Podcast Summary:

New Books Network
Host: Dr. Miranda Melcher
Guest: Dr. Hannah Frydman
Book: Between the Sheets: Sexuality, Classified Advertising, and the Moral Threat to Press Freedom in France (Cornell UP, 2025)
Release Date: December 16, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode explores Dr. Hannah Frydman's new book, Between the Sheets, which reveals the unexpected power and controversy surrounding sexual and coded advertising in the classified sections of Third Republican Paris newspapers (circa 1870–1940). Dr. Frydman and host Dr. Miranda Melcher discuss how this seemingly mundane section became a battleground for debates over sexuality, gender, morality, press freedom, and the limits of legal and social control in modern France. The conversation offers deep insight into how marginalized communities navigated and challenged the boundaries of respectability, legality, and publicity through the back pages of widely read dailies.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Genesis of the Project and Discoveries in the Archive

• Hannah’s Unexpected Path: Dr. Frydman started her research focusing on French female intellectuals but found herself drawn to the “weird” back pages of digitized newspapers in the French National Library’s Gallica archive. What seemed at first “boring” (e.g., ads for lost dogs or chairs) turned out to be teeming with euphemisms for sex work, abortion, and more covert activities.
  • “They weren’t just like… do you want to buy a chair? …there were some that I was like, I think that they’re selling sex, …this sounds like abortion.” (Dr. Frydman, 04:43)
• Research Pivot: A shift from specific professions in her dissertation to a broader socio-political analysis in her book—especially how classified ads became flashpoints in the debates about moral order and press freedom in the early Third Republic.

2. Classifieds, Press Freedom, and Morality in Third Republican France

• Historical Context: The Third Republic (1870–1940) sought to present itself as a beacon of moral order through press freedoms (after the landmark law of 1881). But the explosion of classified ads exposed a rift between the ideals of transparency and the feared social dangers of “too much freedom.”
• Transition of Anxiety: Criticism of the press evolved from fears of political sedition (earlier 19th century) to “pornographic” content and threats to public morality by the 1880s.
  • “At exactly the moment France is passing freedom of the press …there's also a concern that the press is becoming pornographic… this is a redefinition of the very word pornography…” (Dr. Frydman, 11:00)

3. Classified Ads as Vehicles for Agency and Opportunity

• Bulletin Boards of Their Time: Newspapers defended themselves as mere “bulletin boards,” absolving themselves of responsibility for ad content (13:58).
• Opportunities for Marginalized Groups: The relatively low cost and high visibility enabled even working-class women to pursue independence—particularly through sex work, abortion services, and “beauty institutes”—professions otherwise inaccessible.
  • “This space made it much easier to reach an audience, to kind of grow your business and have… a certain kind of independence.” (Dr. Frydman, 16:43)

4. Women’s and Queer Possibilities

• Economic Reality for Women: Some women used classified ads for “pin money,” while others supported themselves or grew richer, blurring the boundaries between respectability and deviance.
• Queer Lives and Coded Messaging: While harder to document, queer subtexts existed—e.g., the code of “Claudine” (from Colette’s novels) signaled same-sex desire. Senators and moral crusaders were well aware.
  • “Using her name, the name of Claudine in the classifieds could serve as a kind of queer signal… if you were a reader of a certain kind of print culture, you could also, you know, follow along…” (Dr. Frydman, 19:30)

5. Backlash, Censorship, and Moral Crusaders

• Key Opponents: Senator René Bérenger (“Father Modesty”), a notorious moralist, obsessively scrutinized and denounced classifieds to the police and legislators (22:05).
• Police Surveillance: Authorities monitored ads, conducted raids, and sought to keep deviance out of public view—tolerating certain behaviors if kept discreet.
  • “…there’s always this kind of play between visibility and invisibility. But there’s this sense that this is not how we want the press to be operating.” (Dr. Frydman, 23:39)
• Fears of Public Contagion: Concerns centered on youth and women inadvertently exposed to dangerous or immoral possibilities via newspapers left “lying on the table at home.” (24:26)

