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How a teenage diarist scandalized the nation in 1902 with a horny Victorian memoir
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How a teenage diarist scandalized the nation in 1902 with a horny Victorian memoir

Why The New York Times suggested this “girl of nineteen” should be spanked

Ellsworth Toohey
Apr 23, 2025
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How a teenage diarist scandalized the nation in 1902 with a horny Victorian memoir
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Studio portrait of Mary MacLane (top) and her siblings James, Dorothy, and John (left), ca. 1900

Before there were Instagram thirst traps or Twitter main characters, there was Mary MacLane — a 19-year-old from Montana who wrote the horniest, most scandalous memoir of 1902, about wanting to bang both Napoleon and Satan, lusting openly after her female tea…

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