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.

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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