#rictor norton

[charliemaybeghost]

A letter from Wilfred Owen to Siegfried Sassoon

From Rictor Norton's anthology of gay historical letters "My Dear Boy".

#:( #Siegfred told him not to go back to war (after he was invalided home in july 1918) #and then he did. #wilfred owen #siegfried sassoon #rictor norton #dulce et decorum est #war poets #gay poets #gay history #</3

[favouritefi]

If you’re happy to, please could you drop the lore for sexual mores of the catboy AU?

And a Happy New Year!

happy new yearrrr

ok so when i first tried to write this i ended up regurgitating foucault and david halperin and rictor norton and then i was like "oh my god im not gonna write a history essay as the prelude for lore about my catboys au thats a crazy thing to do" so im just gonna assume ppl know about the established literature on victorian sexuality and the pathologization / invention of the homosexual and jump right into how i think catboys fit into that:

legally cat/dogboys cannot be prosecuted for their actions because they lack moral agency. they can't be charged with buggery, that would be like charging a horse with buggery, but on the flip side of that they can be put down without trial or just cause, you don't trial a horse for trampling someone to death, you just kill it. which is all to say that homosexual acts between cat/dogboys are generally permitted and permissible EXCEPT if it causes what humans might consider to be harm. eg. your annoying orange catboy keeps seducing my guard-dogboys and distracting them from their duties if you do not control him i will shoot him the next time he is on my property etc.

theres also a patronizing element of "aw look how cute they are trying to mimic human courting" and the idea that cat/dogpeople aren't capable of the depth of love humans are capable of so their samesex relationships aren't a threat to society because their relationships generally speaking aren't taken seriously. i mean, this is a world where you give birth to children knowing you won't get to keep them and you get studded out like a turkey baster, its fucked up to the nth degree. before you start worrying about "will they hate me for having a boyfriend" first you gotta wonder "will they acknowledge that i am capable of having sexual autonomy and forming meaningful relationships that are not based on animal instincts" (the answer is no).

#purror and erebark #is this the worlds most dystopic catboy au #quite possibly #then again there is loveless #hard to topple the king

[amphibious-thing]

A while back I mentioned that Rictor Norton found little evidence to suggest that mollies used anything other than saliva as lube. I'm happy to update you all with the information that there is evidence of something else being used. However I'm sorry to tell you it was butter.

#this comes from the information Mark Partridge gave the police if you're interested in the source #mollies #queer history

[sneezemonster15]

Sasuke, Naruto and Sakura as samurai warriors in their samurai armor. I didn't notice at first that little Kurama was sitting on top of Naruto's samurai helmet. It's a nice touch as a design aspect because those samurai helmets usually had fear inducing designs, to make the samurai look scary in battle. Heh.

Also interesting to see the fan Sasuke is holding. Fan was a part of samurais' armor and it typically was adorned with a rising sun, like Japan's flag. But here, it is adorned with a yellow sun, like how Naruto is portrayed visually. And lightning, Which is Sasuke's element. The same design is on Naruto's scroll. Naruto carries a Sasuke scroll but who's surprised? Hehe.

Also looks like Naruto and Sakura are coming out of the scroll but Sasuke seems to be painted on the scroll, like the scenery.

Such detailing. Lovely art.

Anyway, speaking of samurais, here's a love letter written by a gay samurai to another : Excerpts from My Dear Boy: Gay Love Letters through the Centuries (1998), Edited by Rictor Norton

It's touching. And quite funny, no really. 'This calligraphy is terrible!"

#naruto #naruto official art #Kishimoto #sns #sasuke #gay love letters

[yr-obedt-cicero]

Hamilton, who had not yet married, playfully raises the subject of marriage as a substitute or displacement for his own love of Laurens, as an opportunity to explore his own feelings and to gauge the other man's response.

Source — My Dear Boy: Gay Love Letters Through the Centuries, by Rictor Norton.

Finally, someone who understands this. After Miranda, Chernow, and Massey take the April 1779 letter out of context to protray it as Hamilton, indeed, searching for a wife - despite him explicitly saying at the end it was all a tease, and does not want one - it's relatively relieving when someone acknowledges his true intentions.

#amrev #american history #american revolution #alexander hamilton #historical alexander hamilton #historical john laurens #john laurens #lams #historical lams #history #cicero's history lessons

[homomenhommes]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … January 7

Bayeux Tapestry - hawking

1130 – On this date the medieval poet Baldric Of Dol died (b.circa 1050). He was abbot of Bourgueil from 1079 to 1106, then bishop of Dol-en-Bretagne from 1107 until his death.

Balderic's poetic works were written almost entirely while abbot at Bourgueil. The 256 extant poems are found almost exclusively in a single contemporary manuscript which is most likely an authorized copy. They consist of a wide range of poetic forms ranging from epitaphs, riddles and epistolary poems to longer pieces such as an interpretative defense of Greek mythology. A praise poem for Adela of Normandy describes something very like the Bayeux Tapestry within its 1,368 lines. Two themes dominate his works: desire/friendship (amor)—including paedophiliac—and game/poetry (iocus).

In his collection My Dear Boy: Gay Love Letters through the Centuries, the scholar Rictor Norton publishes Baldric's many letters to male lovers.

1829 – William Maxwell is the last English sailor hanged for sodomy.

1899 – Francis Poulenc, French composer (d.1963); Poulenc was one of the first out Gay composers. His first serious relationship was with painter Richard Chanlaire to whom he dedicated his Concert champêtre: "You have changed my life, you are the sunshine of my thirty years, a reason for living and working." He also once said, "You know that I am as sincere in my faith, without any messianic screamings, as I am in my Parisian sexuality."

Poulenc also had a number of relationships with women. He fathered a daughter, Marie-Ange, although he never formally admitted that he was indeed her father. He was also a very close friend of the singer Pierre Bernac for whom he wrote many songs; some sources have hinted that this long friendship had sexual undertones; however, the now-published correspondence between the two men strongly suggests that this was not the case.

Poulenc's life was one of inner struggle. Having been born and raised a Roman Catholic, he struggled throughout his life between coming to terms with his "unorthodox" sexual "appetites" and maintaining his religious convictions.

Poulenc was profoundly affected by the death of friends. First came the death of the young woman he had hoped to marry, Raymonde Linossier. While Poulenc admitted to having no sexual interest in Linossier, they had been lifelong friends. Then, in 1923 he was "unable to do anything" for two days after the death from typhoid fever of his 20-year old friend, novelist Raymond Radiguet, Jean Cocteau's lover. However, two weeks later he had moved on, joking to Sergei Diaghilev at the rehearsals he was unable to leave, about helping a dancer "warm up."

In 1936, Poulenc was profoundly affected by the death of another composer, Pierre-Octave Ferroud, who was decapitated in an automobile accident in Hungary. This led him to his first visit to the shrine of the Black Virgin of Rocamadour. Here, before the statue of the Madonna with a young child on her lap, Poulenc experienced a life-changing transformation. Thereafter his work took on more religious themes, beginning with the Litanies à la vierge noire (1936). In 1949, Poulenc experienced the death of another friend, the artist Christian Bérard, for whom he composed his Stabat Mater (1950).

Poulenc died of heart failure in Paris on 30 January 1963 and is buried at the Père Lachaise Cemetery.

1917 – Alfred Freedman (d.2011), who was responsible for removing homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses, was born in Albany, New York. After earning his undergraduate degree at Cornell University in 1937, Freedman graduated from the University of Minnesota Medical School in 1941. He began an internship at Harlem Hospital but left before completion to enlist in the United States Army Air Corps. He left the service having attained the rank of Major.

After initially studying neuropsychology, Freedman trained in both general and child psychiatry, undertaking a residency at Bellevue Hospital. He became the chief of child psychiatry at the SUNY Downstate Medical Center, a post in which he served for five years, before becoming the first person to serve full-time as the department of psychiatry Chairman at New York Medical College, a post which he held for 30 years.

In 1972, Freedman was approached by the Committee of Concerned Psychiatrists, a group of young reform-minded doctors, who encouraged him to run for the presidency of the American Psychiatric Association. He won the election by 3 votes out of some 9,000 that were cast.

In his position as president, Freedman immediately supported a resolution offered by Robert L. Spitzer to delete homosexuality from the list of mental illness diagnoses. On December 15, 1973, the APA's board of trustees voted 13—0 in favor of the resolution, which stated that "by itself, homosexuality does not meet the criteria for being a psychiatric disorder" and that "We will no longer insist on a label of sickness for individuals who insist that they are well and demonstrate no generalized impairment in social effectiveness."

LGBT rights organizations have hailed this decision as one of the greatest advances for gay equality in the United States. Freedman himself believed that passing this resolution was the most important accomplishment of his one-year tenure as president. A second resolution called for an end to discrimination based on sexual orientation and the repeal of laws against consensual gay sex.

Alfred Freedman died in Manhattan on April 17, 2011, following complications after surgery to treat a hip fracture.

