Public Desires: Queer Women in Personal Ads, 1900–1910 Copenhagen

This article explores early twentieth-century personal advertisements in Copenhagen as a rich archive of female same-sex desire and agency between 1900 and 1910. At the heart of the analysis is the ambiguous term ‘girlfriend’, which invites a reconsideration of women’s relationships, encompassing platonic companionship, romantic intimacy and sexual pleasure. In a society that predominantly restricted legitimate intimacy to the institution of marriage, the personal advertisements are understood to have constituted a public queer space wherein women from diverse social backgrounds negotiated desire, financial exchange and social respectability. Drawing together the voices of both upper- and working-class women, the study reveals a nuanced interclass dynamic involving intimacy, flirtation and economic interaction. It offers new insights into the public articulation of female same-sex desire and sexual agency, and foregrounds the complex intersections of gender, class and modernity in early twentieth-century Scandinavian society.