Fifteen hundred, but only one rape

Rhoda Koenig

MY SECRET LIFE: I, II AND III by 'Walter' Arrow, £9.99 each, pp. 2003 The covers of My Secret Life may be adorned with languid post-coital nudes, but what lies beneath is a world away from other racy paperbacks. Written more than a century ago, it has not been openly published in full until now, and not only because of its Victorian length: its un- Victorian frankness remained so shocking that, in 1969, its would-be publisher was sentenced to two years' imprisonment and a £20,000 fine for obscenity. My Secret Life is still shocking — but not simply for its erotic content. It is less a book about two sexes than two nations, the ones we inhabit to this day.

My Secret Life was first made known to the public — at least, the literary section of it — in Steven Marcus's The Other Victori- ans (1966). Privately printed from 1901 through the Twenties and sent, plainly wrapped, to gentlemen bibliophiles at their clubs, it is the diary of 'Walter,' a well-to- do Englishman who minutely recorded his estimated 1500 encounters, most of them with lower-class women, of whom most were prostitutes. Given the availability of streetwalkers, brothels, and houses of assig- nation in central London, this is not an improbable figure for an erotic career of nearly 50 years. Walter's language is as readable as it is plain: though at times he refers to his 'rammer' or, in Victorian slang, his 'pego,' and to his companion's `love cave' or 'sheath,' he nearly always uses the five- and four-letter words, respec- tively, for these nouns and the four-letter one, always, for the verb.

Walter's adventures, which begin in the 1830s, take place in sumptuous bordellos and mean, filthy rooms, behind hedges, in cabs, and sometimes in the beds of women of his own class. But, while Walter sets down every detail of the action, the setting, the dialogue, and his thoughts, he never analyses, never explains. Though he is at times bewildered, disturbed, or regretful, he is never deterred from seeking new experiences. His strongest emotion, after lust, is curiosity, and so he tries pas- sive sodomy (he does not like it and remains une foil, philosophe) and the deflo- ration of very young girls (he likes this and does it often; the age of consent then was 12).

To a reader today, the very excellence of Walter's reporting does him in, for we can compare his facts with his assumptions. Walter takes for granted that all women and girls want sex (reluctant ones are only being mercenary or genteel), and that no one belonging to a class below his has a right to refuse him. His seduction technique, always brisk — smutty talk, a lunge up the skirt, and a display of his equipment `so that her eyes might be gratified to the full with the sight of the Priapean glory' — gets even brisker when he can offer money.

A very young servant at a seaside boardinghouse, working only for tips and fed on scraps, gets a shilling for a kiss and, one day, 'a nudge near to her notch. That riled her. She was saucy, so I did not give her a shilling, and got kiss and nudge for nothing.' Eventually, more shillings get Walter another nudge, then a feel, but con- tinued sauciness — crying, refusal makes him determined to teach 'the little bitch' a lesson. One night he goes to her bed, and, saying he will get her sacked if she cries out, has a 'delicious' time. Usual- ly, however, charm and money are all that Walter needs, and he doesn't need much. A little virgin may cry at first, but a silk dress soon opens her legs; he angrily asks one woman why she came with him to a hotel if not for sex, and she replies that he offered her food, which she hasn't had for a day (she stays).

The servants in Walter's own or his neighbours' houses provide a constant sup- ply of fresh tail (his words). From puberty he regularly goes into the kitchen, like a boy after a biscuit, to see what delicious treat might be available. The girls' nervous laughter at Walter's bawdiness, the passive tolerance of his gropings which to him shows how much they like sex, are clearly, to us, the reactions of women who auto- matically obey their 'betters,' and who know that transgressing morality is less dangerous than defying the master.

Walter only once commits what even a Victorian man would call rape, when he physically overpowers a struggling, scream- ing 15-year-old who, to his surprise, turns out to be a virgin. He is really frightened when she says she will go to the magistrate, but the foreman of the farm where she works (it is owned by his family) takes care of the matter, telling her, 'An I hears more on that, you won't work here any more, nor anywhere else in this parish.'

Yet, despite all this, Walter is not — at least, not to me — a repellent character. He commands respect for his honesty (so far as he understands the term) and for his energy (Walter is a sort of paradigm of `indefatigable'). He also wins our gratitude for the hundreds of fascinating scenes on which he lifts the curtain the Victorian novelists drew over so much of life. Here are the Victorians in the bedroom, in the bathroom, in the privy. Here are the country girls (in a chapter that could be pornographic Hardy) paid to lie down in a graveyard, the French streetwalker with a fresh kid glove for every client, the rich widow and the humble one who enjoy a one-afternoon stand with a stranger.

The most gratifying thing about Walter, however, is the thoroughness with which his life refutes the idea so often expressed in right-wing circles that our 'traditional morality' was severly damaged by the fool- ish, licentious 1960s and their ideal of free expression (which, in practice, means indulging your appetites at someone else's expense). For here is that lost Eden of Vic- torian piety and chivalry, where despera- tion drives the poor to betray their own:

Aunts often think that a gentleman may as well have the broaching of a little cunt and pay for it, as a caster lad have it for nothing.

Walter may be more active than most gentlemen, but his point of view and his practices do not seem exceptional. In one of many chats at his club, another member advises that the best place and time to lay the maid is when she is laying the table. (Walter several times amuses himself by bedding a current mistress' servant.)

You wife is most likely dressing, the cook

I'm beginning to think there's something in this global warming business.'

cooking, and neither can interrupt you. expect every man has put a woman's arse on that piece of mahogany.

`Victorian values', in other words, were the contempt shown to women, especially the poor, and the gentility that permitted it. The Sixties were not thought shocking because the behaviour they celebrated had never been known, but because they made it permissible for the daughters of the middle classes to be treat- ed as cavalierly as the poor women Walter groped, poked and shrugged off. When I next hear one of our conservative clubmen fulminating about that evil decade, I shall smile as I think of Walter and his secret, busy life.