Talk:Grisette (person)

Grisettes at the scaffold
About the best known association of grisette in English is that they watched the guillotine enthusiatically during the Terror. Where does this come from - Dickens, Carlyle? It should be added. Johnbod (talk) 01:24, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Old-fashioned definions
Qute from article : They formed relationships with artists and poets more committed than prostitution but less so than a mistress ('Groupie' would be an approximate modern equivalent.) End quote. Was this not actually comparable to a modern relationship? Nowadays, a woman can have a relationship to a man withouth being married to him, and without being a groupie or a prostitute: an independent, love relationship on equeal terms. Is this not a more suitable modern equivalent? The grisettes were finacially independent, not prostitutes, and what makes them groupies? The comparission above seem to be somewhat lacking in NPOV. It would be good to justify the comparision here. --85.226.47.222 (talk) 11:53, 8 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree that "groupie" is anachronistic. It was left over from the first version of the article before I expanded it. It was from early editing days on Wikipedia, and I thought you had to leave what was originally there as you expanded it. I've now removed it. But the relationships were not on equal terms, the Bohemian grisettes were financially dependent on the artists to whom they were attached to supplement their meagre income as seamstresses, artists' models etc. and more often than not, they were not in exclusive relationships. Also, the definition is bound to be "old-fashioned". The word is not used today to describe women in relationships of this kind. The grisette was very much a product of a particular time and cultural perception. Voceditenore (talk) 07:41, 16 November 2009 (UTC)


 * But isn't it rather an assumption to asume that they had a relationship with the artists to supplement their meagre income? The fact that they had sex with several men does not make them prostitutes. It is, after all, fully possible that these women had sexual relationships with several men simply for their own sexual plesure, even if it was not a question of exlusive love relationships. Women, just as well as men, can enjoy to have many sexual partners. My point is: in those days it was the opinion, that a woman was a prostitute when she had sex with a man she was not a married to - and especially if she had sex with several men. They need not have accepted money to be considered prostitutes according to the moral of the day. But they were in fact only prostitutes if they accepted money. Did they? Is this confirmed? That is the important question. --85.226.41.106 (talk) 20:50, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

An interesting source
-- Softlavender (talk) 00:39, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
 * http://parisisinvisible.blogspot.com/2009/02/grisettes-and-lorettes.html