Convent of Pleasure. 

Last week I covered several possible sexual orientations for Lady Happy: Lesbian; Sapphic; Plurisexual; Pansexual; Omnisexual; Polysexual; Berrisexual (otherwise known as Laurian). 

In this episode, I'll cover various lesser-known sexual orientations that describe a preference for people whose gender is outside the sex binary. 

1) Lady Happy could be specifically attracted to only non-binary people and women. This sexual orientation has been referred to as Neptunic since 2017. This means that someone whose sexuality is Neptunic is attracted to all genders with the exception of cis men and man-aligned or even just highly masculine-aligned non-binary people. 

Why use such an obscure, detailed term? Well, it helps people express and communicate their sexual orientation using language that isn't restricted by binary words, concepts and definitions. So these lesser spotted terms and ever growing list of detailed options helps, everyone, whether cis, genderfluid, non-binary and or trans people to describe how they feel about their sexual and or romantic orientation using a language constructed outside binary linguistic conventions. 

Language matters. Without it it's difficult to express yourself and indeed understand yourself and others. Language grows with the times. If it doesn't it's no longer a spoken, living language. Latin being the obvious example.

Another term that I think predated Neptunic but means more or less the same thing is the sexual orientation termed Nomasexual, which specifies having an attraction to all genders other than binary cis men. When I say all genders, examples listed are: "women, non-binary individuals, masculine aligned non-binary individuals, feminine aligned non-binary individuals, unaligned non-binary individuals, agender individuals, etc.". A lovely alternative term for this description of sexual orientation is Freyic, which was apparently inspired by the Nordic goddess of love, Freyja. So that's a rather romantic name for this orientation. 

Interestingly for the Convent of Pleasure, in which the Princess prays to the god of War, Mars, who falls in love with the goddess of love, Venus, the goddess Freyja not only symbolises love, sex, beauty and fertility, but she's also a strong woman of war, who, I believe, acted as a commander during battles. So I think Freyja is a rather apt goddess for Cavendish scholarship since Cavendish combines references to love and war quite prolifically across her writings. 

(If you are wondering what the opposite of Neptunic is, it's a sexual orientation termed Uranic which describes people who are attracted to non-binary people and men, irrespective of their own gender identity for instance, whether they are otherwise seemingly gay men or heterosexual women or non-binary.) 

Or 2) Lady Happy could be especially or only attracted to non-binary people, irrespective of whether they are classified biologically as male, female or intersex. This sexual orientation is termed Saturnic (a spelling based on the planet Saturn). Hence she could become more attracted to the Princess than any of the other cis lesbians and cis bi+ women in the Convent of Pleasure. 

Or 3) Lady Happy's sexuality could be Androgynosexual, and androgyneromantic, which specifically refers to only having an attraction to people who have a combined masculine and feminine appearance, irrespective of that person's gender identity, although they're usually non-binary. If Lady Happy had this sexual orientation, she may be more attracted to the Prince / Princess precisely because he / she is a wonderful blend of both genders in their somewhat androgynous appearance. This is similar but not entirely identical to transromantic attraction, which is a romantic preference for people who have either an ambiguous or variant gender identity. 

Or lastly, 4) Lady Happy could have a skoliosexual sexual orientation, which means she is specifically and especially (sexually) attracted to non-binary people; intersex people; and genderqueer people. Which could explain why the Prince / Princess and Lady Happy are such a good match and happy together, and why the mediator struggles to understand their attraction from her sexist, binary perspective. 

This may sound all very contemporary rather than 17th century, and oh goodness me, do we really need all these different words to describe people's attraction to others? Well, yes we do. It's not that we've suddenly invented all these different attractions. They've existed all the time we just haven't had the vocabulary to describe it all. Language runs behind what already exists in the world. And that's the purpose of language: to help us to understand experience more precisely and be able to express it and describe it verbally. It helps people to understand themselves and others and it furthers knowledge about gender and sexual attraction, both of which is rather fundamental to people's identity and sense of self, which in turn is part of wellness. 

Only Fascists, and others with an extremist ideology, seem to have a problem with gender and sexuality outside heterosexual, cisgender binary concepts, as we saw in Hitler's Germany, when Nazis destroyed the Institute for Sexual Research in Berlin, which didn't just focus on their pioneering work on understanding the spectrum of transpeople, but also fought against heterocentricism and mistaken notions that it's abnormal to be bisexual or gay and lesbian. 

It's unbelievable that Hirschfeld's arguments and scientific studies were more advanced than we are now and that we're letting illogical far-right ideology to drag us back to an horrific bygone era despite us now having sufficient education and social awareness to know better and not repeat the mistakes of the past. 

Do join me next week for more Philosophy Fluency. Meanwhile, have a good weekend, spreading joy and love. 

References/Bibliography:

Cavendish, Margaret 'The Convent of Pleasure', 1668, available at: 

https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/newcastle/convent/convent.html 

What Is Lady Happy's Sexual Orientation? (Season 14.4, Part 1)

Below is the script for Season 14, episode 4 of my Philosophy Fluency podcast. 

You can listen to this episode here.

🎧 

Hello and welcome to Philosophy Fluency, Season 14, episode 4. Let's sip our pumpkin spiced lattes as we continue this season and slip into more autumnal weather. 

In this episode, I shall further the lesbian topic in last week's episode by exploring and discussing the sexuality of the character of Lady Happy in Margaret Cavendish's play published in 1668, titled: The Convent of Pleasure. 

1) Was Lady Happy a lesbian? If so, what type of lesbian? 

