Talk:A Spy on Mother Midnight

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:A Spy on Mother Midnight/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: LEvalyn (talk · contribs)

Reviewer: Asilvering (talk · contribs) 16:05, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the article! It looks like it's in really good shape already. I'll make minor changes myself, which you can contest/revert as you like. Individual comments are signed for your convenience in replying. -- asilvering (talk) 16:05, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, I think they really improved the article! I think I've now addressed them all, discussed below. Let me know what you think and whether you think there's anything else the article needs at this stage. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 05:28, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (inline citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have non-free use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Prose

1. I added some wikilinks. -- asilvering (talk) 16:22, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

   Thanks!

2. assumes the persona of "Miss Polly" I think it would help to clarify here that this persona means that he is crossdressing, and so successfully that the women are fooled. It might help to mention up-front (rather than just down in the analysis below) that Dick is particularly feminine. -- asilvering (talk) 16:22, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

   Done!

3. Nancy, Dick, and the squire depart for London in good cheer. Is Dick now pretending to be the maid, if Nancy is "Miss Mrs Polly"? -- asilvering (talk) 16:22, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

   Ah, no, Nancy hides her face from the squire while marrying & having sex with him (lol) so the big reveal is when "Miss Polly" shows up in their bedroom the next morning and congratulates them on their marriage and he finds out he's stuck with Nancy. Maybe I don't need to get into the weeds of there being yet another bed trick? I edited this down to just and trick the squire into marrying Nancy. Nancy, the squire, and "Miss Polly" depart for London in good cheer, let me know if you think any of the details I mentioned here should show up there.~ L 🌸 (talk) 18:38, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

4. When Dick and Maria first have sex, for example, the key moment is indicated primarily by Maria's exclamation of "What!" Is it possible to give more context? I don't think I can imagine how this works out in practice without actually reading the text itself. -- asilvering (talk) 16:22, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

   I changed this to When Dick and Maria first have sex, for example, Dick describes embracing Maria, and then penetration is implied by Maria's exclamation of surprise when she realises that Dick's penis is not her dildo. Is that easier to picture? Here's the passage, which happens after Maria agrees to have sex with the dildo:

   "I put out the Candle and soon followed, clasp'd her fast in my Arms, and scarce permitted her to draw Breath, before she might know the Difference between Mr. F--- and a poor passive insensible Implement. "Bless me! says she, "What!" She had not Power to ask the Question, but was immediately convinc'd what Sort of a Bedfellow she had got."

   The sources usually just quote this, but that seems like excessive detail for the article. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 18:38, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

   Yes, that sentence is perfectly clear now. -- asilvering (talk) 23:21, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

5. creating an entirely homoerotic scenario in which a man describes his seduction of another man for the titillation of a third man Missed this one earlier - when does this happen? I don't see anything about male-male seduction in the plot summary. -- asilvering (talk) 23:36, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

   Oh, I guess I glossed over it -- both of the tricks on "Miss Polly"'s suitors involved a seduction. I added this to the synopsis. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 06:23, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Images

1. Any chance we can get helpful images in here related to the text of the article? The obvious suggestion is a photograph of an 18th-century dildo. Other possibilities: condoms, midwife, a lying-in, a "molly", cross-dressing... -- asilvering (talk) 16:22, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

• Good dildos have eluded me but I found an OK one to add. Another option is this one, which is more sapphic, but makes it harder to see the dildo itself. (There are four women in this orgy; the woman on the far left has a strap-on, using it on the woman whose face it not shown.)

I also added the best cross-dressing image I could find, but I'm open to suggestions on a better place to put it within the article. Even searching external archives I can't find any 18thC depictions of mollies cross-dressing, they're always just prancing around gaily in a way that doesn't feel relevant to this work. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 20:04, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

This blowing-up-condoms one is amazing. -- asilvering (talk) 23:28, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Source check

1. Mother Midnight is remarkable not only in suggesting that male homoerotic desire is enjoyable but also in using the typical ingredients of the period’s fiction to convey that suggestion non-threateningly. (Thomason, p 272). I think some of this is getting a bit lost in the homoeroticism section. It's clear that the book is unusual in not being derogatory towards male-male pairs, but I think it's easy to read The sexual encounters are presented as non-violent and enjoyable for all parties as "it is unusual to depict sexual encounters that do not have negative components/results", not "it is unusual to suggest that being gay can be fun". I also get from Thomason that the book makes male homoerotic desire non-threatening, but from the paragraph in the wikipedia article it looks like the threat the book downplays is dildos, not m/m. (I presume it also downplays scary lesbian dildos as described, don't change that bit.) -- asilvering (talk) 00:17, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
   1. Hm, I think it is both unusual to depict sexual encounters as nonviolent fun, and unusual to present male homoeroticism as no big deal. (Frankly, since it's not an unheard of joke to show men who get tricked into pursuing other men, I personally think it's more unusual for the chapbook to be so pro-libertinism. Other pro-libertine books leave a string of fallen women in their wake, whereas all the women get off scott-free reputationally in this one.) I've revisited this section to try to say in paragraph 1 that it's unusually sex-positive overall and in paragraph 2 that it's chill with gay men. With these as my goals in mind, and my recent edits, does this section look more on track? ~ L 🌸 (talk) 03:56, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
2. typically characterized as bawdy in fiction Thomason (p 272) outright states they're often procuresses, so I think you might as well state that explicitly. -- asilvering (talk) 00:17, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
   1.  Done
3. I glossed over this when I read the plot summary the first time, but I think it's worth pointing out as Thomason does that Dick "gets another glimpse of his country prude’s true nature when he notices “an Ivory Substitute of Virility” in her trunk" - ie, that the dildo shows that she's not actually a prude at all. -- asilvering (talk) 00:17, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
   1.  Done
4. I think you should add a bit on the anti-clericalism? I assumed the preacher was just a stock figure, but Thomason makes me think there's more to it than that. -- asilvering (talk) 00:17, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

