Thread by @vagina_museum

In 1918, there was a lesbian spy network working to "exterminate the manhood of Britain" called The Cult of The Clitoris...

Except actually, there wasn't. It was a fake news scandal that somehow won a libel trial. This is the story of the sapphic cult that wasn't.

We'll start by introducing you to the key players in the drama. This is Maud Allan, a Canadian-born dancer, actor and illustrator who performed around the world.

This is Noel Pemberton Billing, independent MP for Hertford, right wing politician and publisher of Vigilante magazine, a journal which frequently published anti-Semitic and homophobic conspiracy theories.

And this is Oscar Wilde, author, poet, playwright and wit, who had been dead for 18 years when this scandal happened but still ended up entangled in the whole thing anyway.

Maud Allan was famous for her performances around the world, dancing in "Vision of Salome", loosely based on Oscar Wilde's play "Salome". This was, at the time, banned to perform in England.

Nevertheless, Allan and her impresario, J. T. Grien, decided to put on a private performance, advertised discreetly.

Meanwhile, Noel Pemberton Billing was busily publishing anti-Semitic and homophobic conspiracy theories in his journal. This included a conspiracy theory about a "Berlin Black Book" - a list of "47,000 highly placed British perverts" who were doing the bidding of Germany.

According to this conspiracy theory, these 47,000 homosexuals would lure men into homosexuality and paedophilia, or have sex with women to gain state secrets.

This was, very obviously, not true.

Reacting to the advertising for Allen's performance of Salome, Billing published a short paragraph titled "The Cult of the Clitoris". He claimed those attending the performance would be among the 47,000.

Again, we need to tell you that if you want there to be a Cult of the Clitoris lesbian spy network exterminating the manhood of Britain, you'll have to start your own, because it didn't exist.

Maud Allan sued over the paragraph, which, using innuendo implied she was a spy and a lesbian.

Despite the sapphic network of spies being completely fictitious, she lost.

Billing, representing himself, successfully turned the trial into what was essentially an attack on Allan's character, as well as rehash of arguments about the obscenity of Oscar Wilde's work (and his character).

Some of the testimony focused on the Berlin Black Book and the list of the 47,000 names. The book wasn't submitted as evidence because it didn't exist, but some witnesses testified that they'd seen it.

Lord Alfred Douglas, Oscar Wilde's erstwhile boyfriend, but was now a Catholic who espoused anti-Semitic and homophobic views, testified in Billings's defence.

(Harold Sherwood Spencer, with whom Douglas would later found an anti-Semitic periodical, also testified at the trial)

As well as testimony from witnesses about the obscenity of Wilde's work and the contents of the Berlin Black Book, a Dr Serrell Cooke testified that anyone who knew what a clitoris was was either a doctor or a pervert, and that Maud Allan definitely wasn't a doctor.

Billings, by the way, also claimed he had no idea what a clitoris was, since he wasn't a lesbian spy and only lesbian spies knew about clitorises.

In his summing up, the judge dedicated most of his speech to talking about how Salome was not fit for performance, even in private. The jury cleared Billings of libel. Newspaper reports of the verdict state that everybody clapped and cheered at this.

Not long after, one of the key witnesses admitted that she had lied in court and been extensively coached on what to say about what she'd seen in the Black Book (which, we remind you, didn't exist).

In 1920, Maud Allan moved in with her girlfriend, Verna Aldrich. The Prime Minister's wife, Margot Asquith, who had also been accused of being in a sapphic cult by Billings, paid for their flat.