What were the Yahoos missing out on?
August 27, 2010 5:47 AM Subscribe
In Gulliver's Travels, what are the "unnatural appetites in both sexes, so common among us" that the Yahoos lack?
In Part 4, chapter 7 Gulliver seems to be talking about how female Yahoos coyly entice male Yahoos to have sex:
His honour had further observed, “that a female Yahoo would often stand behind a bank or a bush, to gaze on the young males passing by, and then appear, and hide, using many antic gestures and grimaces, at which time it was observed that she had a most offensive smell; and when any of the males advanced, would slowly retire, looking often back, and with a counterfeit show of fear, run off into some convenient place, where she knew the male would follow her.
“At other times, if a female stranger came among them, three or four of her own sex would get about her, and stare, and chatter, and grin, and smell her all over; and then turn off with gestures, that seemed to express contempt and disdain.”
Perhaps my master might refine a little in these speculations, which he had drawn from what he observed himself, or had been told him by others; however, I could not reflect without some amazement, and much sorrow, that the rudiments of lewdness, coquetry, censure, and scandal, should have place by instinct in womankind.
I expected every moment that my master would accuse the Yahoos of those unnatural appetites in both sexes, so common among us. But nature, it seems, has not been so expert a school-mistress; and these politer pleasures are entirely the productions of art and reason on our side of the globe.
I assume the "unnatural appetites" aren't ordinary sex. Would Swift's readers have understood this as a reference to homosexuality or sodomy or something? I'm sure the answer's obvious, but I'm baffled.
In Part 4, chapter 7 Gulliver seems to be talking about how female Yahoos coyly entice male Yahoos to have sex:
His honour had further observed, “that a female Yahoo would often stand behind a bank or a bush, to gaze on the young males passing by, and then appear, and hide, using many antic gestures and grimaces, at which time it was observed that she had a most offensive smell; and when any of the males advanced, would slowly retire, looking often back, and with a counterfeit show of fear, run off into some convenient place, where she knew the male would follow her.
“At other times, if a female stranger came among them, three or four of her own sex would get about her, and stare, and chatter, and grin, and smell her all over; and then turn off with gestures, that seemed to express contempt and disdain.”
Perhaps my master might refine a little in these speculations, which he had drawn from what he observed himself, or had been told him by others; however, I could not reflect without some amazement, and much sorrow, that the rudiments of lewdness, coquetry, censure, and scandal, should have place by instinct in womankind.
I expected every moment that my master would accuse the Yahoos of those unnatural appetites in both sexes, so common among us. But nature, it seems, has not been so expert a school-mistress; and these politer pleasures are entirely the productions of art and reason on our side of the globe.
I assume the "unnatural appetites" aren't ordinary sex. Would Swift's readers have understood this as a reference to homosexuality or sodomy or something? I'm sure the answer's obvious, but I'm baffled.
According to several of my profs. he meant sex. Sex was not supposed to be for pleasure but for procreation. To crave it is an unnatural appetite -- esp. for women of the time.
posted by patheral at 6:10 AM on August 27, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by patheral at 6:10 AM on August 27, 2010 [2 favorites]
The description reminds me of animals where social behavior in general, and mating behavior in particular, can be quite different depending on whether a female is in heat. I interpret the "unnatural appetites" to refer to sex outside of a woman's fertile period.
posted by drlith at 6:20 AM on August 27, 2010
posted by drlith at 6:20 AM on August 27, 2010
Homosexuality, I think. Given the amount of shtupping going on in this little chapter without any other special regard or mention of procreation, I don't think Gulliver is getting picky about it at this point. (Though semantically of course, homosexual sex is a huge subset of sex that is definitely not being done for procreation.) Plus there's the insinuation that you look among those most touched by "art and reason" to find the homos, and that kind of winking indirect jab is far more what GT is about than what—an earnest exploration of what would have seemed like proper mores at the time? Nah, GT is a naughty book.