The relevance being, that this analysis helps us to respond to criticisms along the lines of whether the Princess ‘tricked’ the lesbian Lady Happy into a heterosexual relationship because the Princess must have mislead her into thinking she's a biological woman wanting a typical lesbian relationship with her. 

Let's unpick this type of criticism. 

Firstly, this assumes that Lady Happy is a Gold Star Lesbian (in other words, has no sexual or romantic attraction to biological men) and that she's also the type of Gold Star who is only attracted to biological women who identify as cis. However, this may not be the case. There are other options. 

For instance, Lady Happy could be what I call an Inclusive Lesbian, in other words, she's attracted to women of all genders, such as various types of non-binary women; trans women; and intersex women. This is quite common in the lesbian community and can include gold star lesbians. An example of a lesbian couple in which one of the lesbians is intersex, is the athlete Caster Semenya. She is what people in Cavendish's early modern era would refer to as a hermaphrodite because she has both male and female biological characteristics although these days we no longer use that term and the medical profession now classifies her as intersex, although she herself doesn't wish to be called intersex. 

Assigned female at birth, Caster was brought up as a girl and calls herself just 'a different woman' and identifies as a lesbian. She's in a very happy and affectionate lesbian marriage to her wife Violet Raseboya, since their traditional African wedding and civil wedding, and they have two young children together. 

An example of a non-binary lesbian couple, I believe, is the trans non-binary potter AJ Simpson who uses the pronouns they/them and their partner they're engaged to, Celda, a jewellery designer and maker who flies the rainbow flag (but not the trans flag for herself) on Instagram and uses both she and they pronouns, which probably tells us that Celda is perhaps a Demi-cis non-binary woman. 

Exclusionary lesbians who claim the meaning of lesbian is a cis biological woman being only attracted to fellow cis biological women are actually very rare in the lesbian community, despite what TERFS claim.  

2) Was Lady Happy Sapphic? Women who identify as a woman or who are woman-aligned in their gender identity may describe their attraction to another woman or woman-aligned person as sapphic. Unlike the term lesbian, sapphic is a very broad umbrella term that incorporates lesbians, bisexuals, pansexuals, and other sexualities. 

The term Sapphic can also be used by non-binary people who are sexually and romantically attracted to women. 

3) Or, Lady Happy need not be a lesbian or sapphic, simply because she is not attracted to men, especially cis men and perhaps also male-aligned non-binary people. 

The unscientific binary ideology confuses people into thinking that just because someone is not attracted to cis men, it follows they are monosexual, in other words, only attracted to one sex or gender. This is not so. 

People can be plurisexual without being attracted to the so-called opposite sex because there's a mirad of non-binary gender shades that exist outside of the binary sex ideology that influence sexual attraction.

The most well-known examples today of sexualities that encompass people and attraction outside the binary are pansexual (attraction to all genders irrespective of the gender); then a few lesser known sexualities such as polysexual (attraction to many but not all genders, and involving feeling a specific attraction to those genders, not irrespective of the person's gender identity and expression). And so on.

So 4) it's not out of the question that Lady Happy is plurisexual, for instance, pansexual, hence her attraction to the Princess transcends gender so she's no less attracted to the Princess after the gender reveal than before and still wants to have a wedding, whether society labels them a prince or a princess. Lady Happy could therefore be attracted to the person not the gender. Perhaps Lady Happy is the original pansexual! 

Or 5) Lady Happy could be omnisexual, meaning that she is actively attracted to all genders, not irrespective of the gender, as is the case with pansexuals. Perhaps she simply doesn't want to marry a man because heterosexual marriage is a patriarchal institution, and being a woman in a heterosexual marriage would seriously disadvantage her and severely restrict her in a patriarchal society. 

We still live in this oppressive patriarchal, heteronormative society. A very up to date example is the appalling response to Cherry Vann, a lesbian who just this year has become the new Archbishop of Wales, making her the first woman and first LGBTQ+ cleric to become an archbishop in Britain and she's the first lesbian to be an archbishop on the international stage. However, despite this seeming inclusiveness and progress, suddenly, the bishops in Britain stop the debate concerning the blessing same sex couples. 

Or 6) Lady Happy could be polysexual, so she could be attracted to many genders, just not cis men. Then she wouldn't mind whether the Prince/Princess is a woman, a trans woman, an intersex person, non-binary or even masculine-aligned person, so long as they're not a cis man. Thus, as long as the Princess is not a cis man, then she is still attracted to the Princess / Prince. 

Or 7) Lady Happy could be what's now known as Berrisexual or Laurian. This specifies that although the person has an attraction to all genders, as pansexuals and omnisexuals do, the difference is that their attraction levels are not equally strong across all these genders. They find they are very rarely attracted to cis men and masculine-aligned people (who are usually mildly trans or masculine leaning non-binary women). 

There's a lot of definitions to balance this week so I'll leave you to think about all the various ways of understanding who Lady Happy is and how this shines a light on the play and Cavendish's complex portrayal of the central character. After all, it's Lady Happy that starts the Convent in the first place for women who wanted to be outside the patriarchal system. So she's not someone who buys into the gender binary and the misogyny that comes with it as exemplified in the mediator who puts a 'spanner in the works' driving the plot from start to finish.

Do join me next week for more Philosophy Fluency. Meanwhile, have a good week spreading empathy and love.

*A further strong possibility I have explored shortly after this podcast episode is whether Lady Happy's sexuality fits the description of Finsexual, which refers to an attraction to femininity, regardless of the feminine person's biological sex or gender identity. Hence, this spans an attraction to cis women; trans women; non-binary people whose gender expression is feminine; effeminate men. 