1946 – Jann Wenner is the co-founder and publisher of the music and politics biweekly Rolling Stone, as well as the current owner of Men's Journal and Us Weekly magazines.

In 1967, Wenner and Ralph J. Gleason founded Rolling Stone in San Francisco. To get the magazine off the ground, Wenner borrowed $7,500 from family members and from the family of his soon-to-be wife, Jane Schindelheim. In the summer following the start of the magazine, Wenner and Schindelheim were married in a small Jewish ceremony.

In 1995, Wenner found himself in the middle of a media storm when it was revealed that he was leaving his wife Jane after more than 25 years of marriage and had become involved in a relationship with Matt Nye, a former male model turned fashion designer. Wenner's outing, which may or may not have been at his own instigation, seems to have had little effect on his business empire, but it inspired a number of accusations regarding an alleged "Velvet Mafia" of powerful closeted gay men.

Although it had long been rumored that Wenner's marriage was an "open" one and gossip of his bisexuality was widespread and had been mentioned in gay magazines, in 1995 he was publicly outed—on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, no less—when the newspaper revealed that Wenner had left his wife of 28 years for Nye, a considerably younger man who was a former Calvin Klein underwear model.

Rumors of an alleged conspiracy to suppress the news began to circulate. Several journalists reported that the so-called "Velvet Mafia"—a coterie of powerful media, entertainment, and fashion executives who are reputedly gay—had threatened to pull advertising from any publication that wrote about the breakup.

1977 – John Gidding is a Turkish-American architect, television personality, and former fashion model.

Gidding was born in Istanbul, Turkey to an American father and a Turkish mother. He lived in Turkey until moving to the United States for college after attending Leysin American School in Leysin, Switzerland. He graduated from Yale University in 1999 with a BA in architecture, then the Harvard Graduate School of Design with a Master's in architecture.

At Yale he sang a cappella with The Society of Orpheus and Bacchus, and choral music with the Yale Glee Club, and at Harvard he sang with the Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum. He was voted one of "Yale's 50 Most Beautiful People" in 1999 by Rumpus Magazine, one of "Boston's 50 Most Eligible Bachelors" by The Improper Bostonian in 2002, one of "Atlanta's 50 Most Beautiful People" by Jezebel Magazine and as one of Atlanta Homes and Lifestyles's "Emerging Talent: Twenty Under 40" in 2008.

He is openly gay and, as of August 2013, married to dancer Damian Smith.

Gidding started modeling in 2000 as a graduate student, performing runway shows for Armani, Gucci, and Hugo Boss before being represented by Wilhelmina Models in New York City. He's also been on the covers of numerous romance novels.

Gidding moved to New York City where he started John Gidding Design, Inc. after working for two years as a landscape architect for Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates.

Gidding's start in television was with the ABC Family TV show Knock First, where he and three other designers took turns making over teenagers' bedrooms. Designed to Sell (Giddings' previous show from 2006 to 2011) was canceled in early 2011 but still airs repeats on HGTV, and Knock First is still running in syndication internationally.

He is currently best known for being the architect-designer on Curb Appeal:The Block where his team spends $20,000 on improvements to the exterior landscaping of chosen homeowners. Less expensive touch-ups are done for 2 or 3 nearby neighbors' homes to improve overall neighborhood property values.

1990 – Michael Sam is an American football defensive end. He attended the University of Missouri, where he played college football for the Missouri Tigers football team for four years. Recruited by a number of colleges, he accepted a scholarship with Missouri. He was a consensus All-American and the Southeastern Conference Defensive Player of the Year as a senior.

Sam is the seventh of eight children born to JoAnn and Michael Sam, Sr. His parents separated when he was young. As a child, Sam watched one of his older brothers die from a gunshot wound. Another older brother has been missing since 1998, and his other two brothers are both imprisoned. A sister who was born before him died in infancy. At one point in his childhood, Sam lived in his mother's car. He was once accidentally maced by police who were arresting one of his brothers.

Sam argued with his mother over playing football, as she did not agree with those pursuits. Sam often stayed with friends while in high school; the parents of a classmate gave him a bedroom in their house and had him complete household chores. Sam is the first member of his family to attend college.

After completing his college football career, Sam publicly came out as gay. If he were to be signed by a National Football League (NFL) team, which analysts think is likely, he would become the first active NFL player to have declared his homosexuality publicly.

In August 2013, Sam took the opportunity of a team introduce-yourself session to inform his Missouri teammates that he was gay, and found them supportive. He avoided talking to the media to avoid addressing rumors of his sexuality. He came out to his father a week before coming out publicly. The New York Times wrote that his father, a self-described "old-school ... man-and-a-woman type of guy", said "I don’t want my grandkids raised in that kind of environment." His father told the Galveston Daily News that he was "terribly misquoted", though The Times maintained that he was quoted "accurately and fairly."

On February 9, 2014, he announced that he was gay in an interview with Chris Connelly on ESPN's Outside the Lines, becoming one of the first publicly out college football players. If he is drafted in the 2014 NFL Draft or signed by an NFL team as an undrafted free agent, he could become the first active player who was publicly out in NFL history. Though he was projected as a third- or fourth-round pick in the NFL Draft, anonymous NFL executives told Sports Illustrated that they expect Sam to fall in the draft as a result of his announcement. Those statements caused National Football League Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith to respond that any team official who anonymously downgrades Sam is "gutless". From jail, his brother Josh said "I'm proud of him for not becoming like me. I still love him, whatever his lifestyle is. He's still my brother and I love him."

On February 15, Sam returned to Missouri with the Tigers football team to accept the 2014 Cotton Bowl championship trophy at a ceremony held at the halftime of a Missouri Tigers basketball game at Mizzou Arena. It was the first visit to his alma mater since he came out as gay. Anti-gay activist Shirley Phelps-Roper and about 15 other members of the Westboro Baptist Church, an organization widely considered a hate group, protested his appearance. Students organized a counter-protest numbering in the hundreds if not thousands, assembling a "human wall" in front of the protesters.

In May, 2014, Sam was drafted by St Louis Rams. He celebrated with a kiss for his boyfriend Vito Cammisano at an NFL draft party. The kiss went viral.

[my-deer-history]

Can you tell me about Louis de Vegobre and his possible relationship with Laurens and Kinloch?

Sure! Others will certainly know more, but here’s a little of what I’ve pulled together about these three.

Louis Manoel de Vegobre was a Swiss lawyer and intellectual who befriended Laurens during his time as a student in Geneva. He tutored Laurens in mathematics, and in return Laurens taught de Vegobre English. Kinloch arrived Geneva in May 1774, and although they only spent a few months together there (Laurens left in July 1774), they quickly formed a close-knit circle, studying and socialising together, and mingling with other English students and eminent Genevan scholars and scientists. 

There is little written correspondence from that time, as there was no need to write letters to those who lived so close. But it is evident from Laurens’ letters after his departure that he loved his time in Geneva, in large part because of the relationships he had built there - he writes to Kinloch on 23 August 1774 that “I dont know when I shall get into such a valuable Set of Acquaintance as I have left”. 

Whether all of this remained purely platonic, in the style of romantic friendship, or extended into homoerotic or even homosexual realms, is impossible to prove definitively - but there is a good deal of evidence that the three of them were more than “just friends”.

For one, they mingled with figures who were known to have homosexual inclinations. Among these was Swiss historian Johannes von Müller (himself at the centre of a web of queer figures, including Swiss writer Karl Viktor von Bonstetten), who was known for his homoerotic love letters and, per Rictor Norton, “always travelled with young male companions, and even set up house together in the Alps with the American Francis Kinlock [sic]”.  They stayed together in Chambésy in 1775, which presumably is what Laurens is referring to, with evident longing, in his letter to Kinloch on 10 March 1775:

Mr. Boon has communicated your plan of spending the summer with Vegobre in some convenient retreat in Switzerland, a plan which I should of all things like myself, and which I dare to say you will find great benefit from. 

What three young men of a certain persuasion might get up to in the privacy and safety of an alpine retreat I will leave to your imagination.

Side note on Müller and Kinloch - in 1802/3, Müller was involved in a homosexual scandal, after a former pupil faked love letters to him from a made-up admirer, to which Müller responded with equal (and damning) fervour. The ensuing scandal cost Müller his fortune. He writes a letter to Kinloch on 12 May 1803, explaining his dire situation, to which Kinloch responds:

L'idée de ce qui aurait pu arriver à cette extreme nocturne me fait frémir - Vous souvient il, cher ami, du commencement do notre liaison à Geneve? My transcription: The idea of ​​what could have happened at this nocturnal extreme makes me shudder - Does it remind you, dear friend, of the beginning of our affair in Geneva?

Clearly, the mention of the scandal was a reminder to Kinloch of whatever they may have gotten up to twenty years prior.

In Laurens’ absence from Geneva, Kinloch and de Vegobre remained close, and all three of them wrote to and about each other using expressions of deep love and affection, expressing a desire for contact and closeness - which, to me, often veers into the romantic.