   I looked at this, and I don't think there's enough for a whole section, but given that the emphasis in Thomason is really on the punning, I added a mention of it in the Style section. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 05:22, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

5. I wonder also (again following Thomason) if it's worth writing a bit more about cross-dressing/masquerade? As in, that it's inherently sexy, or an obvious signal that things are going to get sexy, even before we consider the premise of the plot? Should the article mention the bit about how Dick finds crossdressing arousing in itself? (is that a stock assumption?) -- asilvering (talk) 00:17, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

   I added a bit of a section on cross-dressing -- it could probably be expanded, but I think it covers the basics. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 05:19, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

6. Worth mentioning the connection (p 276) between mollies and lyings-in, I think. Right now the article tells us that midwives have sexual undertones, but misses this bit about how the female-only birthing rituals are sexy like crossdressing is sexy. -- asilvering (talk) 00:17, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
   1. I added a bit on this, which feels incomplete and unsatisfying but my writing-brain isn't cooperating for more. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 03:56, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

      Good enough for GA, I think. I've poked at it a bit more (feel free to revert any changes you dislike). Thanks for the article! -- asilvering (talk) 01:24, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

General

1. Needs de-orphaning and to be added to categories. -- asilvering (talk) 16:22, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

   Re-added the cats! Also added mention of Mother Midnight with other literary works in Dildo#Early modern period. I usually like to de-orphan with more than one link, but for this one the whole area seems under-covered so I might have to go write the other articles too. Shockingly there's no article on Passions Between Women, for example! ~ L 🌸 (talk) 19:18, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

   Oh no, I guess you'll just have to write it! -- asilvering (talk) 23:31, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by PrimalMustelid talk 22:30, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that the 1748 chapbook A Spy on Mother Midnight includes sex scenes with cross-dressing and a dildo? Source: p. 32 of the book, https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_a-spy-on-mother-midnight_1748/page/n33/mode/2up
  • ALT1: ... that the 1748 pornographic chapbook A Spy on Mother Midnight references a midwife in the title because they were considered bawdy figures in the eighteenth century? Source: "The presence of Mother Midnight ... hints at the explicit direction the tale will take, as midwives were known often to function as bawds. With this dual function, as Deborah Needleman Armintor notes, these women 'held a high place in the eighteenth-century literary imagination because of what was presumed to be their unlimited access to medical information . . . and their supposed first-hand knowledge of women’s secret sexual pleasures and proclivities.' The unshockable and permissive character of the midwife thus suggests sexual license." p. 272-3, Thomason, Laura E. (2009). "The Covert Homoeroticism of A Spy on Mother Midnight". The Eighteenth Century. 50 (4): 271–283.
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/The Oxford History of Christian Worship

Improved to Good Article status by LEvalyn (talk).

Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 5 past nominations.

Post-promotion hook changes will be logged on the talk page; consider watching the nomination until the hook appears on the Main Page.

~ L 🌸 (talk) 02:43, 3 April 2024 (UTC).

• ALT0 is very unlikely to fly per WP:DYKFICTION. Is there a reason the article describes the narrator as "Richard F------", given that Wikipedia is not censored?--Launchballer 18:04, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
  • The character's name is censored in the original book. I think the real-world implication of ALT0 is the age of the book: it would be unsurprising to learn that this sort of material is in a contemporary book, but people are often unaware that dildos and cross-dressing existed in the eighteenth century, or that 18thC books had sex in them. What do you think of ALT2 below? ~ L 🌸 (talk) 20:12, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
    • ALT2... that the 1748 chapbook A Spy on Mother Midnight is studied for its sex scenes with cross-dressing and a dildo? Sources: Thomason, Laura E. (2009). "The Covert Homoeroticism of A Spy on Mother Midnight; Savage, Elizabeth (Fall 2012). "Phallic nationalism: limits of male homosocial desire in A Spy on Mother Midnight"; Donoghue, Emma (1996). Passions between women: British lesbian culture, 1668-1801; Park, Julie (2020). "Writing with Pen and Dildo: Libertine Techniques of Eighteenth-Century Narrative"; Klein, Ula Lukszo (2018). "Dildos and Material Sapphism in the Eighteenth Century"
  • @Launchballer: just wanted to make sure you saw my reply above. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 01:13, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

I did, I just forgot all about it. ALT2 (and ALT1) are both short enough, AGF sourced, and interesting. Full review needed.--Launchballer 07:44, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

• Thanks! Appreciate it. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 13:44, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

• Article is a new GA and long enough. It's well sourced (with AGF on contents supported by offline sources), neutral, and copyvio free, as well as supported with freely-licensed images complete with captions. All hooks are cited, but I have a strong preference to ALT1, which is better and no more sensational than the other hooks. QPQ has been given, so this is good to go. Nineteen Ninety-Four guy (talk) 13:13, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I just remembered that parentheses aren't allowed in hooks, so I've moved '1748' outside of them. This shouldn't affect eligibility, but stating for posterity.--Launchballer 15:34, 10 April 2024 (UTC

• Just popping in as the GA reviewer to say that I find the original hook (and ALT2) to be much better than ALT1. -- asilvering (talk) 19:08, 14 April 2024 (UTC)