of the 1870s, sex could be, if you were clever and ruthless and

lucky enough, the way you escaped your lot in life. But you
could have just as easily died from the pox. Sex is a historically
accurate lens with which to analyze where a society frayed and
broke, just as tech is an anachronistic, geeky lens. In Michel
Faber's Crimson Petal and the White, THE novel of Victorian
London, sex is social climbing, terror, disease, domination,
hope, but never, unless you were at the apex of the power pyra-
mid, simple pleasure.
Like tech, sex is used by vapid books to sugarcoat the past's
horrors. See an abscess? Lace a corset over it.
Just as he did with sexy sex girls in Paris, Toulouse Lautrec
points a way to do steampunk, particularly steamy steampunk,
right. Gears and frills are nice. But the point is insurrection.

. 33 .