Here are some examples, in chronological order:

My beloved, my dearest friend is Kinloch […] Let me say again: Kinloch is my beloved, my dearest friend. […] You have began to make me feeling how hard it is to see the departure of a man to whom one’s heart is addicted

Louis de Vegobre to John Laurens, 24 December 1774

I would be wrong to hide from you that I was upset at you [but now I want to] occupy myself only with the pleasure I had upon seeing that your heart is without fault, and that you have maintained the same sentiments towards me that you expressed to me when you left Geneva. […] Permit me to remark to you that [a time of adversity] is where we know our friends, and that it is here (I dare say) that you will see that the attachments of my heart are not a light bond formed by pleasure which does not last beyond it. […] You congratulate me on my friendship with Kinloch, oh how right you are to congratulate me! What an excellent man! What a friend I have in him! […] I repeat that I am entirely at your service & that I responded very sincerely and very deeply to the feelings that you have expressed for me. 

Louis de Vegobre to John Laurens, 18 October 1775

You and I may differ my Dear Kinloch in our political Sentiments but I shall always love you from the Knowledge I have of your Heart.

John Laurens to Francis Kinloch, 12 April 1776

we hold too fast by one anothers hearts, my dear Laurens, to be afraid of exposing our several opinions to each other […] Be certain that I never shall forget you

Francis Kinloch to John Laurens, 28 April 1776

that Letter & the pretty gift that you attached are very agreeable marks of your friendship […] I learnt that I was loved & esteemed by you as much as I could have desired […] I am much persuaded, my Dear, that if we could live together our mutual happiness would be augmented; especially when I think of the calamities that surround you, I would desire to be close to you, to witness your fortitude and to offer you the relief of my friendship […] I saw this morning our friend Kinloch: what shall I tell you of him which you don’t already know? […] I regard it is as one of the joys of my life to have become his friend.

Louis de Vegobre to John Laurens, 7 June 1776

And after Laurens’ blistering letter to Kinloch about their differing political views, Kinloch seemingly responds with hurt and offence, which Laurens tries to smooth over with a reaffirmation of his feelings:

I have no Copies of what I write, and therefore can’t be exactly sure of all the Expressions which I used in my Letter, this I am persuaded of that there was nothing in it that could be construed to throw any Imputation upon the Qualities of your Heart on account of the side you took in our political Dispute […] It was from the great Opinion I had of your Heart that I first wish’d to form a Friendship with you, it is from the great Opinion that I still have of it, that I am exceedingly desirous of cultivating and improving that Friendship […] I still think your political principles wrong, the Sentiments which you have adopted with respect to your own Country strike me with horrour, and I hope you’ll change them_ but I am persuaded you think they are right and your Heart with me is unimpeached_

John Laurens to Francis Kinloch, 30 September 1776

(Extracts above from de Vegobre’s letters of 18 October 1775 and 7 June 1776 are taken from my translations of the original French.)

#historical john laurens #john laurens #francis kinloch #louis de vegobre #johannes von muller #queer history #18th century history

[qqueenofhades]

hi there! ive always loved your history posts, and was wondering if you had any insights/directions you could point me in to learn more about a specific area of queer history?

im personally most well-read on the history of gay men in britain between the labouchere amendment and ww2, so a pretty specific area. i dont know very much at all about the history of queer women, though id think its harder to get primary sources for them as the legal records wouldnt exist in the same way?

anyway, my main question is actually about cross-gender solidarity. i notice that a lot of the men i read about operated in very gender segregated spaces, which was typical for the era anyway and ofc there are plenty of spaces today where gay men want to be with other gay men exclusively. i suppose im wondering if there's any way of investigating how much queer men in the past would have felt solidarity with queer women, and how to look at whether/how those sentiments changed over time?

i realise this is a bit more of a "how to do history" question than about history proper - any insight or thoughts you'd like to share about this would also be really appreciated! and in either case, hope you're having a great week xx

First, thanks! Glad to help.

Second, the difficulty of doing premodern queer history largely or exclusively from legal documents is that a) it gives us a distorted version of what degree of prejudice actually existed in society, on a practical and not just theoretical level, and b) it makes it even more difficult (if not impossible) to speculate on what people "really" felt, thought, or personally identified. (I currently have a book chapter about John/Eleanor Rykener in the peer-review process, which touches on some of this difficulty, since our only major source in that case is also a legal record.) We are very rarely granted direct access to the actual voices or perspectives of premodern queer people, and if it's filtered through a hostile framework that has an interest in minimizing that person's existence and/or social experience, it provides an even more excessively or solely negative picture than is probably at all the case.

However, I would gently challenge your idea that it's harder to get primary sources on queer women, since the assumption is that premodern queer men are only memorialized by their (presumably punitive) encounters with the legal system, and that society cared less about female homosexuality and thus did not attempt to police it in the same way. Both ideas have some degree of truth, but not entirely and certainly not categorically, and there are many ways to access premodern queer experience and memorialization. I don't know what particular time/region you're interested in, but since you said Britain, I will once more recommend checking out the website of gay British historian Rictor Norton. He has everything, and I mean everything, you could possibly want as a resource/starting point (his specialty is 18th-20th century British LGBT history):

He has a wildly extensive list of links to subject, region, and chronological-specific LGBT history:

He has an equally comprehensive list of links sorted by region, methodology, art/music history, thematic approaches, etc:

Now, obviously I haven't combed through all of these to see if there is something that specifically addresses the question of premodern mlm/wlw solidarity, but since queer spaces have often been a lot more gender-mixed than people tend to think, there are certainly more than enough resources to get you clicking and searching.

#indieninja92 #ask #history #queer history #british history

[jadejedi]

Old Queer Love Letters

So, I just reread Red, White, and Royal Blue this week and was reminded of my slight obsession with historical gay love letters. I think there is something so heart-wrenchingly beautiful and devastating about these letters written between these people who so deeply love each other, even in times when they would be persecuted for that love. This is a collection of excerpts from some of my favorites, with sources included. Many of the letters written by men are from Rictor Norton’s “Dear Boy” essays, a collection of essays on love letters between men throughout history, which I highly recommend perusing if you also like to read old gay love letters (links below). All emphasis is my own. 

1779- Alexander Hamilton to John Laurens

“Cold in my professions, warm in my friendships, I wish, my Dear Laurens, it might be in my power, by actions rather than words, to convince you that I love you. I shall only tell you that ‘till I bade us Adieu, I hardly knew the value you had taught my heart to set upon you. Indeed, my friend, it was not well done. You know the opinion I entertain of mankind, and how much it is my desire to preserve myself free from particular attachments, and to keep my happiness independent on the caprice of others. You should not have taken advantage of my sensibility to steal into my affections without my consent. But as you have done it and as we are generally indulgent to those we love, I shall not scruple to pardon the fraud you have committed, on condition that for my sake, if not for your own, you will always continue to merit the partiality, which you have so artfully instilled into me.”

816- Yuan Zhen to Bo Juyi

“Other people too have friends that they love; 

But ours was a love such as few friends have known.

You were all my sustenance; it mattered more

To see you daily than to get my morning food.”

1927- Vita Sackville-West to Virginia Woolf

“I miss you even more than I could have believed; and I was prepared to miss you a good deal. So this letter is really just a squeal of pain. It is incredible how essential to me you have become. I suppose you are accustomed to people saying these things. Damn you, spoilt creature; I shan’t make you love me any more by giving myself away like this- But oh my dear, I can’t be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that. Too truly. You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don’t love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defenses. And I don’t really resent it.”

1958- Allen Ginsberg to Peter Orlovsky

“‘When I think on thee dear friend/ all loses are restored & sorrows end,’ came over & over in my mind- it’s the end of a Shakespeare Sonnet- he must have been happy in love too. I had never realized that before… 

Write me soon baby, I’ll write you a big long poem I feel as if you were a god that I pray to-

Love, Allen”

1933- Eleanor Roosevelt to Lorena Hickok

“I cannot go to bed tonight without a word to you. I felt a little as though a part of me was leaving tonight. You have grown so much a part of my life that it is empty without you.”

And from a different letter that same year, 

“I miss you greatly dear. The nicest time of day is when I write to you. You have a stormier time than I do but I miss you as much, I think. I couldn’t bear to think of you crying yourself to sleep. Oh! how I wanted to put my arms around you in reality instead of in spirit. I went & kissed your photograph instead & the tears were in my eyes. Please keep most of your heart in Washington as long as I’m here for most of mine is with you!”

1941- Gordon Bowsher to Gilbert Bradley

“For years I had it drummed into me that no love could last for life…

I want you darling seriously to delve into your own mind, and to look for once in to the future. 

Imagine the time when the war is over and we are living together… would it not be better to live on from now on the memory of our life together when it was at its most golden pitch.”

1917- Wilfred Owen to Siegfried Sassoon

“And you have fixed my Life- however short. You did not light me: I was always a mad comet; but you have fixed me. I spun round you a satellite for a month, but I shall swing out soon, a dark star in the orbit where you will blaze.”