6. White Slavery and Sex Trafficking Panics

• White Slavery as Rhetorical Device: Sensational anxieties about “white slavery” (sex trafficking of white women) intersected with press freedoms, stoking public fears and serving political ends—especially for anti-republican critics.
  • “...the press becomes also seen as this gateway into being trafficked for the kind of innocent victim…” (Dr. Frydman, 30:34)
• Complex Realities: While some women knowingly sold sex, the myth of the “innocent victim” abetted both social control and anti-republican backlash. The classifieds could both enable independence and facilitate exploitation.
  • “Some of these women ... are also exploiting others. …So this is not just a kind of happy story that I'm telling here, but a quite complicated one for everyone involved.” (Dr. Frydman, 32:26)

7. Legal Attempts and Judicial Struggles

• 1881 Press Freedom Law and Its Amendments: Lawmakers repeatedly tried to restrict “obscene” classifieds; Senator Bérenger pushed successful amendments. But courts often decided that nothing in the ads’ explicit text was, by itself, obscene.
  • “…the law… is actually quite dangerous for the kind of freedom of speech of all and freedom of the press of all. Because where can we stop if we say that this means something else and can kind of say, okay, you're gone?” (Dr. Frydman, 36:53)
• Role of Artists and Intellectuals: Artistic circles fiercely defended linguistic ambiguity, seeing the persecution of coded ads as a threat to creative expression. They even supported sex workers’ right to advertise to protect broader artistic freedom.

8. Impact of World War I: Crackdown and Change

• Disruption During the War: The classified system was stifled by wartime censorship, security concerns (e.g., fear of German spies), and visa requirements for ads.
• Postwar Shift: After 1918, the “ghettoization” of sexual advertising occurred—mass-circulation newspapers increasingly branded themselves as “moral,” pushing sexualized classifieds into the realm of lesser, explicitly erotic weeklies and magazines whose business now depended on such ads.
  • “…after the war…the newspapers are…very invested actually in…being moral…So it becomes this…economic system in which the mass press no longer has a need of [sex ads].” (Dr. Frydman, 43:21)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On discovering the subject:
  “…these classifieds…kept drawing my attention because they were weird…there were some that I was like, I think that they’re selling sex, …this sounds like abortion.”
  — Dr. Hannah Frydman (04:45)

• On the tension in Republican ideals:
  “How much freedom is too much and what kind of freedom is good and what kind of freedom is actually quite, quite dangerous and for whom.”
  — Dr. Hannah Frydman (08:50)

• On queer codes in the classifieds:
  “Colette wrote these wildly popular Claudine novels…Claudine is a kind of queer character. She has relationships with men and with women…using her name…could serve as a kind of queer signal.”
  — Dr. Hannah Frydman (18:46)

• On cycles of women’s independence and exploitation:
  “…Some of these women that are making independent lives for themselves are also exploiting others…So this is not just a kind of happy story…but a quite complicated one for everyone involved.”
  — Dr. Hannah Frydman (32:26)

• On legal dilemmas and coded speech:
  “…when it goes to judges, judges are kind of concerned about what it would mean if we say, okay, this is obscene, when it’s just, like, for a language lesson.”
  — Dr. Hannah Frydman (34:41)

Important Timestamps

| Time | Segment | |---------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:26 | Introduction to Dr. Hannah Frydman and the book’s focus | | 04:08 | Hannah’s background and her entry into classifieds research | | 06:35 | From micro-histories to the big picture: the Third Republic and its anxieties | | 10:13 | How and why press freedoms allowed sexual classifieds to boom | | 13:58 | Who placed these ads, with focus on women’s economic realities | | 18:11 | Possibilities for queer lives and covert communication in the ads | | 22:05 | The rise of moralists, especially Senator Bérenger, and the politics of surveillance | | 27:30 | The white slavery panic and its use in anti-republican rhetoric | | 33:22 | Legal attempts to ban obscene ads and the complications of ambiguous language | | 39:16 | The impact of World War I on press and classifieds | | 44:16 | Hannah’s future research directions and the lingering fascination with the archives |

Final Thoughts

Dr. Frydman’s book peels back the layers of the ordinary “back pages” of history to reveal how much about sexuality, gender, power, and freedom was contested in spaces most never thought to look. By decoding classifieds, we see the drama of the Third Republic in full: its anxieties about morality, empire, gender roles, and modernity—showing how the struggle for freedom, visibility, and control played out between the lines.

For further exploration:
Between the Sheets: Sexuality, Classified Advertising, and the Moral Threat to Press Freedom in France, Cornell UP, 2025.