Delivered at The Uniform: Symbols of Power, Propaganda and Organisation in Popular Culture, 20th April 2023, Virtual Conference.

Sexual promiscuity was common in men of all classes and occupations, with sailors frequenting brothels often enough slang terms were developed for the sex workers they visited. In spite of this, however, only members of the military are associated with pre-marital sex within the mid-Victorian novel. Even in the earlier texts of Jane Austen, if a woman is not seduced by a male who acts as her social superior, a common soldier is the cause of her downfall. The former is used as a moral lesson about ‘proper’ conduct and remaining within one’s social class boundaries: what, in comparison, do relations with the latter category offer?

My paper will examine the dangerous sex appeal associated with the 19th Century soldier, and the myriad of reasons why this negative portrayal endured throughout the era. It could be a series of distinctly Victorian concerns, such as the intersection of class and geographical mobility offered by the redcoat making a common soldier a threat to women of all social spheres. It could be the literary afterlives of the scandal of the Napoleonic campwives. It could, however, just as easily be the appeal of a handsome man in uniform – a seemingly universal weakness.