ABSTRACT
Feminist scholars have demonstrated that same-sex attachments between women, as long as they were perceived to be within the “feminine sphere,” were unexceptionable in Victorian society. Some clarity is gained, therefore, by following the example of those feminist critics who distinguish between homosocial, referring to the entire range of same-sex bonds, and homosexual, referring to the part of the homosocial continuum marked by genital sexuality. Although the homosocial-homosexual distinction is problematical at best, it has a useful, if limited, descriptive value. The nature of homosocial attachment between Victorian men has been relatively neglected, even though, as Lillian Faderman suggests, men as well as women were encouraged to form intense same-sex friendships.
