MOLLY HOUSES O Excluded from the Kingdom of God; the Viduals Were Actually Hanged for the Crime Former Term Denotes the Passive, the Latter of Buggery
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MOLLY HOUSES O excluded from the Kingdom of God; the viduals were actually hanged for the crime former term denotes the passive, the latter of buggery. the active male homosexual. This usage The term molly for an effeminate was continued in medieval Latin and even man may be simply the feminine name found its way into the early literature of Molly, often applied to a prostitute, but it sexology composed in the learned tongue. may derive in part from Classical Latin As late as 1914 Magnus Hirschfeld com- mollis, "soft", which designated the pas- mented on the appropriateness of the term sive-effeminatepartner in male homosex- by claiming that 99 percent of the homo- ualrelations. It is also the first component sexual subjects he had interviewed de- in mollycoddle, which alludes to the scribed their own character as "soft" or manner of childrearing that makes a "tender." pampered, effeminate adult. The Latin mollis may well be the Outside the clearly defined set- origin of the eighteenth-century English ting of the molly house, it was exceedingly molly (or molly-cull) = effeminate homo- dangerous to approach another man for sexual, a term given publicity by police sexual favors. The descriptions of the raids on their clandestine haunts in Lon- subculture of the molly house always don (1697-1727) following the relative emphasized the effeminacy of the deni- tolerance of the Restoration era that had zens. All the pctrons were likely to be seen a homosexual subculture emerge in addressed as "Madam" or "Miss" or "Your the British metropolis. The term molly Ladyship," and in conversation they spoke also suggests the personal name Mclly, a as though they were female whores: diminutive of Mary, so that the folk ety- "Where have you been, you saucy quean?" mology introduces a separate nuance of Sometimes the diversions entailed mim- the effeminate. icry of heterosexual respectability, such as See also Effeminacy; Women's enactments of childbirth and christening. Names for Male Homosexuals. Intercourse was referred to as "marrying," and the dormitory in the molly house was termed the "chapel." Aprostituteremarked MOLLYHOUSES that his procurer had "helped him to three The molly houses were gathering or four husbands." On occasion there were places for male homosexuals in London collective masquerades in which all the during the eighteenth century. The public participants dressed as women. was first made aware of them by the prose- The male homosexuals who £re- cuting zeal of the Societies for the Refor- quented these establishments were from mation of Manners. These public houses eighteen to fifty years old. Those who were at times relatively informal, or there sought adolescent partners had the farmore could simply be a special room for "mol- risky undertaking of meeting and courting lies" at the back of an ordinary public them outside the bounds of this subcul- house. Other establishments were quite ture. The popular notion of sodomy at the elaborate. Mother Clap, as she was called, time made it avice of the idle and wealthy, kept a house in Holbom which on Sunday and there is some evidence that members nights in particular-the homosexuals' of the upper classes frequented the molly "night out"--could have from twenty to houses, mainly in search of male prosti- forty patrons. The house had a back room tutes, but in so doing they also exposed fitted out with beds. In 1726 a wave of themselves to scandal and blackmail. The repression led the authorities to discover records of prosecutions and executions at least twenty such houses; a number of contain no aristocratic names; the justice their proprietors were convicted and made of eighteenth-century Europe was class to stand in the pillory, while three indi- I justice. There were about a third as many 4% MOLLY HOUSES trials for attempted blackmail as for sod- MONASTICISM omy committed or attempted. Blackmail Originatingin late antiqueEgypt, was the form of extortion practiced by the the monastic movement had as its goal to criminal or semi-criminal classes at the achieve an ideal of Christian life in com- expense of the individual with means and munity with others or in contemplative social position who was nevertheless in solitude. Monastic asceticismrequired the the grip of forbidden sexual desires. When rejectionofworldly existencewithits cares a blackmailer was convicted, the penalty and temptations. The institution, one of was usually the same-pillory, fine, and the formative elements of medieval soci- imprisonment amounting to ten months ety, transformed the ancient world. The in jail-as for attempted sodomy. asceticism it demanded stands at the op- The subculture of the molly posite pole from what most modern (and houses tried to protect itself from discov- classical) thinkers would deem a healthy ery and from betrayal by its own members. attitude toward sex, diet, sleep, sanitation, The worst foe of all was a vindictive par- and mental balance. ticipant in the molly houses' activity, or InstitutionalHistory. St. Anthony an individual who had kept records and of Egypt (died 356), a son of Coptic peas- documents which later fell into the hands ants, came to be regarded as the father of of the authorities, indirectly revealing the the monks, though he was not the founder whole clandestine network of sexual inter- of monasticism. The Egyptian anchorite action. movement began, perhaps under the influ- FortheordinaryEnglishmanwith ence of Buddhism, just before the end of no powerful protectors, access to the the persecutions, about 300. The Life of shielded environment of the molly house Anthony by Athanasius of Alexandria [circa was the sole way of making homosexual 357)emphasizes Anthony'sorthodoxy, the contacts with ease. Theabsence of a highly gospel sources of his renunciation of the organized police force and of a vice squad world, his fight against the demons, and with regular infiltrators and paid inform- his austere way of life. Later depictions ers actually gave such houses more secu- often stressed the sexual aspect of the rity than comparable establishments in temptations to which Anthony was sub- the first half of the twentieth century jected. Anthony found a number of imita- enjoyed. It was religious fanaticism in the tors who lived in solitude, separated by form of societies "for the protection of greater or lesser distances, but coming to morals" that persecuted the subculture him at intervals for counsel; eventually he from above, while the criminalunderworld agreed to see them every Sunday. preyed on it from below-a situation that Farther to the south, a younger remained into the twentieth century until contemporary of Anthony's, Pachomius, the campaign to enlighten the public on who had become a monk about 313, began the nature of homosexuality and reform organizing cenobitic communities. He the the archaic criminal laws made pos- founded monasteries that were divided sible a new social environment for the into houses where men lived in common, homosexual community. performed remunerative labor, and prac- ticed self-imposed poverty joined with Trumbach~ organized prayer. A novelty in the ancient "London's Sodomites: Homosexual Behavior and Western Culture in the world, monastic communities were rig- 18th Century," ~~~~~~lof Social History, idly homosocial, consisting of members of 11 (19771, 1-33. only one gender but, needless to say, geni- Warren bhansson tal sexuality was proscribed. Monasticism began in theeastern provinces of theempire and was strongly colored by the ascetic .