References/Bibliography:

Cavendish, Margaret 'The Convent of Pleasure', 1668, available at: 

https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/newcastle/convent/convent.html 

(Part 11, Season 14): Intersex in the Ancient World

Below is the script for Season 14, episode 2 of my Philosophy Fluency podcast. 

You can listen to this episode here.

🎧 

Hello and welcome to Philosophy Fluency, episode 2 of Season 14. Over cinnamon coffees today, I'll be discussing some fascinating parallels between ancient historical sources, and the plot in Cavendish's play, The Convent of Pleasure. I shall flesh out my interpretation by comparing, contrasting and philosophising about these historical sources. It may be worth pointing out that even if an example isn't necessarily verified as historical, stories still can be relevant. They show that people were aware of things in the past even if they had no personal experience of them.

As promised in my previous episode, I'll discuss the god:

-known to the Ancient Romans as Hermaphroditus;

-otherwise known as Hermaphroditos to the Ancient Greeks. 

Ancient Greeks also referred to the god Aphrodite (as a feminine god) or Aphroditus (as a masculine god), who is sometimes depicted as visibly intersex. Sometimes the names Hermaphroditus and Aphroditus are used interchangeably, but should not be confused with other gods, such as Hermaphroditus' parents, Aphrodite and Hermes, whose names were put together to create the name for their child, Hermaphroditos. 

I mentioned in a previous episode last season, that the Medieval Jewish thinker, Maimonides, mentioned that pagans would crossdress to match the gender of the god they were worshipping. Further to this, it's important to be aware of the fact that people cross dressed for worship in the Classical world too, so Cavendish may have based the petticoat scene in The Convent of Pleasure on Classical times as well, since Ancient Greek and Latin sources were highly popular in her era. It's even more plausible that Cavendish could have come across these sources in one way or another, including through academic conversation.

Briefly put, McDaniel tells us that, and I quote:

"the Roman antiquarian Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius, who lived in around the early fifth century CE, in his Saturnalia 3.8.2 records that men made sacrifices to Aphroditos wearing women’s clothing and women made sacrifices to him wearing men’s clothing".¹

This was to honour the intersex nature of their hermaphrodite god, and I quote: 

"Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty, was usually considered female, but, in the city of Amathos on the island of Kypros, she was worshipped in a male form under the masculine name Aphroditos. In Greek art, Aphroditos is typically portrayed as an androgynous figure; he wears a kind of dress that the Greeks traditionally regarded as feminine, but yet he is lifting up the dress to show" his manly features. "In some depictions, he is also shown with a beard to further emphasize his male aspect."²

Moreover, we can be quite sure that Cavendish had heard of Hermaphroditus because she wrote about how much she admired Ovid and wanted to be a famous writer like him. So it's highly likely that she encountered the story about how Hermaphroditus became intersex. 

The stories of sex ambiguity don't stop at the god Hermaphroditus in Ovid's Metamorphosis either. Ovid also includes the Ancient Greek and Roman myth of Iphis and Ianthe, in which Iphis was born a female, but needed to be brought up identifying as a boy so that her father would let her stay in the family. However, on falling in love with a woman she wants to marry, she prays to the god Luno and then Isis, who transforms her into a man in a dramatic, earth shattering temple scene, so Iphis can have a valid wedding ceremony and be betrothed to her fiancée. And indeed they do marry.³ 

For some scholars, this raises the question about Roman attitudes about lesbian marriages compared to heterosexual marriages.⁴

This reminds me of Cavendish scholars who ask whether 17th century audiences would find the happy ending marriage in The Convent of Pleasure more plausible after one of the lesbians in the couple is deemed to be a man. 

I think such plots function as a social commentary and criticism: why is it that, in societies that don't have gay marriage, the same two people who are in love with each other are allowed to marry or not allowed to marry, simply because of their gender identity, nothing to do with how much they love each other. When you see the political and social situation mapped onto the identical couple, it brings out the absurdity of it, for me. It shows people don't value love which could be why today we see so much hate around. Love is not seen as an important basis for marriage, it's merely about social control, especially the control of women.

Worse still, this is so restrictively within the gender binary, it can exclude clearly intersex individuals, such as Barbin, the famous 19th century intersex person that the French Philosopher Michel Foucault discussed and published about. There are many different interesting scholarly interpretations surrounding the life of Barbin,  although I personally agree with Foucault that Barbin's real life story does teach us a great deal about the political and social abuse of power to control even intersex people into false, binary biological sex categories. 

Nevertheless, for my present purposes of analysing Cavendish's play The Convent of Pleasure, I'll briefly highlight the brilliant French film made in 1985 and directed by René Féretin, depicting Barbin's life, titled Mystère Alexina, translated as The Mystery of Alexina in English. 

In that film, the issue is raised whether Barbin had hoped that she could marry the woman she was in love with, Sara, if she could legally change her gender to male, on providing evidence she's a sufficiently physically masculine intersex person. However, although in the fictional plot in The Convent of Pleasure, the Princess and Lady Happy do manage to validly marry on the strength that the Princess is a man, despite opposition from some people such as the Mediator, Barbin was not so lucky in love and changing sex, and her life ends tragically. Unlike intersex people in the medieval times, Barbin wasn't allowed to choose her gender once she fell in love as an adult in 19th century France. She learnt the shocking truth that society still wouldn't accept her as a man in a heterosexual relationship with a woman but would rather eradicate her all together as an intersex person. It's a very emotional and moving film, one I recommend you all watch.

This week I've narrowed my focus  to intersex themes and storylines in Greek and Roman mythology that appear in Ovid's Metamorphosis and highlighted their relevance to Margaret Cavendish's plot and characters in her play, The Convent of Pleasure. 