Sources below the cut:

Hamilton to Laurens, from the National Archives and Rictor Norton’s My Dear Boy: Gay Love Letters through the Centuries

Yuan Zhen to Bo Juyi, from Rictor Norton’s My Dear Boy: Gay Love Letters through the Centuries

Sackville-West to Woolf, from The Marginalian

Ginsberg to Orlovsky, from Rictor Norton’s My Dear Boy: Gay Love Letters through the Centuries and The Pink News

Roosevelt to Hickok, from Autostraddle.com

Bowsher to Bradley, from the BBC

Owen to Sassoon, from Rictor Norton’s My Dear Boy: Gay Love Letters through the Centuries

#jj talks #lgbtqia #queer history #history is gayyy

[unnecessaryligatures]

I'm looking for book recommendations about queer culture in 18th and 19th century in either Britain or on board ships. (I feel like there must be a masterpost about this somewhere, but if there is, I haven't found it yet!)

The closest I've found to what I'm looking for is Mother Clap's Molly House: The Gay Subculture in England 1700-1830 by Rictor Norton. However, (a) it's an out of print textbook (expensive and hard to track down), and (b) it looks like the author has posted most of the content on his site (which I will definitely be reading!): http://rictornorton.co.uk/

I'm specifically looking for physical books, not blog posts or articles. I've found a few titles, but it's hard to tell how they are from the reviews. I'd appreciate any first-hand recommendations from people who have read them.

#queer history #18th century #19th century #the age of sail #related to: #the terror amc #of course #queer tag #history #books #book recommendations #unnecessary's stuff

[relicariums]

"Rictor Norton, in My Dear Boy: Gay Love Letters through the Centuries, theorizes that The Little Mermaid was written as a love letter by Hans Christian Andersen to Edvard Collin.[15] This is based on a letter Andersen wrote to Collin, upon hearing of Collin's engagement to a young woman, around the same time that the Little Mermaid was written. Andersen wrote "I languish for you as for a pretty Calabrian wench... my sentiments for you are those of a woman. The femininity of my nature and our friendship must remain a mystery."[16] Andersen also sent the original story to Collin.[17] Norton interprets the correspondence as a declaration of Andersen's homosexual love for Collin and describes The Little Mermaid as an allegory for Andersen's life.[18]"

Ahh in the original the prince doesn't love her and she dies after he marries...

[100gayicons]

In 1698 Captain Edward Rigby was the first man in history to have been entrapped and arrested for sodomy (a capital offence).

Rigby was first the captain of the Mermaid fireship (1693), then later until his arrest, he commanded the Dragon, a 40 gun man- of-war. In early 1698, Rigby was court martialed for committing sodomy with another man but he was acquitted.

Reverend Thomas Bray thought Rigby was guilty. He was a member a reformation society whose goal was to eliminate profanity, immorality, and other lewd activities; and of brothels, prostitution, and acts of sodomy in particular. Bray set up a trap with the help of the local police. He arranged for a servant named Minton to approach Rigby. Minton described what occurred in a court statement when he met Rigby to watch Fireworks at St. James Park:

“Rigby took him by the hand, and squeez'd it; put his Privy Member Erected into Minton's Hand; kist him, and put his Tongue into Minton's Mouth.”

Minton resisted but Rigby continued to pursue him. They agreed to meet the following Monday at the George-Tavern. Feeling shame for what had happened, Minton asked a friend for advice which eventual lead him to agree to entrap Rigby at the tavern. The two police men hid in an ajoining room with instructions to Minton to shout the code word “Westminster” if he was in danger.

When Rigby and Minton arrived at the designated place, they continued kissing like the night before. Minton told Rigby “might do what he pleased" and Rigby pulled down his breeches and put his finger in Minton’s “Fundament”. When Minton felt something lagainst his backside, he reached back and grabbed Rigby’s “privy member”, saying:

"I have now discovered your base Inclinations, I will expose you to the World, to put a stop to these Crimes.” Then he shouted "Westminster".

The Constables immediately entered the room and arrested Rigby for attempting to commit “abominable sin of sodomy”.

At his trial Rigby’s defense was:

“It’s no more than was done in our Fore-fathers time." Referring to historical figures who were reported to have had sex with other men.

He also claimed that another clergyman had bribed two men to falsely accuse Rigby of sodomizing them.

The counter claim was not believed and Rigby was found guilty. He was sentence with a £1,000 fine, and ordered to stand 3 times in the Pillory for Buggery.

After serving his prison sentence, Rigby fled to France. But in 1711 Rigby was caught disguised as a French sea captain trying to renter England. Before he could be arrested again, he escaped back to France. He was highly regarded by the French for his marine skills, and very well paid.

A full account of the arrest and trail can be found here:

#gay icons #we were always there #Captain Edward Rigby #sodomy #entrapment #pillory #privy member #lots of kissing #base inclinations #1700s

[amphibious-thing]

I would absolutely love to see examples of historical terminology? I feel like I've only scraped the surface.

So I'm going to focus mostly on 18th century English because that's what I read the most (we will dip a little into French but mostly from an English perspective). Even narrowing the focus there's still kind of a lot. Like I'm probably going to forget something cause there is so much to talk about.

Sexuality

The first thing that's important to understand is sexuality labels were action based not attraction based. This doesn't mean people didn't understand sexual attraction, they very much did, it's just that terminology was based on action not attraction. Terminology was essentially separated into men who have sex with men and women who have sex with women. It also important to remember that these terms were not exclusive to men who only had sex with men and women who only had sex with women but also applied to people who had sex with both men and women.

Men Who Had Sex With Men

Sodomy/Buggery

The terms most commonly used in formal/legal contexts were sodomite and bugger. Bugger comes from buggery and sodomite from sodomy, both of which broadly speaking referred to anal intercourse or bestiality regardless of sex/gender but was most commonly associated with sex between men. The legal definition of sodomy in English common law was as follows:

Sodomy is a carnal Knowledge of the Body of Man or Beast, against the Order of Nature; It way be committed by Man with Man, (which is the most common Crime) or Man with Woman; or by Man or Woman with a Brute Beast. Some Kind of Penetration and Emission is to be proved, to make this Crime, which is Felony both by the Common and Statute Law, in the Agent and all that a present, aiding and abetting; also in the Patient consenting, not being within the Age of Discretion.

~ The Student’s Companion or, the Reason of the Laws of England by Giles Jacob, 1734, p239

However colloquially it was generally used to describe sex between men without the focus on Penetration and Emission.

Related to sodomy were the words sodomitical, sodomitically and sodomiting, these terms were used to describe a person, action or place that was related to sodomy (esp. sex between men) but did not necessarily constitute legal sodomy. (for examples see Trial of Martin Mackintosh, 11 July 1726, A Treatise of Laws by Giles Jacob, 1721, p165 and Trial of Thomas Gordon, 5 July 1732 respectively)

From buggery we get the presumably derogatory term buggeranto. (for an example see The London Spy, part III, published 1703)

Molly

The preferred term used by the community was molly. Rictor Norton explains in Mother Clap’s Molly House:

The early church fathers stigmatised homosexuals as molls or sissies, and secular society called effeminate men molly-coddles and homosexuals mollies; having no other self-referring terms except the even less appealing Sodomite or Bugger, gay men transformed Molly into a term of positive self-identification, in exactly the same way that the modern subculture has transformed Gay (which derived originally from ‘gay girl’, meaning a female prostitute) into a term of pride and self-liberation.

Molly (plural mollies) was a noun:

Sukey Haws, being one Day in a pleasant Humour, inform’d Dalton of a Wedding (as they call it) some Time since, between Moll Irons, and another Molly,

~ James Dalton’s Narrative (1728)

Molly/mollied/mollying could also be a verb:

I was going down Fleet-Street, I was just come out of Jail. This Man, the Prosecutor, is as great a Villain as ever appear'd in the World. I was coming down Fleet-Street, so Molly says he; I said, I never mollied you. My Lord, I never laid my Hand upon him, nor touch'd him; I never touch'd the Man in my Life.

~ Trial of Richard Manning, (17 January 1746)

And mollying could be used as an adjective:

But they look'd a skew upon Mark Partridge, and call'd him a treacherous, blowing-up Mollying Bitch, and threatned that they'd Massacre any body that betray'd them.

~ Trial of Thomas Wright, (20 April 1726)

A molly house was house or tavern that catered to mollies. Molly houses would typically serve alcohol and often had music and dancing. Usually there was a room where mollies could have sex known as the chapel. (see Trial of Gabriel Lawrence, 20 April 1726 for an example of the term molly house in use, Trial of George Whytle, 20 April 1726 and Trial of Margaret Clap, 11 July 1726 for details on the chapel, and Trial of William Griffin, 20 April 1726 for molly houses taking lodgers.)

Mollies also had their own slang which I have a separate post on if you want to learn more about that.