Note that earlier a bit about how Yahoo females would "admit the males while she was pregnant" goes by Gulliver essentially uncommented upon. So already he's said it's natural that Yahoo women (and therefore we real humans) have sex not-for-procreation. I'm just not seeing this distinction being given a crap about in the text.
posted by fleacircus at 6:33 AM on August 27, 2010
Note that earlier a bit about how Yahoo females would "admit the males while she was pregnant" goes by Gulliver essentially uncommented upon. So already he's said it's natural that Yahoo women (and therefore we real humans) have sex not-for-procreation. I'm just not seeing this distinction being given a crap about in the text.
posted by fleacircus at 6:33 AM on August 27, 2010
(Though I think you could just blur in general kinds of sodomy. I'd go as far as "sexual depravity", which is still pretty much a winking term for homosexuality, but I think it's clearly not talking about not-specifically-procreative promiscuous hetero sex acts as "unnatural appetites".)
posted by fleacircus at 6:36 AM on August 27, 2010
posted by fleacircus at 6:36 AM on August 27, 2010
((And now that I've said "clearly" I'll go sowewhere and kick my own ass. Cheers.))
posted by fleacircus at 6:37 AM on August 27, 2010
posted by fleacircus at 6:37 AM on August 27, 2010
It sounds like ordinary sex to me. I'm not sure he needs to hint at anything more; that would be scandalous enough.
posted by Khalad at 6:46 AM on August 27, 2010
posted by Khalad at 6:46 AM on August 27, 2010
According to several of my profs. he meant sex. Sex was not supposed to be for pleasure but for procreation. To crave it is an unnatural appetite -- esp. for women of the time.
If you extend patheral's answer (above), you arrive at prostitution.
Might that be what is delicately referred to?
It was certainly "so common among us" then and involved the darker appetites of both sexes.
[Wiki refers to Swift's familiarity with this!:
Jonathan Swift's To Betty, the Grisette, gives a rather jaundiced portrayal of the grisette and her intellectual pretensions.[15] Swift's "grisette" (or "grizette" as spelled in early editions of his work) is Irish, not French, and demonstrates that the generic use of the term in English to indicate a woman of loose morals already existed by 1730. Betty is presumed to be a prostitute with whom Swift had consorted in Dublin]
posted by Jody Tresidder at 6:47 AM on August 27, 2010
If you extend patheral's answer (above), you arrive at prostitution.
Might that be what is delicately referred to?
It was certainly "so common among us" then and involved the darker appetites of both sexes.
[Wiki refers to Swift's familiarity with this!:
Jonathan Swift's To Betty, the Grisette, gives a rather jaundiced portrayal of the grisette and her intellectual pretensions.[15] Swift's "grisette" (or "grizette" as spelled in early editions of his work) is Irish, not French, and demonstrates that the generic use of the term in English to indicate a woman of loose morals already existed by 1730. Betty is presumed to be a prostitute with whom Swift had consorted in Dublin]
posted by Jody Tresidder at 6:47 AM on August 27, 2010
I interpret "those unnatural appetites" to refer to the "lewdness, coquetry, censure, and scandal" referenced in the prior paragraph, which describes the behavior illustrated in the first two paragraphs.
posted by BurntHombre at 6:48 AM on August 27, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by BurntHombre at 6:48 AM on August 27, 2010 [1 favorite]
I believe that more than one writer has associated Swift with anal eroticism, so I'm going to go with "general kinds of sodomy".
posted by Joe Beese at 6:52 AM on August 27, 2010
posted by Joe Beese at 6:52 AM on August 27, 2010
I interpret "those unnatural appetites" to refer to the "lewdness, coquetry, censure, and scandal" referenced in the prior paragraph
I thought that might be it too, but the point of the prior paragraphs is to imply that lewdness, etc. are natural, at least in women, and Gulliver is chagrinned to admit this is true. So it would be weird for him to turn right around and call them "unnatural appetites" after he just admitted they were "placed by instinct". So I think the 'those' does not point there.
posted by fleacircus at 7:19 AM on August 27, 2010
I thought that might be it too, but the point of the prior paragraphs is to imply that lewdness, etc. are natural, at least in women, and Gulliver is chagrinned to admit this is true. So it would be weird for him to turn right around and call them "unnatural appetites" after he just admitted they were "placed by instinct". So I think the 'those' does not point there.
posted by fleacircus at 7:19 AM on August 27, 2010
Another vote for homosexuality.