Nevertheless, there are also further stories in the ancient world that include intersex people⁵, such as the story of Heraïs who was included in the book 'Library of History', 32.10.2–9, written by the Ancient Greek historian Diodoros Sikeliotes. Although it seems fantastical that this woman suddenly, naturally physically metamorphosed into a man after a period of not feeling well, without any medical intervention, this is not as unrealistic as it sounds. There is a part of the world today where something similar to this happens: in a community in the  Dominican Republic, there is a type of intersex people there they call Guevedoces. Their body is considered to look female at birth so they are assigned female and raised as girls. But at puberty, they naturally acquire male anatomy. If you look at the details of the Ancient Greek story of Heraïs and compare it to the Guevedoces, there are some striking similarities. So I agree with William Hanson⁶, an American Classicist who argued that mythology is inspired by real life stories and sex metamorphoses stories are based heavily on real life intersex people. 

Do join me next Friday. This season of Philosophy Fluency will be published on Fridays. I'm also publishing the scripts on my Cavendish blog (I've provided a link in this episode's description) which also has my first book on Cavendish available to read there too.

So until next Friday, enjoy your weekend, take care and spread kindness and love.

References:

¹McDaniel, Spencer. August 21st 2020 'Transgender and Intersex People in the Ancient World', ‘Favorinus of Arelate Archives’. Tales of Times Forgotten 21 August 2020. 

https://talesoftimesforgotten.com/tag/favorinus-of-arelate/.

²Ibid

³Ibid

⁴Ibid

⁵Ibid

⁶Ibid

Bibliography: 

🖊️Ovid's Metamorphosis:

📚 Book IV in which the story of Hermaphroditus, especially: 

Bk IV:317-345 Salmacis falls for Hermaphroditus

Bk IV:346-388 Salmacis and Hermaphroditus merge.

‘Metamorphoses (Kline) 4, the Ovid Collection, Univ. of Virginia E-Text Center’. Accessed 19 September 2025. https://ovid.lib.virginia.edu/trans/Metamorph4.htm#478205198.

📚 Book IX

Bk IX:666-713 The birth of Iphis

Bk IX:714-763 Iphis and Ianthe

Bk IX:764-797 Isis transforms Iphis

‘Metamorphoses (Kline) 9, the Ovid Collection, Univ. of Virginia E-Text Center’. Accessed 19 September 2025. https://ovid.lib.virginia.edu/trans/Metamorph9.htm.

🖊️You can access Margaret Cavendish's play: The Convent of Pleasure that I discuss in my Philosophy Fluency episodes from the following online source:

📚Cavendish, Margaret (1668) ‘The Convent of Pleasure.’ Last accessed 12 September 2025. 

https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/newcastle/convent/convent.html

🎥Film: 'Mystère Alexina', 1985

Film production company: Cinéastes Associés, Les and TF1 Films Production

René Féret (Restager, Scenarist, Production manager), Jean Gruault (Scenarist), Anne-Marie Deschamps (Musician), Vuillemin (Actor), Valérie Stroh (Actor), Véronique Silver (Actor)

Part 10 (Season 14): Hermaphrodites in History

Below is the script for the first episode of Season 14 of my Philosophy Fluency podcast. 

You can listen to this episode here.

🎧 

Hello and welcome to the first episode of the brand new Season 14 of Philosophy Fluency. Last season was dedicated to Margaret Cavendish, and I analysed her philosophy of gender, especially within her play: The Convent of Pleasure. In the last couple of episodes, I put forward and described my intersex interpretation of the character of the Princess in this play, based on the historical figure of Queen Christina of Sweden. I also suggested that the character of the mediator was based on Queen Christina's mother who became hysterical after learning that the sex assigned to her baby son was considered a mistake. She couldn't adjust to her son being a daughter, unlike her husband, the father of the baby, Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, who took it in his stride and brought her up more like a boy. 

Over mocha coffees today, I'll expand on my reading of Cavendish's philosophy of gender in her play The Convent of Pleasure. 

So, further to what I've just summarised about my interpretation, I think one strength of my intersex understanding of the Princess character in The Convent of Pleasure is that it answers the potential objection that the LGBT+ identity of the Princess isn't historically fitting because it may require modern day concepts and vocabulary about trans identities. 

This type of objection can range from people who merely value historical accuracy to others who simply hold anti-trans views whilst pretending it's somehow just a unquestionable fact that trans identities are somehow new and only part of a recent trend for so-called 'gender ideology' that didn't exist in past eras, in this case, back in the 17th century. 

Well, in my academic opinion: 

One, people's genuine experiences of their own gender expression and identity are timeless and occur in every century. Like other life experiences and sense of self, it doesn't rely on whether you can learn about it educationally first or what terminology is available to give it a name. 

Expanding our vocabulary about gender and personal experience is just there to assist the clarity and precision of our communication, not to create new concepts and identities that weren't there long before. Language is always lagging way behind people's life experiences, so its main purpose is to  describe what already exists as a non-verbal concept and identity. 

Two, there's both textual and historical evidence in support of my view that people encountered intersex people all the way down the ages, and society was well aware of them. Their clear existence in all historical ages doesn't rely on a sense of an individual's identity and there are biological, physical descriptions (including medical, religious, literary and biographical) which tell us what these intersex people were like and how they were treated in past societies.

The vocabulary around being physically intersex has changed, but the descriptions are still recognisable. It was Richard Goldschmidt, an endocrinologist, who renamed people of indeterminate biological sex as intersex in the 1910s, although this term didn't catch on until around the 1940s¹. Before then, intersex people were more commonly described, for instance: Born as a eunuch; and hermaphrodites. The latter term was used by Margaret Cavendish, for example, in her natural philosophy, but these days, it is now mostly reserved for historical references or only used if the intersex person so wishes. 

