from Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure

JOHN CLELAND

Fanny, as many of you know, is not what you want to name your daughter. In American slang, it means butt, in English, pussy (making the American fanny pack a rather laughable entity —“Ooh, honey, I really need a good fanny pack!”). That it can mean the backside on one bank of the Atlantic and the front side on the other is one of those vagaries of language that gives me no end of pleasure (like cleave meaning either “to cling or to separate,” or egregious meaning “esteemed” until 1700 or so, and “horrible” thereafter). According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first use of “fanny” as something other than a name was in 1879, as a reference to the female genitals. I think it was probably far earlier. The most famous book of English erotica, John Cleland’s Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, was published in 1748, and my suspicion is that the book’s name (after its fictional protagonist) was a sly joke on the mons veneris (though it is possible, of course, that the slang emerged as a result of the book, even if the OED has no evidence of this happening).

Whether its title is a play on the grassy knoll or not, the oft-banned Fanny Hill is a rollicking read. A quarter millennium has passed since its penning, and its language now seems both quaint and charming, but Cleland’s masterpiece still makes one wonder: is erotica getting any better? The sizable chunk excerpted here will allow you to decide for yourselves.

I was then lying at length upon that very couch . . . in an undress which was with all the art of negligence flowing loose . . . On the other hand, he stood at a little distance, that gave me a full view of a fine featur’d, shapely, healthy country lad, breathing the sweets of fresh blooming youth . . .

I bid him come towards me and give me his letter, at the same time throwing down, carelessly, a book I had in my hands. He colour’d, and came within reach of delivering me the letter, which he held out, aukwardly enough, for me to take, with his eyes riveted on my bosom . . .

I, smiling in his face, took the letter, and immediately catching gently hold of his shirt sleeve, drew him towards me . . . for surely his extreme bashfulness, and utter inexperience, call’d for, at least, all the advances to encourage him . . . carrying his hand to my breasts, I prest it tenderly to them . . . at this, the boy’s eyes began to lighten with all the fires of inflam’d nature, and his cheeks flush’d with a deep scarlet . . . his looks, his emotion, sufficiently satisfy’d me that my train had taken, and that I had no disappointment to fear.

My lips, which I threw in his way, so as that he could not escape kissing them, fix’d, fired, and embolden’d him: and now, glancing my eyes towards that part of his dress which cover’d the essential object of enjoyment, I plainly discover’d the swell and commotion there; and as I was now too far advanc’d to stop in so fair a way . . . I stole my hand upon his thighs, down one of which I could both see and feel a stiff hard body, confin’d by his breeches, that my fingers could discover no end to. Curious then, and eager to unfold so alarming a mystery, playing . . . with his buttons, . . . those of his waistband and fore-flap flew open at a touch, when out It started . . . I saw, with wonder and surprise, what? not the play-thing of a boy, not the weapon of a man, but a maypole of so enormous a standard, that had proportions been observ’d, it must have belong’d to a young giant . . . It stood an object of terror and delight.

But what was yet more surprising, the owner of this natural curiosity . . . was hitherto an absolute stranger, in practice at least, to the use of all that manhood he was so nobly stock’d with; and it now fell to my lot to stand this first trial of it, if I could resolve to run the risks of its disproportion to that tender part of me, which such an oversiz’d machine was very fit to lay in ruins.

. . . the young fellow, overheated with the present objects, and too high mettled to be longer curb’d in by that modesty and awe which had hitherto restrain’d him, ventur’d . . . under my petticoats . . . and seizes, gently, the centerspot of his ardours. Oh then! the fiery touch of his fingers determines me, and my fears melting away before the growing intolerable heat, my thighs disclose of themselves, and yield all liberty to his hand: and now, a favourable movement giving my petticoats a toss, the avenue lay too fair, too open to be miss’d. He is now upon me; I had placed myself with a jet under him, as commodious and open as possible to his attempts, which were untoward enough, for his machine, meeting with no inlet, bore and batter’d stiffly against me in random pushes . . . till, burning with impatience from its irritating touches, I guided gently, with my hand, this furious engine to where my young novice was now to be taught his first lesson of pleasure. Thus he nick’d, at length, the warm and insufficient orifice; but he was made to find no breach practicable, and mine, tho’ so often enter’d, was still far from wide enough to take him easily in.

By my direction . . . a favourable motion from me met his timely thrust, by which the lips of it, strenuously dilated, gave away to his thus assisted impetuosity, so that we might both feel that he had gain’d a lodgment. Pursuing then his point, he soon, by violent, and, to me, most painful piercing thrusts, wedges himself at length so far in, as to be now tolerably secure of his entrance: here he stuck, and I now felt such a mixture of pleasure and pain, as there is no giving a definition of . . . The sense of pain however prevailing . . . made me cry out gently: “Oh! my dear you hurt me!” This was enough to check the tender respectful boy even in his mid-career . . .

But I was, myself, far from being pleas’d with his having too much regarded my tender exclaims . . . I first gave the youth a re-encouraging kiss . . . and soon replac’d myself in a posture to receive, at all risks, the renew’d invasion, which he did not delay an instant . . . Pain’d, however, as I was, with efforts of gaining a complete admission, which he was so regardful as to manage by gentle degrees, I took care not to complain . . . the soft strait passage gradually loosens, yields, and stretch’d to its utmost bearing, by the stiff, thick, indriven engine, . . . let him in about half way, when all the most nervous activity he now exerted, to further his penetration, gain’d him not an inch of his purpose: for, whilst he hesitated there, the crisis of pleasure overtook him, and the close compressure of the warm surrounding fold drew from him the extatic gush, even before mine was ready to meet it . . .

I expected then, but without wishing it, that he would draw, but was pleasantly disappointed: for he was not to be let off so . . . As soon, then, as he had made a short pause, waking, as it were, out of the trance of pleasure, he still kept his post . . . till his stiffness . . . who had not once unsheath’d, he proceeded afresh to cleave and open to himself an entire entry into me . . . made easy to him by the balsamic injection with which he had just plentifully moisten’d the whole internals of the passage . . . And now, with conspiring nature, and my industry, strong to aid him, he pierces, penetrates, and at length, winning his way inch by inch, gets entirely in, and finally a mighty thrust sheathes it up to the guard . . . Thus I lay gasping, panting under him, till his broken breathings, faltering accents, eyes twinkling with humid fires, lunges more furious, and an increased stiffness, gave me to hail the approaches of the second period: it came . . . and the sweet youth, overpower’d with the extasy, died away in my arms, melting in a flood that shot in genial warmth into the innermost recesses of my body; every conduit of which, dedicated to that pleasure, was on flow to mix with it.