Did Lady Pirates Button Their Shirts?
Yes. Art you may have seen to the contrary wasn’t realistic.
There’s a pirate killing an enemy. Or an illustration of the event, anyway.
It depicts Mary Read (1685–1721), sometimes also known as Mark Read, an English pirate, running her sword through an unfortunate man.
Mary had a woman pirate compatriot, Anne Bonny (born 1697, fate unknown after 1721). Mary and Anne were both raised as boys by their parents. They were both sexually interested in men. At first, when they met as pirates, they didn’t know they had the same secret.
Here’s a 1725 illustration of Mary:
And one of Anne in the same book:
These illustrations communicated that Mary and Anne were pirates who had breasts. It’s made clear even to people who can’t read.
In a 2012 journal article, “The Pirate’s Breasts: Criminal Women and the Meanings of the Body,” Sally O’Driscoll wrote that these…