Euphemisms

Euphemisms for men who had sex with other men included Back Gammon Player and Usher, or Gentleman of the Back Door. To navigate the windward passage was a euphemism for anal sex. (see The Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1785.)

References to the classics were also sometimes used as euphemisms. A common example is Zeus's male lover Ganymede. (for an example see Public Advertiser, 4 Sept 1781)

Anal Sex Roles

The roles in anal sex were known as pathic (sometimes spelt Pathick) or patient (bottom) and agent (top). I have a longer post about the cultural perception of roles in anal sex if you're interested in that sort of thing.

Other Terms for Men Who Had Sex With Men

Pederast: In the 18th century the word pederasty was used synonymously with sodomy and did not denote age simply sex. An Universal Etymological English Dictionary (1726) defines “A pederast” as “a Buggerer” and “Pederasty” as “Buggery”.

Catamite: In particular catamite often, but not always, denoted the younger partner in a male-male sexual relationship. It was sometimes used to specifically describe boys but it was sometimes used it to describe men. Cocker's English Dictionary (1704) defines catamite as "a boy hired to be used contrary to nature, for Sodomy" but The New Royal and Universal English Dictionary (1763) defines catamite simply as "a sodomite." Catamite was also sometimes used as synonym for pathic.

Gomorrean: Like sodomite this one comes from the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah. However it wasn't nearly as commonly used. (for an example see The London Chronicle, 4 - 6 Jan 1757)

Madge Cull: This one came about towards the end of the century. It comes from a combination of Madge a slang term for “the female genitals” and Cull slang for “a man, a fellow, a chap.” (see Green’s Dictionary of Slang)

Women Who Had Sex With Women

Sodomy

While English common law did not consider sex between women sodomy this was not true across Europe. (see Louis Crompton, The Myth of Lesbian Impunity Capital Laws from 1270 to 1791) Most English colonies followed English common law however this aspect of the law was not unanimously agreed upon.

In 1636 Rev. John Cotton proposed to the General Court of Massachusetts a body of laws that would define sodomy as "a carnal fellowship of man with man, or woman with woman". (Crompton, p19)

In a 1779 bill submitted to the Virginia Assembly on crime and punishment Thomas Jefferson explicitly includes sex between women. He quotes Henry Finch's Law, or, a Discourse Thereof; in Four Books which defines sodomy as "carnal copulation against nature, to wit, of man or woman in the same sex, or of either of them with beasts." Jefferson disagrees with Finch on including bestiality because it "can never make any progress" and "cannot therefore be injurious to society in any great degree". However he doesn't dispute the inclusion of sex between women. He proposes that the punishment for sodomy be "if a man, by castration, if a woman, by cutting thro’ the cartilage of her nose a hole of one half inch diameter at the least." (see A Bill for Proportioning Crimes and Punishments in Cases Heretofore Capital, 18 June 1779)

While there was some disagreement on the legal definition of sodomy, colloquially if someone was talking about sodomy they were probably talking about sex between men. A clarification would likely be added if they were talking about women e.g. female sodomite.

Tribade

Coming from French tribade was defined in The New Pocket Dictionary of the French and English Languages (1781) as a "female sodomite". Tribade was used in English at least as early as 1585. It originally comes from the ancient Greek word τρίβειν meaning "rub" and is a reference to tribadism. The word tribadism however did not come into use until the 19th century. (see OED)

Sappho was a famous Tribade; as appears by the Testimonies of all the old Poets, but particularly from that beautiful Ode (addressed to one of the Ladies, with whom she was in Love) which Longinus has preserved, and which has ever been so highly esteemed by all the Critics.

~ William King, The Toast (1732)

Sapphic

Sapphic (sometimes spelt sapphick) originally meant "relating to, characteristic of, or reminiscent of Sappho or her writings". (OED) It became a term for sexual activity and sexual desire between women in reference of course to the accent Greek poet Sappho's love poems addressed to women. In fact in 18th century England Sappho was often cited as being the first woman who had ever had sex with another women.

Sappho, as she was one of the wittiest Women that ever the World bred, so she though with Reason, it would be expected she should make some Additions to a Science in which Womankind had been so successful: What dose she do then? Not content with our Sex, begins Amours with her own, and teaches the Female World a new Sort of Sin, call’d the Flats, that was follow’d not only in Lucian’s Time, but is practis’d frequently in Turkey, as well as at Twickenham at this day.

~ Satan’s Harvest Home (1749)

Sapphic is an adjective:

Look on that mountain of delight, Where grace and beauty doth unite, Where wreathed smiles must thrive; While Strawberry-hill at once doth prove, Taste, elegance, and Sapphick love, In gentle Kitty *****.

~ A Sapphick Epistle (1778)

Sapphism is a noun for the act or desire:

it has a Greek name now & is call’d Sapphism, but I never did hear of it in Italy where the Ladies are today exactly what Juvenal described them in his Time – neither better nor worse as I can find. Mrs Siddons has told me that her Sister was in personal Danger once from a female Fiend of this Sort; & I have no Reason to disbelieve the Assertion. Bath is a Cage of these unclean Birds I have a Notion, and London is a Sink for every Sin.

~ Hester Thrale Piozzi, Thraliana, 9 Dec 1795

Sapphist is a noun for the person:

Nature does get strangely out of Fashion sure enough: One hears of Things now, fit for the Pens of Petronius only, or Juvenal to record and satyrize: The Queen of France is at the Head of a Set of Monsters call’d by each other Sapphists, who boast her Example; and deserve to be thrown with the He Demons that haunt each other likewise, into Mount Vesuvius.

~ Hester Thrale Piozzi, Thraliana, 1 April 1789

Lesbian

Originally meaning "a native or inhabitant of the Greek island of Lesbos" (OED) this is another reference to Sappho who was from Lesbos.

However, this little Woman gave Myra more Pleasure than all the rest of her Lovers and Mistresses. She was therefore dignified with the Title of Chief of the Tribades or Lesbians.

~ William King, The Toast (1732)

Tommy

Tommy (plural tommies) is a fairly uniquely 18th century term as it doesn't seen to have been used earlier and is rarely used later. Speculatively it may be etymologically linked to tomboy which dates back to 1656. (OED)

Women and Men, in these unnat'ral Times, Are guilty equal of unnat'ral crimes: Woman with Woman act the Many Part, And kiss and press each other to the heart. Unnat'ral Crimes like these my Satire vex; I know a thousand Tommies 'mongst the Sex: And if they don't relinquish such a Crime, I'll give their Names to be the scoff of Time.

~ The Adulteress (1773)

Euphemisms

The game of flats, game at flats or simply flats was a euphemism for sex between women. Rictor Norton explains it was “a reference to games with playing cards, called ‘flats’, and an allusion to the rubbing together of two ‘flat’ female pudenda.” (Mother Clap’s Molly House, p233)

I am credibly informed, in order to render the Scheme of Iniquity still more extensive amongst us, a new and most abominable Vice has got footing among the W—n of Q—–y, by some call’d the Game at Flats;

~ Satan’s Harvest Home (1749)

In a diary entry Hester Thrale Piozzi repots "’tis a Joke in London now to say such a one visits Mrs. Darner". This was in reference to the rumours of sapphism that surrounded the sculptor Anne Damer. Piozzi goes on to recored a poem concerning Anne Damer's relationship with actress Elizabeth Farren that was being passed around her social circle:

Her little Stock of private Fame Will fall a Wreck to public Clamour, If Farren herds with her whose Name Approaches very near to Damn her.

~ Hester Thrale Piozzi, Thraliana, 9 Dec 1795 (see ‘Random Shafts of Malice?': The Outings of Anne Damer by Emma Donoghue for more on the rumours surrounding Anne Damer)

Absence of Sexual Attraction

With 18th century sexuality labels being action based rather than attraction based we have no exact equivalent for the word asexual. Just as we have no exact equivalent for the word homosexual. There was of course words for people who had never had sex (virgin, maiden) and words for people who planned on never having sex (celibate).

However this doesn't mean 18th century people had no way of talking about a lack of sexual attraction. The Chevalière d'Eon in a letter to the Comte de Broglie talks of "the natural lack of passion in my temperament, which has prevented my engaging in amorous intrigues”. Her lack of sexual interest became part of her self-styling as La Pucelle de Tonnerre (The Maiden of Tonnerre) after Joan of Arc who was known a La Pucelle d'Orléans (The Maiden of Orleans). (see D’Eon to the Comte de Broglie, 7 May 1771. Translated by Alfred Rieu, D'Eon de Beaumont, His Life and Times, p141; also for examples of the English press calling her La Pucelle d'Orléans see the Public Advertiser, 4 May & 11 June 1792)

The Third Sex/Gender

In the 18th century intersex people were predominantly referred to as hermaphrodites (while it is now considered offensive I will use it in this post as I think there is educational value in understanding it's historical use). In The Mysteries of Conjugal Love Reveal'd Written in French Nicholas de Venette explains that intersex people were permitted to "chuse either of the two Sexes". However if they strayed from the chosen role of man or woman they could be "punished like a Sodomite". (p465)

In the 18th century the words sex and gender were used somewhat synonymously. The word hermaphrodite along with third sex and third gender were used to describe not only intersex people but also gender nonconforming endosex people. Your clothes, interests, speech patterns and the way you move were all considered part of your sex.

