How real Harlots sold their daughters’ virginity at 12 and trapped naive girls into child prostitution
RAUNCHY drama Harlots burst onto the BBC with a bang last week, with viewers stunned at the amount of sex in the opening scenes.
In a scene from Harlots, Margaret Wells, played by Samantha Morton, sells off her "favourite" daughter Lucy’s virginity to the highest bidder.Outrageous as it seems, the character of Charlotte - played by Downton Abbey star Jessica Brown Findlay - is partly based on real life prostitute Charlotte Hayes, born in 1725.
Historian and Harlots writer Hallie Rubenhold told I: “The experience of having sex with a virgin was highly prized in the 18th century. As well as making a mint as a courtesan, Charlotte Hayes ran one of the most lucrative brothels in London, off the elegant thoroughfare of Pall Mall, which she called her “nunnery.”
"And when she found a rural pretty lass step out of a wagon, the antiquated She-captain of Satan's regiment would offer the poor innocent creature accommodation in her house gratis, till she saw if she should like the town." "Then, at a nod, must that tender delicate person be given up to the lust of every ruffian who can afford the price, to be touzed, and rumpled, like a bit of dirty paper," reads the report.From teen prostitute to celebrated 'stars'According to series creator Alison Newman, Harlots' Charlotte Wells was also inspired by Kitty Fisher, a sex worker immortalised in a famous painting by Joshua Reynolds.
Another child prostitute who infiltrated the upper classes was Lavinia Fenton, the illegitimate daughter of a sailor whose mother married a London brothel keeper. The scenes are inspired by the 18th Century rise of Hellfire Clubs, secret societies formed by wealthy society men and, on some occasions, women.
When one Dublin-based member, Lord Santry, murdered an innocent tavern porter in 1738, the Hellfire Clubs’ reputation for violence and abuse was sullied even further.
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