The above image depicts a man with whore in a bawdy house and illustrates the sexual liberation a whore exhibited even with a stranger. [30]

During Renaissance England, deviant sexuality was manifested in the grotesque female body. The whore, in particular, was an icon of sexual deviance. Whores embodied sin and were accused of being repulsive, animalistic and unrestrained. However, the nature of female “grotesqueness”, in both the whore and the licentious wife, appears to stretch beyond the obvious repulsion of society. The grotesque body not only demonstrates sexual incontinence, but through its indulgence, it also provides an outlet for “unnatural liberation”. In a patriarchal society where women were forced to adapt to the role men created for them, it was nearly impossible to escape the constraints of these expectations. However, women who did transgress these expectations were forced to do so in a scandalous manner, yet they still achieved a type of liberation other women could not possess.

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