posted by L'Estrange Fruit at 9:01 AM on August 27, 2010
posted by L'Estrange Fruit at 9:01 AM on August 27, 2010
Response by poster: Thanks for all the answers. I'm gonna try to summarize what I've learned from all the comments:
At this point the question of the "offensive smell" becomes relevant. One way or another the narrator implies that sex is quite disgusting (hence the smell is offensive) and yet Yahoos desire it. If the "offensive smell" is correlated with the fertility period, and the men disdain the woman when she's not in heat, then it seems like Yahoos have a natural appetite for sex during the fertility period. So Yahoos are guilty of enjoying sex and not just doing it for rational reasons, i.e. the duty of procreation, but nonetheless they only desire it during the fertility period, and the unnatural appetite is to want sex outside of that period. I think two things speak against this. First, as fleacircus said, Swift points out earlier that Yahoos sometimes had sex with pregnant Yahoos. OK, maybe Swift forget about this or just isn't being consistent. Second, as far as this person knows it's just not true that human females smell different during their fertility period, and I assume Swift knew what he was talking about.
If the "offensive smell" is -- excuse me please for being crude -- the smell of a women getting horny, then the question is why the males sometimes turn away from the woman in disdain. It's not because she's not in the fertile period; it must have something to do with the origin of "censure and scandal". And if Yahoos are guilty of enjoying sex all the time, then the question remains: what are the "unnatural appetites"? And I guess the choices are: oral sex, anal sex, homosexuality, or all of these combined under the heading "sodomy". Now I know that there was some cultural awareness of man-on-man sex (I know this from Rochester), but I wouldn't have expected the 18th century to have any cultural awareness of lesbianism. Yet Swift talks about "those unnatural appetites in both sexes, so common among us."
So, does someone here have crazy historical knowledge of 18th century mores? Could the audience really have understood a reference to homosexuality in both sexes? Or was there any awareness of oral sex at the time?
posted by creasy boy at 9:27 AM on August 27, 2010
At this point the question of the "offensive smell" becomes relevant. One way or another the narrator implies that sex is quite disgusting (hence the smell is offensive) and yet Yahoos desire it. If the "offensive smell" is correlated with the fertility period, and the men disdain the woman when she's not in heat, then it seems like Yahoos have a natural appetite for sex during the fertility period. So Yahoos are guilty of enjoying sex and not just doing it for rational reasons, i.e. the duty of procreation, but nonetheless they only desire it during the fertility period, and the unnatural appetite is to want sex outside of that period. I think two things speak against this. First, as fleacircus said, Swift points out earlier that Yahoos sometimes had sex with pregnant Yahoos. OK, maybe Swift forget about this or just isn't being consistent. Second, as far as this person knows it's just not true that human females smell different during their fertility period, and I assume Swift knew what he was talking about.
If the "offensive smell" is -- excuse me please for being crude -- the smell of a women getting horny, then the question is why the males sometimes turn away from the woman in disdain. It's not because she's not in the fertile period; it must have something to do with the origin of "censure and scandal". And if Yahoos are guilty of enjoying sex all the time, then the question remains: what are the "unnatural appetites"? And I guess the choices are: oral sex, anal sex, homosexuality, or all of these combined under the heading "sodomy". Now I know that there was some cultural awareness of man-on-man sex (I know this from Rochester), but I wouldn't have expected the 18th century to have any cultural awareness of lesbianism. Yet Swift talks about "those unnatural appetites in both sexes, so common among us."
So, does someone here have crazy historical knowledge of 18th century mores? Could the audience really have understood a reference to homosexuality in both sexes? Or was there any awareness of oral sex at the time?
posted by creasy boy at 9:27 AM on August 27, 2010
If you extend patheral's answer (above), you arrive at prostitution.
Might that be what is delicately referred to?
The Yahoos are like the humans in Planet of the Apes-- uncivilized beasts that resemble humans. The Yahoos live on an island populated by Houyhnhnms, which are intelligent horses. Planet of the Apes basically ripped off the entire premise from Gulliver's Travels. In any case, the Yahoos don't have any sort of society or money that would enable the concept of prostitution to exist.
I do think that Swift here means sex or sexual activity writ large. The purpose of the Yahoos in the book is to lampoon human society (they're obsessed with finding pretty stones, despite the fact that they are useless; everything about the Yahoos which Gulliver criticizes is something, like this, that is common to humanity (materialism!), but Gulliver instead prefers to spend time with the cultured and genteel Houyhnhnms, despite the fact that they enslave Yahoos and practice eugenics), and unless Swift is specifically targeting some British hypocrisy regarding homosexuality (which I see little argument for), it makes sense that Gulliver (who is usually the vehicle for Swift's satire) would be disgusted by the Yahoo's normal human sexual urges.
posted by shakespeherian at 10:33 AM on August 27, 2010
Might that be what is delicately referred to?
