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Whores of Yore Profile picture
@WhoresofYore
Apr 11, 2021 • 11 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X
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I’m glad @VICE have taken down the article featuring Matt Loughrey’s edited photographs of victims of the Cambodian genocide, but their article featuring Loughrey’s manipulating mugshots of Australian female convicts is still there
👇
vice.com/amp/en/article…
I really value colourising historical images. It can bring history to life & is a powerful tool in creating empathy, but manipulating images is just wrong, especially when the image is one of trauma.
This is Matilda ‘Tilly’ Devine, a former sex worker, gang boss, & madam of a chain of brothels in Sydney. She was a violent mob boss & slashed a man’s face open with a razor. Loughrey has given her a big smiley face & youthful complexion.
This is 25yo old Muriel Goldsmith, who was convicted of stealing valuables in the Criterion Hotel in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales. She was a prolific thief with a string of aliases. This is her mugshot. To present her as smiling is a terrible distortion of the truth.
This is Fay Watson’s mugshot. She was arrested & convicted for possessing cocaine. There isn’t much trace of Fat after this, but this wasn’t a happy occasion for her - as it clearly visible in the original
When asked what does he like about colourising mugshots, this was Loughrey’s answer - which makes it even stranger that he made them smile!
But here what I do find concerning, when asked if he had any concerns about colourising images of female criminals, this was Loughrey’s answer.
But historians should always be concerned about their material - especially if they are altering them. Just because these women had criminal convictions does not make them fair game. They will have living descendants that needed to give permission.
These images are part of The Sydney Living Museum & even they recognise they do not hold the copyright for all of them sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/copyright#imag…
But where they do own the images, the copyright is quite clear. As Cambodia's Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum have confirmed Loughrey didn’t have permission to alter images of victims of the Khmer Rouge, can @VICE confirm he had permission from @sydlivmus to manipulate theirs?
I know there is a huge difference in manipulating victims of genocide & manipulating mugshots, but these women were still real ppl with real histories that is being distorted. Living women already get told to “smile” too much, can we at least leave the dead ones alone?

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More from @WhoresofYore

Whores of Yore Profile picture
Apr 25
Today is #WorldPenguinDay , so here is a story about the “astonishing depravity" and "hooligan males" of the Adélie penguins recorded in Cape Adare in 1911. The book cover of “Antarctic Penguins” by Dr G Murray Levick, RN. The book has a Lon army green cover with the title in white text and Levick’s name in black. In the centre of the cover are two Adelie penguins facing each other, with their bellies touching, as if in an embrace. It’s quite a wholesome image with no hint of the horrendous penguin depravity that is to come.
This is George Murray Levick, a scientist with the 1910-13 Scott Antarctic Expedition. He arrived at Cape Adare in 1911 & observed the penguins for a year. He was the first scientist ever to observe the breeding cycle of the penguins. A black and white photo of George Levick on Antarctic expedition. He’s on a boat (I think), sitting up against a wooden wall. He looks to be mending a leather boot, he’d smoking a pipe and isn’t looking at the camera. He’s wearing a white woolly hat, a pale coloured wooly jumper and sturdy trousers. He’s a rugged, outdoorsy type and powerfully built, He looks very much like someone who should be singing sea shanties in a Cornish pub for a pint and ale and a pickled egg.
George photographed the penguins throughout. This is one of his. A fuck load of Adelie penguins crowded together on an iceberg. The photo is black and white, so can’t see much detail because of the crappy 1911 resolution, but it’s still a very beautiful image. The penguins on top of the iceberg are reflected in the water below them.
Read 11 tweets
Whores of Yore Profile picture
Mar 3
I can’t believe I’ve been woken up the for this, but here we go.