For instance, a birth certificate was reissued in 2012 in Ohio, America, for an intersex person, to correct their sex assigned to read that they are 'hermaphrodite', after showing medical proof that they were what's known as a 'true hermaphrodite' when they were born². Interestingly, this case was won in accordance with the binary gender ideology that TERFS and gender critics perpetuate, not despite it. Like good philosophy, it followed their so-called biological argument right through to its logical conclusion: if a ruling in America in 1987 claimed that birth certificates should be "an historical record of the facts as they existed at the time of birth" then if the baby is medically deemed a hermaphrodite at birth, then that should be recorded too.³

To record even a true hermaphrodite at birth as neatly fitting into male or female like other babies is, technically speaking, recording and trying to historically preserve a biologically inaccurate fact. 

A few years later at the end of 2016, Sara Kelly Keenan finally received her reissued birth certificate that changed her sex marker from female to intersex⁴. Like Queen Christina of Sweden, Keenan was considered to be a baby boy for the first few weeks, but this was suddenly reversed and he was given a birth certificate stating that he was a female⁵. Once an adult and given the choice, Keenan felt that their gender is non-binary, so they updated their ID to include this gender too⁶. In this way, in 2016, Keenan achieved both a legally recognised biological sex (ie intersex) and gender (ie non-binary)⁷. So all their official documentation could show that they are outside the gender binary, not just in terms of identity but in terms of biological reality too. 

So if TERFS and gender critics were genuinely interested in biological reality, they'd recognise the biological reality of, and true scientific facts about, intersex people, not shun them, eradicate them and rely on offensive tropes to label them abnormal so not worthy of consideration and rights. They remove them from the debate because they're inconvenient for their binary arguments and ideology. That's not only constructing gender binary arguments out of a strawman fallacy, it's also creating a false and dangerous ideology that has perhaps never been so virulent, and prevalent in the world in the past as it is today. 

There's an ever increasing extreme crackdown on any reference to, any acknowledgement, research, and access to knowledge about anything outside the gender binary, even when it's about the variety of intersex people that have been recorded and acknowledged, both in positive and discriminatory ways, all the way down the ages from:

1) Greek mythology, in which there's an intersex god called Hermaphroditus, who gave rise to the term hermaphrodite. Indeed, in The Convent of Pleasure,  the women worship pagan gods from the classical world. As I've discussed previously, in the Petticoat scene the Prince Princess is concerned she's not dressed correctly for worshipping Mars.

The worship of these gods in The Convent of Pleasure could be a nod from Cavendish to the famous Greek god Hermaphroditus. More on that in the following episode, next week. 

2) the skeptic philosopher Favorinus during Ancient Greek times, who was known to have intersex traits during his lifetime and was recorded as being an hermaphrodite in ancient books;

3) to both the Old Testament, the Tanakh in Judaism, such as Isaiah 56, most notably verses 4-7, and New Testaments, such as Matthew 19:12, which are both religiously positive about intersex people; 

4) to Sir, Lord Edward Coke, a 17th century judge who wrote a three volume treatise titled 'Institutes of the Lawes of England' published between 1628 and 1644, so Margaret Cavendish, born in 1623, would be aware of this during her lifetime. So the concept of being intersex was certainly available to Cavendish in her era so she may well have included this in her play, The Convent of Pleasure. 

As an additional point of interest: Sir Coke's legal treatise has underpinned American and English Common Law ever since. It is still cited in contemporary court cases, such as Roe v Wade. So I'm now wondering why this was not factored into this year's UK Supreme Court Ruling on biological sex.  It seems to me, that the ruling stating that there are only two biological sexes of male and female contradicts Sir Coke's legal treatise, and therefore also the legal concepts and definitions in English law, which acknowledge the existence of a non-binary sex, that of hermaphrodite and androgynous. For instance, he wrote that an hermaphrodite could inherit as either a male or female. 

and finally, 5) intersex people have been recognised through to the modern day Malta Declaration which lists the human rights of intersex individuals and was set out at the third International Intersex Forum in 2013. 

This is just the tip of the iceberg of my research over the past two weeks. There's plenty more to come.

So do join me next week as I continue my research journey. Until then have a good week and take care.

References: 

¹Genomics, Front Line, and Shannon Gunn. ‘Intersex: When Binary Notions Simply Don’t Fit’. Front Line Genomics, 18 November 2020. 

https://frontlinegenomics.com/intersex-when-binary-notions-simply-dont-fit/.

²NBC News. ‘Nation’s First Known Intersex Birth Certificate Issued in NYC’, 29 December 2016. https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/nation-s-first-known-intersex-birth-certificate-issued-nyc-n701186.

³Ibid

⁴Ibid

⁵Ibid

⁶Ibid

⁷Ibid

You can access Margaret Cavendish's play: The Convent of Pleasure that I discuss in my Philosophy Fluency episodes from the following online source:

Cavendish, Margaret (1668) ‘The Convent of Pleasure.’ Last accessed 12 September 2025. 

https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/newcastle/convent/convent.html

Part 9 (season 13): The Intersex Princess

Below is the script for episode 10, the final episode of Season 13 of my Philosophy Fluency podcast. 

You can listen to this episode here

🎧 

Hello and welcome to the last episode of Season 13 of Philosophy Fluency. Let's enjoy some coffees with rose petals on top, to celebrate and support the England Roses' dominant wins so far during the current Women's Rugby World Cup. Their sporting excellence is paving the way for women and girls in Sport and is another shining example, in addition to the Lionesses women football team, of how sporty English women really are. 