The Yahoos are like the humans in Planet of the Apes-- uncivilized beasts that resemble humans. The Yahoos live on an island populated by Houyhnhnms, which are intelligent horses. Planet of the Apes basically ripped off the entire premise from Gulliver's Travels. In any case, the Yahoos don't have any sort of society or money that would enable the concept of prostitution to exist.
I do think that Swift here means sex or sexual activity writ large. The purpose of the Yahoos in the book is to lampoon human society (they're obsessed with finding pretty stones, despite the fact that they are useless; everything about the Yahoos which Gulliver criticizes is something, like this, that is common to humanity (materialism!), but Gulliver instead prefers to spend time with the cultured and genteel Houyhnhnms, despite the fact that they enslave Yahoos and practice eugenics), and unless Swift is specifically targeting some British hypocrisy regarding homosexuality (which I see little argument for), it makes sense that Gulliver (who is usually the vehicle for Swift's satire) would be disgusted by the Yahoo's normal human sexual urges.
posted by shakespeherian at 10:33 AM on August 27, 2010
If the "offensive smell" is -- excuse me please for being crude -- the smell of a women getting horny, then the question is why the males sometimes turn away from the woman in disdain.
If you look back at the passage, the "disdain" for the Yahoo female is coming from other females-- so what you have is a scene of female gossip and backbiting, part of the "scandal" Gulliver refers to, not anything complicated involving homosociability and pheromones.
So, does someone here have crazy historical knowledge of 18th century mores? Could the audience really have understood a reference to homosexuality in both sexes? Or was there any awareness of oral sex at the time?
I'm fairly sure there was oral sex being had in the eighteenth century (could be wrong, but IIRC Cleland's Fanny Hill mentions it?) But while the phrase "unnatural appetites" could easily refer to some sort of sexual perversion (and several critics seem to have read it this way), it seems just as likely to be part of the general critical discourse about middle-class luxury, which would have encompassed a variety of "unnatural" and attractive things like imported trinkets and foppish dressing and makeup and gambling and intemperance. The phrase "among both sexes" naturally gets one thinking about sexuality, and it's a 21st-century impulse to want to read everything in as salacious a fashion as possible; but if you look at the top two paragraphs of the extract, Gulliver's criticism is at least as much about corrupt social mores among the leisured classes (coquetry, scandal, etc.) as it is about the sexual act itself, which isn't even really mentioned.
posted by Bardolph at 10:48 AM on August 27, 2010
If you look back at the passage, the "disdain" for the Yahoo female is coming from other females-- so what you have is a scene of female gossip and backbiting, part of the "scandal" Gulliver refers to, not anything complicated involving homosociability and pheromones.
So, does someone here have crazy historical knowledge of 18th century mores? Could the audience really have understood a reference to homosexuality in both sexes? Or was there any awareness of oral sex at the time?
I'm fairly sure there was oral sex being had in the eighteenth century (could be wrong, but IIRC Cleland's Fanny Hill mentions it?) But while the phrase "unnatural appetites" could easily refer to some sort of sexual perversion (and several critics seem to have read it this way), it seems just as likely to be part of the general critical discourse about middle-class luxury, which would have encompassed a variety of "unnatural" and attractive things like imported trinkets and foppish dressing and makeup and gambling and intemperance. The phrase "among both sexes" naturally gets one thinking about sexuality, and it's a 21st-century impulse to want to read everything in as salacious a fashion as possible; but if you look at the top two paragraphs of the extract, Gulliver's criticism is at least as much about corrupt social mores among the leisured classes (coquetry, scandal, etc.) as it is about the sexual act itself, which isn't even really mentioned.
posted by Bardolph at 10:48 AM on August 27, 2010
In any case, the Yahoos don't have any sort of society or money that would enable the concept of prostitution to exist.
I do think that Swift here means sex or sexual activity writ large. The purpose of the Yahoos in the book is to lampoon human society (they're obsessed with finding pretty stones, despite the fact that they are useless...
shakespeherian,
But just from your own comment, the "concept of prostitution" could exist - sex in exchange for the pretty stones you mentioned.