Consider The Fribbleriad by David Garrick. Garrick was an actor known for playing fops. In the poem he portrays his critics as a group of effeminate men who were angry at him for they way he mocked them in his work:

In forty-eight— I well remember— Twelve years or more— the month November— May we no more such misery know! Since Garrick made OUR SEX a shew; And gave us up to such rude laughter, That few, ‘twas said, could hold their water: For He, that play'r, so mock’d our motions, Our dress, amusements, fancies, notions, So lisp’d our words and minc’d our steps, He made us pass for demi-reps. Tho’ wisely then we laugh’d it off, We’ll now return his wicked scoff.

"OUR SEX" is understood to be the sex of effeminate men. A sex distinct from that of acceptable manhood or womanhood which is defined by their "dress, amusements, fancies, notions" as well as the way they "lisp'd" their words and "minc’d" their steps.

John Bennett in his popular conduct book Letters to a Young Lady on a Variety of Useful and Interesting Subjects advises young women against wearing riding habits warning that they would "wholly unsex her". The Guardian reports that some people had "not injudiciously stiled" the riding Habit "Hermaphroditical". And The Spectator complains about riding Habits calling them an "Amphibious Dress" and describing women who wear them as "Hermaphrodites" and a "Mixture of two Sexes in one Person". (The Guardian, 1 September 1713, reprinted in The Guardian edited by John Calhoun Stephens, p 486; The Spectator 19 July, 1712)

The word amphibious is one that comes up a lot in the 18th century in regards to gender. A dictionary of the English language (1794) defines amphibious as "living in two elements". John Bennett describes effeminate men as "poor amphibious animals, that the best naturalists know not under what class to arrange."

Alexander Pope famously called Lord Hervey an "Amphibious Thing!" that acts "either Part". Lady Mary Wortley Montagu said that "this world consisted of men, women, and Herveys". And William Pulteney describes him as "delicate Hermaphodite", "a pretty, little, Master-Miss" and "a Lady Himself; or at least such a nice Composition of the two Sexes, that it is difficult to distinguish which is most predominant." (Alexander Pope, Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot; The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu edited by Lord Wharncliffe, v1, p95; William Pulteney, A Proper Reply To a late Scurrilous Libel)

Macaroni, amazon, virago, fop, petit-maitre, coxcomb, amphibious, unsex, dandy, namby-pamby, he-she things, lady-fellow, master-miss, fribble, dubious gender. These were all terms to describe gender nonconforming people. Many of these terms were used in a derogatory way but not all of them were intended as such and some GNC people identified with some of these terms. For example a young Charles James Fox described himself as a petit-maitre in his 18 Oct, 1763 letter to his father. While at Eton, which he found "more disagreeable than I imagined", he laments "you may see the petit maître de Paris is converted into an Oxford Pedant."

Many of the people who were labeled as third sex/gender would not necessarily have identified as such. With even the smallest deviation from the norm giving rise to the label. Including one 1737 article which claimed that "Ugly Women" may "more properly be call'd a Third Sex, than a Part of the Fair one". (Common Sense, or The Englishman's Journal, 28, Feb)

Gender Presentation Through Gendered Language

While there is no real equivalent for the word transgender in 18th century English this doesn't mean people had no way of expressing their gender though language. People referred to themselves as being men, women, both or neither. Gendered names, titles and pronouns were also used to express one's gender.

The Chevalière d'Eon

D'Eon asserted her gender identity though gendered names, pronouns and titles. When she started openly living as a women she changed her first name to Charlotte making her full name Charlotte-Geneviève-Louise-Auguste-André-Timothée d’Eon de Beaumont. However she preferred the name Geneviève and would often write her name simply Geneviève d'Eon.

[Admission-ticket for Geneviéve d'Eon, with red seal; c.1793; via The British Museum (C,2.3)]

D'Eon used she/her pronouns. Here is an example of her using she/her pronouns for herself when writing in third person:

[Invitation from the Chevalière d’Eon to Lord Besborough; c.1791; via The British Museum (D,1.268-272)]

As she was French d'Eon used French titles even in English. She would sometimes use the title Mademoiselle (a title for unmarried women) but other times she used Chevalière. In 1763 she was awarded the Cross of Saint-Louis and with that came the masculine title Chevalier. When she started openly living as a women she switched from the masculine Chevalier to the feminine Chevalière. Perhaps the most fun example of her using the feminine Chevalière is the sword she gifted to George Keate which was inscribed: "Donné par la Chevalïere d’Eon à son ancïen Amï Geo: Keate Esquïre. 1777"

[The Chevalière d’Eon’s Sword, hilt: c.1700s, blade: c.mid-1600s, inscription: c.1777, photos via the Royal Armouries Museum (IX.2034A)]

Public Universal Friend

The Public Universal Friend claimed to be a genderless spirit sent by god resurrected in the body of Jemima Wilkinson after she had succumbed to a fever in 1776. The Public Universal Friend gained a small but devoted group of followers that understood and respected the Friend as a genderless being. When one traveler asked for directions to "Jemima Wilkinson's house" a women replied that "she knew no such person; "the friend" lived a little piece below." (A Ride to Niagara in 1809 by Cooper Thomas, p37)

For the most part followers of the Public Universal Friend avoided using gendered pronouns for the Friend*. However they did not use gender neutral pronouns (such as they/them) but instead avoided third person pronouns completely. You can see an example of the sort of gender neutral language used for the friend in this letter from Sarah Richards to Ruth Pritchard:

Dear Ruth This is to be a Messenger of my Love to thee. Hold out faith and patience. Thy letter was very welcome to me. I want Thee should make ready to come where the Friend is in this Town. The Friend has got land enough here for all that will be faithful & true. Dear Ruth, I will inform thee that Benedict has given the Friend a Deed of some land in the second Seventh in the Boston perhemption, which Deed contains five lotts and the Friend has made use of my name to hold it in trust for the Friend, and now I hope the Friends will have a home, and like wise for the poor friends and such as have no helper, here no intruding feet cant enter. Farewell form thy Affectionate Friend, Sarah Richards

~ Sarah Richards to Ruth Pritchard, March 1793 (printed in The Unquiet World by Frances Dumas, p166)

* In contrast to followers that avoided gendered pronouns completely ex-follower Abner Brownell claimed that some followers called the Friend "him." (see A Mighty Baptism edited by Susan Juster & Lisa MacFarlane, p28)

It's impossible to seperate the Friend's genderlessness from the claim that the Friend was a messenger sent by god resurrected in the body of Jemima Wilkinson. The followers of the Public Universal Friend used genderless language as a way to indicate their religious devotion. In "Indescribable Being" Theological Performances of Genderlessness in the Society of the Publick Universal Friend, 1776-1819 Scott Larson explains:

The language one chose to describe the Friend indicated whether one was part of the community of the saved or part of the "wicked world." Conversely, community members and followers used the name "the Friend" quite deliberately, and that use became a marker of belonging. This sense of belonging could last longer than the community itself did. Huldah Davis, who was a child when the Friend left time in 1819, shared her memories of the Friend in 1895. In her recollections, Davis refers to Jemima Wilkinson but is careful to note that her parents, followers of the Friend, always referred to "the Friend," and Davis uses the community's language through most of her account. Language choices could also mark points of entering and exiting the community, as the apostate and denouncer Abner Brownell refers to "The Friend" in diary entries written during the time of his membership in the Friend's community but then calls "her" "Jemima Wilkinson" in his later published denunciation, Enthusiastical Errors, Described and Decried.

Mollies and Maiden Names

Gendered language could be used to express queer identity without necessarily expressing a transgender identity. Mollies took on feminine sobriquets known as maiden names. A maiden name was a typically made up of a combination of either a feminine title or name (molly and variations being the most popular) and often a reference to something notable about the individual. It could be a reference to their profession for example Orange Mary was an orange merchant, Dip-Candle Mary was a tallow chandler and Old Fish Hannah a fisherman. It could be a reference to where they were from for example Mrs. Girl of Redriff was presumably from Redriff. Some maiden names were somewhat suggestive like Miss Sweet Lips or Molly Soft-buttocks.