At the end of the previous episode, I put forward my suggestion that the real life Queen Christina is a plausible model for the character of the Princess. There are intriguing parallels between Queen Christina and the Princess:

As I touched upon previously, both:

1) have their biological sex questioned and 'a mistake' is declared, changing their perceived sex to the opposite, whilst a Princess. At birth, when Christina was a Princess, before she became a Queen Regnant, the women who assigned her male later said they'd made a mistake and reassigned her female, apparently to great embarrassment. The mediator uses the same word "mistake" when she says, and I quote from Act V, Scene II: 

"How, never such a Mistake; why we have taken a Man for a Woman." 

2) they both try to escape societal stricture on gender by entering a convent, albeit very different types of convents. Nevertheless, Queen Christina enjoyed more freedoms than most women in her convent.

3) both suffer from genderphobic women having an hysterical fit over the biological sex of Christina and the Princess. In this way, the mediator could be modeled on the narrow-minded and rather sexist women around the baby Princess Christina. Moreover, an even closer match to the hysterical character of the mediator is Christina's mother, Maria Eleonora, whose poor mental health, hysterical behaviour and terrible attitude problem and lack of love for her son turned daughter Christina, was such that her husband, the King of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus, decided it was best she didn't bring her up herself, so that her madness didn't affect the young Christina. 

I suggest that a 17th century reader or audience may recognise the life story of Queen Christina in the plot of The Convent of Pleasure. Furthermore, I think it's plausible that the root cause of the bigotry could be the same between Christina and the Princess. Given that the mother is hysterical and negative about her own daughter after her biological sex reassignment as a baby, so the mediator's hysterical prejudice and attitude problem may also be due to intersexphobia. 

4) both Christina and the Princess are crowned a King: Queen Christina was literally, officially crowned a King during her coronation. The Princess wins the prize of being unofficially crowned King, while Lady Happy is crowned Queen, for being the couple who danced the best at a maypole event. However, the Princess is a Prince and ruler in a foreign country. So in that sense, the Princess can also officially function like a monarch and can rule like a King. 

So I argue that there's at least a strong possibility that the Princess/ Prince is intersex, in which case, Cavendish can leave both the so-called biological sex and the gender identity of this character an eternal mystery, always somewhat ambiguous. This would have the advantage of bringing out the inherent, naturally occuring complexities within both sex and gender. 

5) like Margaret Cavendish herself, Queen Christina and the Princess both feel comfortable wearing full male and full female attire in public and all three of them are on the receiving end of bigotry as a result, both in the 17th century and still today, such as Virginia Woolf in the 20th century who famously made derogatory remarks about Cavendish and universities still in the 21st century have an attitude problem towards Cavendish and scholarship on her, especially Philosophy departments. And that's not just sexism, because not all women philosophers in the past are affected by this prejudice, especially if they're cis, heterosexual, religious Christian women in history. 

Unlike any other scholarly interpretation, my intersex reading would illustrate Cavendish's theme and questions in the play, about the nature of gender: 

Would we really know who is male and female, simply by observing them? 

Are people neatly in the binary categories of male or female by nature or not? 

Although this is clearly a long-standing debate, this is also a very contemporary debate. It involves the topic known as the nature or nurture debate. It asks very modern day questions about whether gender is biologically-based or identity-based, or both. 

Perhaps Cavendish wants the play to end somewhat up in the air. I suggest that Cavendish wants to dispel the gender binary. And she'd be right. Gender isn't clear cut. People are not clearly this or that, which is why the sports world ceased to do sex testing decades ago and why some experts today still insist sex testing is still not always 100% reliable and informative. 

It's amazing to think that Margaret Cavendish had the brains to work this out four centuries ago yet TERFS and so-called gender critics still haven't reached that advanced, nuanced stage of thinking in the 21st century. 

I shall conclude this season on Cavendish now by highlighting that, although The Convent of Pleasure has some serious messages about gender, biological sex, social expectations, genderfluidity and feminism to analyse, this play is nonetheless meant to be light-hearted, witty, and entertaining. 

I shall be taking my usual week off after a season. I need some time for research. I'll be back on Friday 12th September with the next season, Season 14. Until then, enjoy yourselves and take care! 

References:

Cavendish, Margaret 'The Convent of Pleasure', 1668, available at: 

https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/newcastle/convent/convent.html 

Part 8: Discussing Question1: Is there a Gender Reveal scene in Cavendish's Convent of Pleasure?

Below is the script for episode 9, the penultimate episode within Season 13 of my Philosophy Fluency podcast. 

For the reference bibliography of works cited in this episode, see the end of this blog post. 

🎧

Hello and welcome to Philosophy Fluency Season 13 episode 9. We've had a heatwave this past week. I hope everyone's been enjoying their holidays and soaking up some of the beautiful sun. 

Yesterday was International Butch Appreciation Day and in this episode we will be appreciating butches in history especially the 17th century.

I've given you all extra time to think about the questions I invited you to mull over in the previous episode because I doubt you'll be in the mood to listen to philosophy when the weather is so amazing.

What have I been doing? I've been enjoying myself working at my art, experimenting with various styles inspired by art sessions that I've attended. I really enjoy interacting with other artists and seeing their work too. 

So over coffees let's return to last week's episode. I left you with several questions. There are no right or wrong answers to those thought provoking questions. So, over our summer ice coffees today, I'll explore the ideas within those questions and sketch out my approach to unearthing possible answers to them. 

My first question was:

1) is this definitely a big gender reveal scene? 