1. The historian Strabo (64BCE - 24 ACE) described operations on the clitoris

2. Galen (129-126 ACE) called the clitoris “the nymph” in his “on the usefulness of the parts of the body.”

3. Soranus of Ephesus (1st century ACE) also calls it a “nymph” and describes it as “hidden underneath the labia such as young brides hide under their veil.”
4. Other ancient writers who describe the clitoris include, Caelius Aurelianus, Iianus, Albucasis, and Avicenna. They would call it a “nymph,” a “myrtleberry,” or “tongue bag.” The romans called it “landica.”
5. Although the clitoris is not mentioned in the Kama Sutra, it was in other ancient Hindu texts. The Sanskrit for clitoris is “smart-chatra,” which translates to “umbrella of the love god.” (Best. Clit. Fact. Ever.)
Read 9 tweets
Whores of Yore Profile picture
Sep 18, 2023
Wewe Gombel is a female ghost in Javanese folklore. It is said that she kidnaps children and hides them under her breasts.

Thread Giovanni Battista de' Cavalieri 1585 depiction of "Monsters from all parts of the ancient and modern world", roughly corresponding to a depiction of Wewe Gombel, a spirit of the Indonesian folklore. This is a black and white print of Wewe Gombel. She is a naked woman, with cloven hoofs, who is wearing her boobs like a feather boa. Both breasts droop to the floor and she has wrapped them around her upper arms, like a fox stole. She has long, clawed nails, and wiry hair that is standing on end. She is outside somewhere. Considering what she’s gone through, she looks quite serene.
Wewe Gombel, or “Hantu Kopek" as she’s known in Malaysia, has a complicated legend. It is said that in life, she married the man of her dreams, but they never had children because she was infertile.
Her husband grew resentful and began shagging around. One day, Wewe Gombel caught her husband in bed with another woman. She flew into a rage & killed him.
Read 6 tweets
Whores of Yore Profile picture
Jul 22, 2023
July 22nd is the Feast Day of Mary Magdalene in the Christian faith. Much has been made of who Mary was, but she almost certainly wasn’t a sex worker. That story came about in 591, when Pope Gregory I got his Marys muddled.

Thread Saint Mary Magdalene by Guido Reni. An oil painting dating to 1620 of Mary Magdalene. Saint Mary Magdalene is here depicted with eyes raised heavenward, a sign of her devotion and penance. She has pale skin and long blonde, curly hair. She must have her curly girl method down, because those curls are amazing. She has on a red cloak that she clutches at her chest. The background is nondescript and dark. She has that pained, eyes to heaven look so many saints are fond of.
Mary Magdalene, (who debuts in Luke 8:2) was mixed up with with Mary of Bethany (Luke 10:39), and the anonymous "sinful woman" who washed Jesus's feet in Luke 7:36–50.
The Mary who washed Jesus’ feet had been up to naughty things & all three were conflated. To be fair, there are quite a few Marys knocking about.
Read 9 tweets
Whores of Yore Profile picture
Mar 31, 2023
Mary Carleton (1642-73) was the most infamous thief & harlot of Port Royal, Jamaica. She was said to be “A stout frigate … or else she never could have endured so many batteries & assaults … she was as common as a barber’s chair: no sooner was one out, but another was in.”
🧵 A black and white woodcut print of Mary Carleton. Below her
Mary was born Mary Moders in Canterbury, England - possibly to a fiddler. There is not much that is certain about her life because she was an exceptional bullshit artist. Most of what we know about her was written in jail reports that were designed to shock, or from Mary herself.
These reports say Mary married a shoemaker called Thomas Stedman, who she eventually left to marry a surgeon called Thomas Day. Her first arrest and trial was for bigamy.
Read 11 tweets
Whores of Yore Profile picture
Jan 26, 2023
This is the legendary burlesque artist & 'vaginiste', Honeysuckle Devine. She was once described as a 'one woman slum', & had one of the most extraordinary acts in the history of burlesque.

Thread A black and white photograph of a young white woman, in a lo
Honeysuckle was born Betty Allsup in Rock Island, Illinois in 1938. She was one of 14 children & described her father as a 'hillbilly, banjo-playing lumberjack.'
As a teenager she became deeply religious & at 21 she went to Philadelphia to become a postulant at the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart Convent
Read 21 tweets

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