Turkish fantasies: Sex, violence and tourism in the 18th century

• Main Author: Paweł T. Dobrowolski
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology Polish Academy of Sciences 2020-10-01
• Series: Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej
• Subjects: Frederick Calvert lord Baltimore; libertines; Turkey; rape; harem; Grand Tour
• Online Access: https://journals.iaepan.pl/khkm/article/view/2487

Sophia Watson’s Memoirs of the Seraglio (1768) was a libel pamphlet against Frederick Calvert lord Baltimore published during the media turmoil caused by a rape case filed by Sarah Woodcock, an abducted London milliner. Watson, one of the sex slaves kept by this millionaire aristocrat, wrapped her story in Ottoman imagery, evoking a number of contemporary associations related to the 18th-century vogue for the Oriental. Britain’s relations with Turkey were shaped by the early diplomatic recognition of London’s presence, by economic exchange — though in the 18th century it stagnated — and by a growing cultural interest sparkled by the letters of Mary Wortley Montagu, the wife of a former British ambassador. Her letters, published after her death in 1762, served to inform the educated public about women’s “own” space in Ottoman society, namely the harem, which ignited particular curiosity and speculation among male travellers. Watson’s libel fed on the clichés of male domination, and referred to her own experience among Baltimore’s sexual slaves kept in his London house. It run parallel to the court case against the aristocrat, which was made public by the press. The heir to the Maryland colony and one of the richest Englishmen of his time, Baltimore was a sex tourist with a particular taste for the Oriental. His own reflections on Turkey, penned down in his Grand-Tour-like report published in 1767, project — despite the author’s silence about his behaviour in Istambul — a sense of fascination with images of the harem and male domination stimulated by his health condition and weakness for opium. His sexual inclinations situate him in an Orient-inspired libertine Enlightenment community.