This depends on who the princess really is? A Princess or a Prince? Of course, these royal titles are very gender binary, there isn't an equivalent word for a non-binary person with this title. Neither does such a title account for anyone who is:

1) Outside the gender binary, such as a genderfluid person, as Cavendish was herself. Such a person could be comfortable with being referred to as both a Prince and a Princess. 

2) Trans women are not men. So if the Princess is a trans woman or a trans feminine woman, then the Princess isn't a man, so the mediator is not revealing anything about the Princess's sense of gender, hence no gender reveal. Either the mediator is merely revealing the sex the princess was assigned at birth; or she's simply being sensationalist and anti-LGBTQIA+, in one way or another. 

3) A butch woman. 'Butch' is a gender expression, that nevertheless spans women of various gender identities and sexualities. Some butches are simply gender expansive cis women (sometimes referred to as gender non-conforming women). It is often assumed that all butch women are lesbians, because the butch lesbian is the best known type of butch, but in reality, they may or may not be lesbian. Other butches are also not trans, but may wish to adopt a more masculine identity, such as wearing men's clothes, using male pronouns, a male name, be called their female partner's husband, and so on. For instance, Mathilde de Morny, (born 1863, died 1944) was a cross-dressing noblewoman who became known as "Missy", which was spelt backwards to create her artist name: Yssim; "Max or Uncle Max", or "Monsieur le Marquis". She was fascinatingly portrayed in the 2018 film Colette, which depicts Missy's lesbian relationship with Colette, in which Missy is seen as being like Colette's husband. 

Colette and Mathilde “Missy” de Morny
 (Photo: public domain) 

Although the term butch lesbian wasn't in existence in the 17th century, Margaret Cavendish's era, I think gender identities and sexualities transcend centuries, because they are simply lived, authentic experiences, whether you have a term to attach to that human experience during your lifetime or not. There were, for instance, women who 'passed' as men during the Early Modern period, some of whom did not just do it for personal gain (such as entering a profession barred to women) but rather felt they were living a more authentic life to present their gender as male and to marry a woman, which they somewhat legally did, under their male name.   

One example of a true life story during the 17th century, who lived during the same time period as Cavendish is a person who was assigned female at birth and was named Catalina de Erauso, who was sent to a convent but refused to lead a religious life and escaped after suffering abuse from the nuns. Catalina adopted a male identity and went by the name Antonio instead, amongst other male names. It's an absolutely amazing life story, that's been turned into stories in popular culture, such as comics, films and historical novels. Scholarship is divided on the gender identity and sexuality of Catalina who became Antonio, who was comfortable with presenting in a very masculine way, identifying as a man and was only attracted to and had relationships with women and even married a few women in South America. Was she simply a woman merely 'passing' as a man to survive? Was she a butch lesbian? Was he a trans man? Again, like with Cavendish scholarship, and Shakespeare scholarship on Ariel, there are a variety of scholarly interpretations, arguments and stances, most of which pointing to plausible supporting evidence. Although I think any attempts to deny that Erauso is of great significance to LGBT+ history is really not plausible. 

Here's a 17th century painting and a commemorative bust of Catalina / Antonio de Erauso, both proving Cavendish right that recording a variety of people in history is extremely important, so we do not skew our historical perception of lifestyle, achievements and which identities existed in the past. Hence people assigned female at birth also need access to fame, military work, being preserved in artworks and books during their lifetime, not just for their own benefit or individual glory, but for our collective historical knowledge too. 

Artist believed to be: Juan van der Hamen, c.1626

Statue in Orizaba, Mexico, 
commemorating
Catalina / Antonio de Erauso,
here referred to as 
la Monja Alférez
(Photo: Public domain: 
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike)

I suggest there's parallels to be drawn here between Antonio and Cavendish's character of the Princess. Not only was Antonio in a convent, sometimes referred to as being trapped in a convent, but she also passed so well as a man, that she encountered her relatives as a man and none of them recognised her as their female relative, Catalina. They all believed it was a man who they didn't know. This shows that Cavendish is right to ask whether people could successfully and believably present as the opposite sex and go on being undetected.  

Moreover, when the ambassador addresses the Prince, is he right or wrong? He may be right in one way, wrong in another. For instance, right because the Prince is in male clothing but wrong in that the Prince may have been born a woman, which the ambassador may or may not know. 

After all, Queen Christina of Sweden was first assigned male at birth, then shortly afterwards his biological sex was questioned, considered a mistake, and he was re-assigned female. Nevertheless, her father didn't take that on board too seriously and brought Christina up to be just as highly educated as a boy with manly pursuits such as fencing. It wasn't just that Christina dressed as a man she pulled it off convincingly complete with manly mannerisms and a male voice. She was described as mannish by those who knew her. Here's a guide on how Queen Christina of Sweden might have dressed in the male attire of her era and class. 

She was known to have little patience with women and their feminine demeanour and their obsession with beauty and fitting in with some ideal of womanhood. Indeed, she had an aversion to heterosexual marriage and the whole world of what women said and did. 

She went on to found an academy for Philosophy and Literature and Cavendish writes a play called The Female Academy. There are distinct parallels here between Queen Christina and the Prince/Princess and Cavendish.

Queen Christina's father considered her a female heir, and she was considered a Queen when she ascended the throne. Nevertheless, she would wear male attire, and the official royal title she received on being coronated in 1633, was King. 

So, picture this: during Cavendish's lifetime in the 17th century, a royal who was considered a woman, and called a Queen, could nevertheless be seen to be in male attire and officially titled King on their ascension to the throne. 

