The Sexual Politics of Female Public Nudity in Belle Epoque Paris

In reaction to the gradual expansion of new opportunities for sexual expression outside of the home, a broad spectrum of middle-class individuals engaged in moral reform to redefine the meaning, accessibility, and appropriateness of certain forms of sex and sexual behavior in Belle Époque France. This paper situates the creation of moral leagues in relation to rising apprehensions regarding aspects of degeneration. More importantly, their “decision to impose the bodysuit on all women who desired to show their charms to the public,” highlighted the ways in which these concerns consolidated around the female body and its centrality in modern urban nightlife. Building on Carolyn Dean's assertion that “Social Purists' attacks on prostitution, abortion, homosexuality, and pornography were…attacks on the erosion of class and gender hierarchies and hence assaults on an uncontrolled and uncontrollable femininity,” my analysis of the trial concerning the 1893 Bal des Quat'z-Arts' exhibition of lightly veiled models will argue that campaigns against pornography undertaken by middle-class conservatives at the end of the nineteenth-century signified a growing distrust of the Republic's liberal individualism and a concomitant desire to restore moral authority to the collective or general will. This trial, more than any other event during the Belle Époque, propelled the issue of female nudity before the state and the court of public opinion, giving various groups occasion to articulate two very distinct visions of French society. A generational clash between Parisian youth and their elders over the meaning of individual liberty and its relation to French mores erupted into a week of violent riots and protests which set the stage for future confrontations and debates about the extent of female sexual expression within French society.