Moreau de Saint Méry says: "Although in general one is conscious of widespread modesty in Philadelphia"

the customs are not particularly pure, and the disregard on the part of some parents for the manner in which their daughters form relations to which they, the parents, have not given their approval is an encouragement of indiscretions which, however, are not the result of love, since American women are not affectionate.

Saint Méry later adds:

I am going to say something that is almost unbelievable. These women, without real love and without passions, give themselves up at an early age to the enjoyment of themselves; and they are not at all strangers to being willing to seek unnatural pleasures with persons of their own sex.*

Note

*Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint Méry, St Méry's American Journey, trans. and ed. by Kenneth Roberts and Anna M. Roberts (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1947, pages 284, 286. Republished from Jonathan [Ned] Katz, Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. (N.Y.: T. Y. Crowell, 1976), p.25-26.