So what made Queen Christina's sex at birth so difficult to determine? Was it as simple as a mere mistake? Was it due to misogynistic stereotypes that meant if she presented with certain gender non-conforming physical and personality characteristics, such as being hairier and a louder screamer, you assumed she must be a he? Or was it the same as these days, that people struggle to confidently assign a sex to babies who are intersex? This may explain why her father was more prepared to give Christina a first class education and training fit for the future King she would become, if perhaps he thought she was not entirely female. Nevertheless, this was rather forward thinking of him. 

Since now, in the 21st century, intersex people's bodily autonomy and human rights are disregarded, trampled on and their existence is often erased. They suffer from the extreme end of genderphobia and human rights violations. 

Queen Christina, wanted to escape heterosexual marriage so escaped to Italy in 1654 dressed as a man using a male name to live in a Catholic convent, despite being non-religious, abandoning the throne of Sweden to her cousin. She generally led an unconventional life for a woman and a royal one at that. Furthermore, Queen Christina was active in theatrical communities and was a patron of the arts. So she's highly relevant to the genre of plays. 

Christina stayed with various people along the way to Italy, visiting various countries such as Denmark, the Dutch Republic, and staying with a Jewish merchant in Antwerp. During her travels she was visited by an ambassador by the name of Pierre Chanut who knew Descartes (d. 1650) who, in turn, had corresponded with Queen Christina and visited her in Sweden. Descartes stayed with Chanut whilst also finishing 'Passions of the Soul' (1649) which he surprisingly dedicated to Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia (not Queen Christina) who also studied Philosophy and Astronomy and may have been tutored by Huygens. So, Elizabeth was the recipient of two treatises on the passions one from Edward Reynolds, the other from Descartes.

Elizabeth of Bohemia, like Queen Christina and the Prince/Princess in Cavendish's play, also entered a convent, a Lutheran one in Hereford, Germany despite being a Calvinist. 

Queen Christina relates to Cavendish's play in two ways:

Firstly, the Prince/Princess would appear to have followed just this path: both called male/female royal titles, and abandoning their position of power in a foreign country to enter a convent. And an ambassador visits him at the convent. There's a rebellion which the Prince/Princess has to squash just as Charles I had to raise an army to squash a rebellion. 

Is this rebellion one that is back in the Prince/Princess's place of origin, or has the transphobic Mediator started a civil war within the convent to push out a royal.

Secondly, it's Lady Happy who founded the Convent of Pleasure to find an alternative to marriage and heterosexuality. The purpose of the convent was not to pray, but to live an enriched female experience with broader horizons and opportunities and overcome restricted gender expectations. 

What's the main relevance to Cavendish's play, 'The Convent of Pleasure'? It's easy to assume at the moment, with all this TERF ideology trying to dominate society and school education, that nobody ever questioned biological sex or gender identity or lived unconventional lives outside the gender binary until only a few years ago, when they decided to blame everything on so-called gender ideology raising awareness and giving people a springboard from which to go on a journey of self-discovery about their personal sense of their own gender and which gender they'd like to live as in society. This contemporary stance is hugely problematic for many reasons, two of which are rather fundamental:

1) It's factually inaccurate. Yes, everybody does have a gender identity, because being cisgender is also a gender identity. Access to information has nothing to do with how people authentically feel within their own skin. If they are genuinely cisgender, then no amount of education about the existence of trans people and the diversity of experiences of gender that others have, will change that inner sense of being cisgender for you. And, if you educate yourself about various examples in history and science, then you know that biology simply isn't as clear cut about biological sex as people like to pretend, so that can never be some substitute for gender identity. 

Indeed, if you are ignorant about gender identity theory, you are more likely to mistake yourself as trans or non-binary when you are not. Learning about gender will merely make you more educated, empathetic, tolerant and knowledgeable about the people you meet and maybe even any children you may bring up, who will tell you what they feel their gender identity and expression is, whether or not you try to misinform them and keep them in a cis-heteronormative bubble. 

2) As we can see by these historical examples and literary examples, including Cavendish's play, questions about the nature of gender identity and expression are nothing new, they are age old. 

Indeed, with all this technology and emphasis on ID these days, it's significantly harder than ever before in history to make any changes to your gender expression and identity. So it would be an uneducated and ignorant stance to assume that these gender topics within Cavendish and elsewhere merely superimpose a contemporary lens onto an historical era where it doesn't belong. Many would say: Surely everything was very gendered and binary in those good old days, so researchers should stop foisting their present day LGBT+ trends onto eras where they don't belong. Well, actually, quite the contrary. History has a lot to teach us about gender and sexuality, and a lot to suprise us with! 

Contrary to social expectations, we will continue to misunderstand historical texts if we remain stuck in our 21st century bigotries and superimpose them on eras which had different priorities from ours and were not always more regressive in every way from modern day western societies. 

Hence, Cavendish did intentionally raise awareness and explore important issues about sex, gender and sexuality, and question societal expectations. She was therefore also right to ask to what extent gender expression and gender identity is 'by nature' or not. It's a more timeless question than one imagines. 

Perhaps Cavendish doesn't want to pin the Princess down to a particular gender or pin down the sexuality of both the Princess and Lady Happy. As the LGBTQ+ motto has always been and I've always believed in: Love is Love. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ So who Lady Happy or the Princess/Prince are is irrelevant. All that is relevant is that they've fallen in love.

However, if you ask me what I think the identity of the Princess/Prince in the Convent of Pleasure is I'd say the character was modelled on the societal intrigue surrounding the apparently ambiguous biological sex and gender identity of Queen Christina.

Do join me soon for the final episode of this Season 13. Enjoy the summer weather, and continue to ponder the questions I raised in the previous episode and this one. 

The script for this episode is already available on my Cavendish blog: The Feminist Margaret Cavendish Circle, so do take a look there, I've included some pictures to bring to life just how masculine these women in history were.