monogamous marriages based on love and faithfulness become increasingly important denouements (though the action usually takes place in the period before marriage). It becomes typical for eighteenth-century amatory writing to go to great lengths to insist upon its moral and didactic purposes. Indeed, as in Defoe and Richardson, the action often stops dead while the author pauses to comment sententiously upon it. After narrating a particularly vivid tale of seduction and abandonment, one of Manley's narrators pauses to point out that the life of the unfortunate heroine after her abandonment was 'one continu'd Scene of Horror, Sorrow, and Repentance'; she finally died 'a true Landmark: to warn all believing Virgins from shipwracking their Honour upon (that dangerous Coast of Rocks) the Vows and pretended
But while moralizing increasingly permeates these texts, the sexual exploits that provoke it are always represented with lingering delight. Indeed, the emphasis on sexuality is perhaps the most noticeable feature of amatory fiction. When in Behn's
He saw her in all the heightning Circumstances of her Charms… her Nightgown hanging loose, discover'd her charming Bosom… her Breasts with an easy Heaving, show'd the Smoothness of her Soul and of her Skin; their Motions were so languishingly soft, that they cou'd not be said to rise and fall, but rather to swell up towards Love, the Heat of which seem'd to melt them down again; some scatter'd jetty Hairs, which hung confus'dly over her Breasts, made her Bosom show like Venus caught in Vulcan's Net, but 'twas the Spectator, not she, was captivated.
In Haywood's Love in Excess, the innocent Melliora begs her guardian Count D'Elmont to leave her bedroom, where he has come uninvited. 'What!' he replies, 'when I have thee thus! Thus naked in my Arms, Trembling, Defenceless, Yeilding, Panting with equal Wishes?' And Manley's unnamed Duke, guardian to the lovely and innocent Charlot, sneaks into her room while she is 'uncovered in a melancholy careless Posture,' and proceeds to rape her:
She was going to rise; but he prevented her, by flying to her Arms, where, as we may call it, he nail'd her down to the Bed with Kisses;… whilst yet her Surprise made her doubtful of his Designs he took Advantage of her Confusion to accomplish 'em; neither her Prayers, Tears, nor Strugglings, could prevent him.
As these examples suggest, amatory novels are not squeamish about sexual matters, and they routinely connect sexuality to voyeurism, exploitation, and violence. Indeed, most critics of amatory fiction accurately mark its connection to today's so-called soft pornography. As in pornography, the language of lust in amatory fiction follows codes of male arousal: sexual excitement is created visually, and bodies, especially female bodies, are routinely fetishized, as in the description of Behn's Maria (who, significantly, is unable to speak) leaning out of her window. There are many scenes like the one in Atalantis between the Duke and Charlot, where predatory men sneak around to gaze on the nearnaked bodies of unsuspecting, supine young women. When Haywood's Count D'Elmont gazes on his ward's vulnerable female body, that body is described in the slow detail typical of amatory fiction, detail obviously meant to arouse the reader as it does the desiring Count.
He beheld the Lovely Melliora in her Bed, and fast asleep, her Head was reclin'd on one of her Arms; a Pillow softer and whiter far than that it lean'd on, the other was stretch'd out, and with it's Extention had thrust down the Bed-Cloths so far, that all the Beauties of her Neck and Breast appear'd to view. He took an inexpressible Pleasure, in gazing on her as she lay. -54-
Sometimes this familiar scene is reversed, and female intruders gaze hungrily at scantily clad men whose bodies seem arranged for consumption. Indeed, such representation of female sexual desire is a hallmark of amatory writing and distinguishes it from canonical realist novels.
The Dutchess softly enter'd that little Chamber of Repose, the Weather violently hot the Umbrelloes were let down from behind the Windows, the Sashes open, and the Jessimine that cover'd 'em blew in with a gentle Fragrancy;… and to compleat the Scene, the young Germanicus in a dress and posture not very decent to describe… newly risen from the Bath, and in a loose Gown… he had thrown himself upon the Bed, pretending to Sleep, with nothing on but his Shirt and Night-Gown, which he had so indecently dispos'd, that slumbring as he appear'd, his whole Person stood confess'd to the Eyes of the Amorous Dutchess. (Manley, New Atalantis.)
But if amatory fiction can be credited with representing female desire, often that desire takes the form of an inversion of masculine appetite as it was constructed by Augustan imaginations. Here the Duchess eyes Germanicus with precisely the sort of appropriating, lascivious gaze that men normally use on women in amatory fiction. But her looking becomes an unconscious parody of the controlling, sexual gaze of male characters rather than a challenge to it. The reader is invited to snicker along with Germanicus, who is not really the unwitting object of the Duchess's gaze at all (as Melliora really is for Count D'Elmont in Love in Excess). On the contrary, he is secretly awake throughout the scene, and has staged his own «seduction» in league with his male friend Fortunatus, the Duchess's sated lover, who waits to burst in and accuse the Duchess of infidelity. Furthermore, the Duchess thinks that the man she is gazing on is Fortunatus, with whom she had arranged a rendezvous. At a crucial moment in their lovemaking when she might have clearly seen Germanicus's face, she closes her eyes in ecstasy, and so 'her own Desires help'd the Deceit.' While on the surface it recognizes the Duchess's desire, the Germanicus episode in fact denies it most emphatically by suggesting that female desire is at best only a somewhat comic, easily manipulated and collusive version of male desire. Male desire remains the primary agent in the scene: men still define and dictate sexuality, and women are still denied authentic, alternative sexual desire. The Duchess de l'Inconstant is a pawn in the familiar game of male sexual control as surely as if she were herself reclining on the bed. -55-
Behn's Miranda, far more in control when she turns her boldly sexual gaze on a handsome young priest, is perhaps a more promising representation of female desire.
She gaz'd upon him, while he bow'd before her, and waited for her Charity, till she perceiv'd the lovely Friar to blush, and cast his Eyes to the Ground… At last she… gave him a Pistole; but with so much Deliberation and Leisure, as easily betray'd the Satisfaction she took in looking on him. (The Fair Jilt)
But here too, female desire is undercut in the act of being imagined. To show a woman wanting a man, Behn reverses traditional positions and roles, making Miranda the aggressor and the priest the shrinking object of lust, but keeping intact the assumption that desire manifests itself as mastery. After staring the priest down, Miranda goes on to replicate the typical actions of a man bent on sexual conquest: she dreams of the young friar naked in bed, then tricks him into a private interview (in the confessional, no less) where she addresses him in the codified language of the male seducer: she calls him her 'cruel Charmer,' begs for his 'Pity,' and holds him by his clothes when he attempts to flee. Angered at the priest's resistance, Miranda even issues the ultimate threat a man could make to a woman in Augustan times: 'I will either force you to abandon that dull Dissimulation, or you shall die, to prove your Sanctity real… I will ruin thee, [and] take away your Life and Honour.' As the scene lurches toward its parodic climax, Behn reverses every cliché of female and male sexual roles:
The trembling young Man… demanded what she would have him do? When she reply'd-… Come to my Arms, my trembling, longing Arms… At these Words she rose from his Feet, and snatching him in her Arms, he could not defend himself from receiving a thousand Kisses from the lovely Mouth of the charming Wanton.
'I own your Power,' the still-resisting priest gasps. His ordeal ends when Miranda, unable actually to rape him, accuses him of rape instead. The other priests, hurrying to rescue her, 'found Miranda and the good Father very indecently struggling; which they mis-interpreted, as Miranda desir'd.' The hapless young priest is arrested and
