Fan Art by Fraylim: Maid Duty

What is it about the French Maid uniform that's makes it so sexy, so fetishized? I'll let Julia explain, with another short sneak peek from chapter 3:

***

            I returned with two glasses, a plate of cheese (cave-aged cheddar, stilton, some brie) and water biscuits from England, and placed it on an end table. Sitting, we were a contrast in comfort: Julia in slim jeans and fitted long-sleeved black top, and me, snug yet oddly at ease in a cascade of petticoats, skirts and lace. She lounged; corseted, I sat stiffly but with better posture. We clinked our glasses, sipped and nibbled as we sat together in momentarily silence. I crossed and uncrossed my legs at the knee with a sibilant whisper. It was dark out, and the condo gradually raised recessed lighting. The apartment looked tidy and clean, and I took some pride in that.

            Julia tapped at her phone. Music began to play, quiet and melancholy. “Do you know where this whole French maid kink comes from?”

            I shook my head no.

            “I went down a bit of a rabbit hole while you were cleaning,” she said. When she saw me open my mouth to protest, she glared. “And I was working, too, thank you very much, not that it’s any of your business, maid. But watching you in the kitchen, I got to thinking and did a bit of research.

            “You study any Moliere? Marivaux?”

            Again, I indicated I hadn’t; my fake education barely covered English-language classics, let alone the literature of other countries.

            The maid, she went on to explain over the length of polishing off a glass of wine, was a soubrette, a stock-character of 18th and 19th century French comedy, a house servant and foil to upper-class foibles. She was witty, sassy and above all else, attractive. Her lower status released her from the restrictive bindings of upper-class life; she was free to speak her mind, saucy, spicy and most of all, sexual. She enjoyed the liberated freedoms her upper-class mistress could only fantasize. She wasn’t a maid, specifically, though her costume was already salacious.

            This fictional stock character became conflated with real-life female domestics through to the early twentieth century. Young women entering domestic servitude were often precarious and easily exploited. Male servants and especially the masters of the house often took sexual advantage of these maids, and she was rarely in a position to refuse or resist their advances. Historical documents record many pregnancies, STDs, suicides and infanticides as a consequence. Many dismissed maids ended up in prostitution, and their sexual employment simply fed the image of sexual hunger.

            The reality of exploitation became a cliché, a stereotype of victim and temptress that became the fodder for cheap comedy. This fueled the view that maids were sexually promiscuous and fair game, and always eager for a good fuck if you asked them; not that a man needed to ask, obviously, as it was his gender-given right, especially if an upper-class ‘gentleman’.

            Unsurprisingly, it all led to a bit of a maid fetish, and by the twentieth century there were French brothels offering costume services where you could order a prostitute dressed a nun, schoolgirl, ballerina—or maid. The uniform itself remained ‘realistic’, functional and often blue or gray with few embellishments, until the early-to-mid twentieth century, where it evolved according to fashion and the influence of American burlesque: the skirts got shorter, and the heels taller, and the fetish soon crept out of the brothel and porno industry into mainstream Hollywood.

            I listened patiently and swirled the wine in my glass and took cautious sips as she spoke. When she was done, I stifled a yawn.