(Sources for maiden names: Orange Mary, Dip-Candle Mary, Old Fish Hannah, and Mrs. Girl of Redriff are mentioned in James Dalton's Narrative; Miss Sweet Lips is mentioned in The Phoenix of Sodom by Robert Holloway; Molly Soft-buttocks is mentioned in Account of the Life and Actions of Joseph Powis)

While mollies took on these feminine names, they more often than not still lived as men. Most mollies wore men's clothes, used he/him pronouns and referred to their partners as their husbands not their wives. (for the use of husband in the molly subculture see the trial of Martin Mackintosh, 11 July 1726 and the trial of George Whytle, 20 April 1726)

However some mollies did wear women's clothes and used (at least some of the time) feminine pronouns. Take for example Princess Seraphina who during the trial of Thomas Gordon (5 July 1732) is described by Mary Poplet as follows:

I have known her Highness a pretty while, she us’d to come to my House from Mr. Tull, to enquire after some Gentlemen of no very good Character; I have seen her several times in Women’s Cloaths, she commonly us’d to wear a white Gown, and a scarlet Cloak, with her Hair frizzled and curl’d all round her Forehead; and then she would so flutter her Fan, and make such fine Curties, that you would not have known her from a Woman: She takes great Delight in Balls and Masquerades, and always chuses to appear at them in a Female Dress, that she may have the Satisfaction of dancing with fine Gentlemen. Her Highness lives with Mr. Tull in Eagle-Court in the Strand, and calls him her Master, because she was Nurse to him and his Wife when they were both in a Salivation; but the Princess is rather Mr. Tull’s Friend, than his domestick Servant. I never heard that she had any other Name than the Princess Sraphina.

On a final note I would also recommend looking up many of these terms in the Oxford English Dictionary (you might be able to access this for free through your library) and Green's Dictionary of Slang both of which include multiple examples in use.

#sorry this took so long I couldn't resist making it far too long #if you want me to talk your ear off just ask me about 18th century queer language its my favourite topic #queer history

[hartshorn-and-isinglass]

Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England: A Sourcebook

I'm sure this page probably gets floated about from time to time but in case you did not know about it, Rictor Norton's compiled a whole treasure trove of primary sources having to do with queer sexuality across the 18th century in England. Now, I don't always agree with all of Norton's conclusions about things but I absolutely respect the work that went into making all of this readily accessible, and for that I tip my hat to him. He's also got a similar page for a fat stack of primary resources on 19th century queer sexuality in England.

Among the things that really stand out in these reports is how casual dudes are about cruising and public sex even in the 18th century, and also how many of them argue in their defense that what they're doing is "only natural". Even with the threat of death looming, a lot of guys simply did not expect that anyone would go through the trouble of actually charging them with a crime, and they also held their own ideas about the moral valence of the homosexual sex acts they participated in.

#18thcentury #18th century #lgbtq #sexuality #history of sexuality #resources

[betweendoctorsanddetectives]

what is the title of this gay history book........ asking for a friend

a couple of things in the introduction have given me pause (the author's dismissal of foucault, of queer theory, and apparently of many modern social historians) so I am not necessarily recommending it! I've only read the very beginning so far so I can't speak to the quality of the book as a whole, but it's seeming to be quite good as an overview and introduction to different parts of the history of gay subcultures. so with that pinch of salt, it's "mother clap's molly house" by rictor norton

[homomenhommes]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … January 22

1561 – On this date, the English statesmen, essayist and philosopher Sir Francis Bacon was born in London (d.1626). His influence over the James I, who held Bacon in high favor, inspired resentment or apprehension in many of his peers. He is best known for his philosophical works concerning the acquisition of knowledge and the general "scientific method."

He was also extremely fond of men. As the British scholar Rictor Norton points out that Bacon did not marry until the late age of forty-eight, and that contemporary figures, such as John Aubrey, related that Bacon was by preference homosexual. Aubrey noted "He was a Pederast. His Ganimeds and Favourites tooke Bribes". He was known for his preference for the "young Welsh serving-men" who were in his employ and who Bacon became a patron to. Rictor points out most a "young Tobie Matthew, who was left only a ring to the value of £30, but who had become Sir Tobie through Bacon's efforts, and who was well able to care for himself." Tobie was the inspiration for one of Bacon's most famous essays, "Of Friendship."

Several other authors also believe that despite his marriage Bacon was primarily attracted to the same sex. Professor Forker, for example, has explored the "historically documentable sexual preferences" of both King James and Bacon —and concluded they were both oriented to "masculine love", a contemporary term that "seems to have been used exclusively to refer to the sexual preference of men for members of their own gender." The Jacobean antiquarian, Sir Simonds D'Ewes even implied there had been a question of bringing Bacon to trial for buggery.

Indeed, evidence of Bacon's fondness for "red-cheeked lads from Wales" survives in the form of a letter written by Bacon's own mother, in which she complains about the long list of "servants and envoys" who find their way to his bed. She refers to a gay Spanish envoy as "that bloody Perez and bed companion of my son."

Bacon was knighted in 1603, and created both the Baron Verulam in 1618, and the Viscount St Alban in 1621; as he died without heirs both peerages became extinct upon his death. He famously died of pneumonia contracted while studying the effects of freezing on the preservation of meat.

1788 – Romantic poet George Gordon, Lord Byron was born in London (d.1824). It's funny how Byron comes down to us as the über-heterosexual romantic, but the evidence of his deep same-sex love is very clear (if still denied by homophobic historians).While he was still a child, Lord Grey, a suitor of his mother's, made sexual advances to Byron. Although Byron was a very self-centered individual, it is probable that like most children, he would have been deeply disturbed by these sexual advances. His extreme reaction to seeing his mother flirting outrageously with Lord Grey after the incident suggests this; he did not tell her of Gray's conduct toward him, he simply refused to speak to him again and ignored his mother's commands to be reconciled.

Byron's later proclivity for, and experimentation in, bisexuality may be a result of his being sexually imprinted by both genders at an early age. Leslie Marchand, one of Byron's biographers, controversially theorizes that Lord Grey's advances prompted Byron's later sexual liaisons with young men at Harrow and Cambridge. Another biographer, Fiona MacCarthy, has posited that Byron's true sexual yearnings were for adolescent males.

While at Harrow school, Byron formed a circle of emotional involvements with other Harrow boys, which he recalled with great vividness: "My School friendships were with me passions (for I was always violent)." The most enduring of those was with John FitzGibbon, 2nd Earl of Clare — four years Byron's junior — whom he was to meet unexpectedly many years later in Italy (1821). His nostalgic poems about his Harrow friendships, Childish Recollections (1806), express a prescient "consciousness of sexual differences that may in the end make England untenable to him".

"Ah! Sure some stronger impulse vibrates here, Which whispers friendship will be doubly dear To one, who thus for kindred hearts must roam, And seek abroad, the love denied at home."

While a student at Trinity College, Byron fell deeply in love with a fifteen year old choirboy by the name of John Edleston. About his 'protégé' Byron wrote, "He has been my almost constant associate since October, 1805, when I entered Trinity College. His voice first attracted my attention, his countenance fixed it, and his manners attached me to him for ever." Many years later, upon learning of his friend's death, Byron wrote, "I have heard of a death the other day that shocked me more than any, of one whom I loved more than any, of one whom I loved more than I ever loved a living thing, and one who, I believe, loved me to the last." In his memory Byron composed "Thyrza," a series of elegies, in which he changed the pronouns from masculine to feminine so as not to offend sensibilities.

In later years he described the affair as "a violent, though pure love and passion." This statement, however, needs to be read in the context of hardening public attitudes toward homosexuality in England, and the severe sanctions (including public hanging) against convicted or even suspected offenders. The liaison, on the other hand, may well have been 'pure' out of respect for Edleston's innocence, in contrast to the (probably) more sexually overt relations experienced at Harrow School.From 1809 to 1811, Byron went on the Grand Tour then customary for a young nobleman. The Napoleonic Wars forced him to avoid most of Europe, and he instead turned to the Mediterranean. Correspondence among his circle of Cambridge friends also makes clear that a key motive was the hope of homosexual experience. He was successful in this motive, as evidenced by the subject matter of poems like "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" and other writings from this period.

Ultimately he was to live abroad to escape the censure of British society, where men could be forgiven for sexual misbehavior only up to a point, one which Byron far surpassed.

1893 – German actor Conrad Veidt was born in Berlin (d.1943). He was best known for his roles in "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," and "Casablanca."

A bisexual himself, Veidt also also holds the distinction of starring in the first motion picture on the subject of homosexuality: 1919's "Anders als die Anderen" (Different from the Others) which was written and produced by German sexologist and early gay-rights champion Magnus Hirschfeld. "Anders als die Anderen" was released in a DVD format a few years back and provides an amazing historical document of the times.

Veidt also appears in Christopher Isherwood's "Berlin Stories."

The Man Who Laughs

His makeup for his title role in The Man Who Laughs is said to have been the inspiration for Bob Kane's The Joker, Batman's arch-enemy.

In late 1916, he was examined by the German Army and deemed unfit for service and given a full discharge in January 1917. Veidt then moved to Berlin to pursue his acting career. From 1916 until his death, he appeared in well over 100 films.

In the twenties, he moved to Hollywood and made a few films in the twenties but the advent of talking pictures and his broken English made him return to Germany.

Veidt fervently opposed the Nazi regime, motivating him to emigrate from Germany in 1933 a week after marrying Illona Prager, a Jewish woman. He settled in the United Kingdom, perfected his English and became a British citizen in 1938.