(No doubt I'm barking up the wrong tree & I'm only referring specifically to the quick outline you gave briefly here),
posted by Jody Tresidder at 10:55 AM on August 27, 2010
I do think that Swift here means sex or sexual activity writ large. The purpose of the Yahoos in the book is to lampoon human society (they're obsessed with finding pretty stones, despite the fact that they are useless...
shakespeherian,
But just from your own comment, the "concept of prostitution" could exist - sex in exchange for the pretty stones you mentioned.
(No doubt I'm barking up the wrong tree & I'm only referring specifically to the quick outline you gave briefly here),
posted by Jody Tresidder at 10:55 AM on August 27, 2010
But just from your own comment, the "concept of prostitution" could exist - sex in exchange for the pretty stones you mentioned.
Well, you're right, I suppose that's true, but in any case I wanted to make it clear that the Yahoos in Swift's book aren't Lilliputians or otherwise 'Like people, but fictional!' kinds of characters, but rather dumb beasts in a horse society, because it seemed like some people were answering the question without understanding the context of the book.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:12 AM on August 27, 2010
Well, you're right, I suppose that's true, but in any case I wanted to make it clear that the Yahoos in Swift's book aren't Lilliputians or otherwise 'Like people, but fictional!' kinds of characters, but rather dumb beasts in a horse society, because it seemed like some people were answering the question without understanding the context of the book.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:12 AM on August 27, 2010
Creasy boy,
I don't know if it helps at all, but I've just seen there is a repeat of the "unnatural appetite(s)" phrase you query here -earlier in the same chapter (Ch. 7, Part 4):
"My master said, “he could never discover the reason of this unnatural appetite, or how these stones could be of any use to a Yahoo; but now he believed it might proceed from the same principle of avarice which I had ascribed to mankind."
(It's from the section beginning: “That in some fields of his country there are certain shining stones of several colours, whereof the Yahoos are violently fond...":
posted by Jody Tresidder at 11:13 AM on August 27, 2010
I don't know if it helps at all, but I've just seen there is a repeat of the "unnatural appetite(s)" phrase you query here -earlier in the same chapter (Ch. 7, Part 4):
"My master said, “he could never discover the reason of this unnatural appetite, or how these stones could be of any use to a Yahoo; but now he believed it might proceed from the same principle of avarice which I had ascribed to mankind."
(It's from the section beginning: “That in some fields of his country there are certain shining stones of several colours, whereof the Yahoos are violently fond...":
posted by Jody Tresidder at 11:13 AM on August 27, 2010
Oh, and expanding on that it should be noted that 'his honor' in the quoted portion is the horse that is Gulliver's owner.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:14 AM on August 27, 2010
posted by shakespeherian at 11:14 AM on August 27, 2010
Response by poster: Well, thank you everyone. I'm not sure if I've learned what the unnatural appetites are, but I've learned some other stuff at least.
posted by creasy boy at 6:38 AM on August 28, 2010
posted by creasy boy at 6:38 AM on August 28, 2010
On second read I might go back and agree with BurntHombre.
The 'those unnatural appetites' could be referring to the lewdness, coquetry, censure, and scandal, etc. Gulliver has only said there are 'rudiments' present naturally in womankind, but it would make sense for him to still be referring to the full flowered English pursuit of that kind of thing (flirting, courting, gossip—a modern Gulliver might mention tabloids) as an "unnatural appetite" and a "politer pleasure", so common among both sexes.
So not the basic acts of who's fucking (or has fucked) whom, but all the edifice built on top of that crude foundation that people get so caught up in, and spend so much energy on.
But since his master doesn't connect to that dot, he concludes that all that gossip/scandal is the product of culture. Take that, Age of Reason!
posted by fleacircus at 7:54 AM on August 28, 2010
The 'those unnatural appetites' could be referring to the lewdness, coquetry, censure, and scandal, etc. Gulliver has only said there are 'rudiments' present naturally in womankind, but it would make sense for him to still be referring to the full flowered English pursuit of that kind of thing (flirting, courting, gossip—a modern Gulliver might mention tabloids) as an "unnatural appetite" and a "politer pleasure", so common among both sexes.
So not the basic acts of who's fucking (or has fucked) whom, but all the edifice built on top of that crude foundation that people get so caught up in, and spend so much energy on.
But since his master doesn't connect to that dot, he concludes that all that gossip/scandal is the product of culture. Take that, Age of Reason!
posted by fleacircus at 7:54 AM on August 28, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by grizzled at 6:06 AM on August 27, 2010