All rights reserved. Reproduction for sale or profit prohibited. This essay may not be archived, republished or redistributed without the permission of the author. But it is difficult to document the existence of male prostitution or a gay subculture as such in more than a few of the most exotic countries. Of Morocco, which was regarded as the modern gay paradise in the later twentieth century, Lithgow also has a few words: "There are some twelve thousand allowed brothel-houses in this town [Fez], the courtesans being neatly kept and weekly well looked to by physicians.
But worst of all, in the summer time they openly licentiate three thousand common stews of sodomitical boys. Nay, I have seen at midday, in the very market places, the Moors buggaring these filthy carrions, and without shame or punishment go freely away". Turkey was regarded as the sink of lascivious luxury, and the Turks were said to be particularly addicted to sodomy, "which they account as a dainty to digest all other libidinous pleasures".
As late as the author of a pamphlet could advise the scandalously absconded Bishop of Clogher to "take a trip to Turkey, where he can worship his god without the fear of being branded or hanged" The Bishop!! Particulars of the Charge against the Hon. Percy Jocelyn, Bishop of Clogher London, [] , p. The xenophobia of the typical Englishman goes a long way to explain the belief that homosexuality was prevalent abroad , be it in the exotic east or closer to home, particularly in papist Italy.
Lithgow saw it celebrated throughout Italy, not only in the great cities, but even in "the smallest village of Italy. A monstrous filthiness, and yet to them a pleasant pastime, making songs and singing sonnets of the beauty and pleasure of their bardassi, or buggared boys". Homosexuality is as indigenous to England as to most other countries, but if it is possible for the social structures of homosexuality, i. The gay subculture certainly flourished concurrently in both countries, and the major anti-gay purges of the eighteenth century occurred in Holland at the same time as the lesser purges in England.
In April some men were arrested in Utrecht; they incriminated others, and on 21 July the States of Holland issued a Placat, posted in every town, that set off wide-scale persecution. It seems as though most of the men were in fact "guilty" of being homosexual, that is, this was neither a political reign of terror, nor a hysterical witch-hunt which rounded up "innocent" people. Not enough research into the actual trial records has yet been done, and we cannot be certain how well the gay subculture was developed, or how Dutch immigrants such as Peter Vivian the peruke maker may have contributed to the formation of the English subculture.