He continued making films in Britain, notably three with director Michael Powell: The Spy in Black (1939), Contraband (1940) and The Thief of Bagdad (1940).

In the 1940s he moved back to Hollywood, California, and starred in a few films, such as Nazi Agent (1942), in which he had a dual role as a Nazi and as the Nazi's twin brother, but his best remembered role was as Major Heinrich Strasser in Casablanca (1942). He found himself invariably playing the very characters he detested.

He died suddenly of a heart attack in 1943 while playing golf in Los Angeles. In 1998, his ashes were interred at the Golders Green Crematorium in London.

1898 – Sergei Eisenstein (d.1948) was a revolutionary Soviet film director and film theorist noted in particular for his silent films Strike, Battleship Potemkin and Oktober. His work vastly influenced early film makers owing to his innovative use of and writings about montage.

Eisenstein was a pioneer in the use of montage, a specific use of film editing. He believed that editing could be used for more than just expounding a scene or moment, through a 'linkage' of related scenes. Eisenstein felt the 'collision' of shots could be used to manipulate the emotions of the audience and create film metaphors.

In his initial films, Eisenstein did not use professional actors. His narratives eschewed individual characters and addressed broad social issues, especially class conflict. He used stock characters, and the roles were filled with untrained people from the appropriate class backgrounds.

Eisenstein's vision of Communism brought him into conflict with officials in the ruling regime of Joseph Stalin. Like a great many Bolshevik artists, Eisenstein envisioned the new society as one which would subsidize the artist totally, freeing them from the confines of bosses and budgets, thus leaving them absolutely free to create.

Eisenstein's popularity and influence in his own land waxed and waned with the success of his films and the passage of time. The Battleship Potemkin (1925) was acclaimed critically worldwide and popular in the Soviet Union. Acknowledged as his masterpiece, The Battleship Potemkin used editing and the rush of images to attain a greater emotional effect. Shot with the immediacy of a newsreel, this story of the naval revolt in Odessa in 1905 produced some of the most celebrated sequences in twentieth-century art: the Odessa steps scene must be the single most quoted, imitated, and parodied sequence in movie history.

The Odessa Steps sequence (7 mins 21 secs)

But it was mostly his international critical renown which enabled Eisenstein to direct The General Line (aka Old and New), and then Oktober (aka Ten Days That Shook The World) as part of a grand 10th anniversary celebration of the October Revolution of 1917. The critics of the outside world praised them, but at home, Eisenstein's focus in these films brought him under fire within the Soviet film community forcing him to issue public articles of self-criticism and commitments to reform his cinematic visions to conform to socialist realism's increasingly specific doctrines.

Chafing under the constraints of Stalinism, Eisenstein accepted offers to work abroad. Eisenstein returned to the Soviet Union in 1935, where he continued the spiral of falling out of and back into favor with the Stalinist regime. His remaining films - Bezhin Meadow [1937]; Alexander Nevsky [1939]; Ivan the Terrible, Part I [1942]; Ivan the Terrible, Part II: The Boyars' Plot [1946]; and the surviving fragment of Ivan the Terrible, Part III [1947] - were marked with the tensions of the political turmoil in which Eisenstein was embroiled.

Eisenstein's personal life was also chaotic. He married twice in response to political pressure, but his marriages were never consummated. His unexpurgated diaries, published as Immortal Memories, are filled with accounts of his infatuations with many young men, including his assistant, Grigori Alexandrov.

Often his infatuations (as in the case of Alexandrov) were with young heterosexual men, whom he would educate and assist in their careers. His drawings, exhibited during the centenary of his birth, include many illustrations of homosexual activity.

Despite his difficulties with censorship and other problems, Eisenstein created a remarkable legacy. His films reveal his continued commitment to experimentation in form. Alexander Nevsky, his first sound film, contains spectacular scenes, most notably the Battle on the Ice, as well as the incomparably thrilling film score of Sergei Prokofiev.

Ivan the Terrible, an intensely Expressionistic study of political power and corruption, with immense sets, voluminous costumes, and amazingly hyperbolic lighting, represents a contrast to this earlier work. It was not dynamically edited, but relied on extended long takes, in which dialogue, sound effects, and music were crucial. Ivan the Terrible pointed to new operatic possibilities in motion pictures.

From Strike to Ivan, Eisenstein's career always excited controversy - much of his work was either destroyed or confiscated - but he remains one of the most important filmmakers in history, the exemplar of the true intellectual artist.

Eisenstein suffered a hemorrhage and died at the age of 50. An unconfirmed legend in film history states that Russian scientists preserved his brain and it supposedly was much larger than a normal human brain, which the scientists took as a sign of genius.

1969 – Gary Frisch (d.2007) was co-founder of the Gaydar website. He was one of the UK's leading gay businessmen.

Frisch was born in South Africa. He was educated at Boksburg High School and studied computer science at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg while working for De Beers' industrial diamond division. After graduation, he set up a computer software company, Frisoft Software, which he sold to Q Data (now named Business Connection) in 1994. He was a technical director with Q Data until he left South Africa in 1997.

He moved to the UK in 1997 with his boyfriend, Henry Badenhorst, to set up QSoft Consulting, an information technology consultancy firm. After a friend complained that he was too busy to look for a new boyfriend, they launched the Gaydar internet dating website in November 1999 from their home in Twickenham.

The website rapidly became very popular. There had been gay dating sites before, but they were slow and laborious. Gary developed two features which speeded things up: Who's Online told participants who was actually there, and Instant Messaging made immediate contact and chat possible. After its first year, Gaydar had 78,000 registered members. By 2007, Gaydar had more than 3.5 million users in 23 countries. In the UK, it accounts for more than 72 per cent of gay and lesbian traffic on the internet, with more than 1 million members. The Gaydar brand expanded into other areas: Frisch was chairman of GaydarRadio, a digital radio station founded in 2002.

After Gaydar came the digital radio station GaydarRadio and GaydarGirls. Gary and Henry then bought one of their main rivals, Rainbow Network, held GaydarDays at Alton Towers and sponsored pride events, such as the Sydney Mardi Gras.

So successful has Gaydar been that it has been blamed for a downturn in the numbers of men visiting gay bars, clubs and cruising grounds. Some have also blamed it for a rise in unsafe sex. But its reach is so great that the Terrence Higgins Trust now hosts a chatroom, offering sexual health advice, and many police community safety officers have profiles enabling gay men to report homophobic crimes.

Badenhorst and Frisch's personal partnership broke up in 2006, although they remained business partners.

In 2007, Gary Frisch was found dead below the window of his eighth-floor flat in Wandsworth, South London. A verdict of misadventure was recorded by Dr Paul Knapman, the coroner at the inquest. A pathologist, Dr Peter Wilkins, said raised levels of ketamine were found in Mr Frisch's blood and liver.

1991 – During Operation Desert Storm, ACT UP activist John Weir and two other activists entered the studio of the CBS Evening News at the beginning of the broadcast. They shouted "Fight AIDS, not Arabs!" and Weir upstaged anchorman Dan Rather before the control room cut to a commercial break. The same night ACT UP demonstrated at the studios of the MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour. The next day activists displayed banners in Grand Central Station that said "Money for AIDS, not for war" and "One AIDS death every 8 minutes." The banners were attached to bundles of balloons that lifted them up to the ceiling of the station's enormous main room. These actions were part of a coordinated protest called "Day of Desperation."

2009 – On this date a sociologist at an Iranian university presented a study showing high levels of homosexual experiences among the country's population. Iran has strict laws against sex outside marriage and other sexual acts such as masturbation. Adultery and same-sex acts are punishable by death. Startling new research from sociologist Parvaneh Abdul Maleki found that 24% of Iranian women and 16% of Iranian men have had at least one homosexual experience. 73% of men and 26% of women surveyed said they had masturbated.

Ms. Maleki presented her findings at the Third Conference on Well-being in the Family and the story was reported in the Iranian press, albeit as a report on sexual deviance in need of treatment. The report also revealed that more than 75% of those who grew up in a conservative religious environment have watched pornography, 86% have had a heterosexual relationship outside of marriage and just over 4% have had Gay or Lesbian relationships.

Since Iran's Islamic revolution in 1979, human rights groups claim that between 3,000 and 4,000 people have been executed under Sharia law for the crime of homosexuality. In September the President of Iran admitted in an interview that there may be "a few" Gay people in his country, but attacked homosexuality as destructive to society. In an interview with US current affairs TV program Democracy Now, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also rejected criticism of the execution of children in Iran.

During a visit to the US in 2007 he said in reply to a question posed about homosexuality during his speech at New York's Columbia University: "In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country... In Iran we do not have this phenomenon, I don't know who has told you that we have it." In his TV interview in September he condemned American acceptance of Gay people. "It should be of no pride to American society to say they defend something like this," President Ahmadinejad said. "Just because some people want to get votes, they are willing to overlook every morality."

#Youtube