TW: rape, incest, grooming, underage, voyeurism, nunsploitation
I was intrigued by the controversial material without realising just HOW controversial it would be and wish I’d read reviews and done more research beforehand. I found reading this to be quite uncomfortable. I picked up up as I was curious about the pornographic novels written in the 19th century and accounts seem to vary on whether this one was published in 1866 or in the 1890s. It is quite shocking.
Very much a male fantasy porn novel with graphic scenes that are rape fantasies with the women involved fighting and struggling before eventually submitting. Rather than condemning the acts of rape, the author chooses to make the women seem like they asked for it and wanted it. I regret reading it now.
The loose plot is that an aristocratic family is at risk and the father has already fled from France to England, whereas the mother and her 17 year old son have been forced to hide in a nunnery ran by the mother’s sister. Of course, young men are not allowed to stay at the nunnery so the lad is disguised as a woman. Then basically he has sex with as many women as he can - his aunt included and is tutored by a lascivious monk (Father to him in more ways than one) - the young nuns and the monk also tell bawdy stories of their past exploits to add more variations to the porn on offer)
It’s a short novella of 155 pages and very little plot or character development but lots of sex so if you are looking for something that is essentially a crude Victorian porno this might be your thing but while it opened my eyes to pornography in the Victorian period, it definitely wasn’t my thing.