The Emotions of Sodomy in 18Th-Century England" (2019)
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Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 11-29-2019 9:00 AM Love, Sex, and the Noose: The Emotions of Sodomy in 18th- Century England Frances H.I. Henry The University of Western Ontario Supervisor May, Allyson N. The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in History A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Doctor of Philosophy © Frances H.I. Henry 2019 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the European History Commons Recommended Citation Henry, Frances H.I., "Love, Sex, and the Noose: The Emotions of Sodomy in 18th-Century England" (2019). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 6736. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/6736 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract At the end of the 19th century, it was widely believed that men who desired other men were despicable, degraded, depraved, vicious, and incapable of humane and generous sentiments. This dissertation looks at how the emotional reactions of and towards sodomites in England between 1691 and 1828 shaped this perception. It does this by considering six sets of paired emotions: lust and disgust, love and hatred, hope and fear, gratitude and anger, joy and sadness, and pride and shame. It examines how changes in law, gender norms, in religious and philosophical thought, the rise of sentimentalism, evangelism, nationalism and the middle-class shaped these emotional reactions. This dissertation does so through an interdisciplinary framework, with secondary sources from literature, philosophy, religion, gender studies, sociology, law and psychology. The first chapter shows how understandings of desire became tied to understandings of nature and reason, and so some types of lust lost much of the moral disapproval that they once carried, while the ‘unnatural’ became the target of moral disgust. Moral disgust was expressed by associating the act of sodomy and the body of the sodomite with objects of revulsion. Similarly, this re-framing of desire also rooted love in marriage and domesticity. This same process was used to justify hatred and violence towards sodomites. The third chapter considers the emotions of hope, fear, gratitude and anger. Fear of sodomites was used to justify anger against them; living in constant fear made hope difficult, leading to sadness and despair; sodomy was also held out as ungrateful to women and to God. Sentimentalism and evangelism led to the conflation of happiness to the domestic, and to the presence and influence of women. This prevented sodomites from ever being truly happy. Melancholy allowed elite sodomites to express, as grief, love for other i ii men that would otherwise be socially impossible. Finally, the shame created and enforced through disgust, hatred and disgrace became internalized by the 19th century. However, literature, history, and famous examples provided a space, increasingly silenced, for some sodomites to have a sense of history and feel pride in themselves. Summary for Lay Audience At the end of the 19th century, it was widely believed that men who desired other men were despicable, degraded, depraved, vicious, and incapable of humane and generous sentiments. This dissertation looks at how the emotional reactions of and towards sodomites in England between 1691 and 1828 shaped this perception. It does this by considering six sets of paired emotions: lust and disgust, love and hatred, hope and fear, gratitude and anger, joy and sadness, and pride and shame. It examines how changes in law, gender norms, in religious and philosophical thought, the rise of sentimentalism, evangelism, nationalism and the middle-class shaped these emotional reactions. This dissertation does so through an interdisciplinary framework, with secondary sources from literature, philosophy, religion, gender studies, sociology, law and psychology. The first chapter shows how understandings of desire became tied to understandings of nature and reason, and so some types of lust lost much of the moral disapproval that they once carried, while the ‘unnatural’ became the target of moral disgust. Moral disgust was expressed by associating the act of sodomy and the body of the sodomite with objects of revulsion. Similarly, this reframing of desire also rooted love in marriage and domesticity. This same process was used to justify hatred and violence towards sodomites. The third chapter considers the emotions of hope, fear, gratitude and anger. Fear of sodomites was used to justify anger against them; living in constant fear made hope difficult, leading to sadness and despair; sodomy was also held out as ungrateful to ii iii women and to God. Sentimentalism and evangelism led to the conflation of happiness to the domestic, and to the presence and influence of women. This prevented sodomites from ever being truly happy. Melancholy allowed elite sodomites to express, as grief, love for other men that would otherwise be socially impossible. Finally, the shame created and enforced through disgust, hatred and disgrace became internalized by the 19th century. However, literature, history, and famous examples provided a space, increasingly silenced, for some sodomites to have a sense of history and feel pride in themselves. Keywords Emotions, Sodomy, History, Masculinity, 18th Century, Molly Houses, Lust, Disgust, Love, Hatred, Hope, Fear, Gratitude, Anger, Joy, Sadness, Shame, Pride, England, Great Britain, Class, Royal Navy, Philosophy, Evangelism, Nationalism, Homosexuality. iii iv Acknowledgments If it takes a village to raise a child, finishing a dissertation requires nearly as many people. I would like to thank my wife, Anna, who has been an unbelievable source of emotional and logistic support. I am also grateful to my parents, Walter and Joan, and my mother-in-law, Nancy, who provided encouragement, additional financial support, and constant cheerleading. I would like to thank my Supervisor, Dr. Allyson N. May, and my second reader, Dr. Amy Bell of Huron College, Western University. Thank you for your insightful comments, patient reading of multiple drafts, and helpful criticisms. I would also like to thank Dr. Jonathan Vance for sharing his subscription to the British Newspaper Archive. I am also grateful to the members of the Department of History at Western University, including the late Dr. Brock Millman, whose thoughtful questions at the proposal stage helped shape the direction of the subsequent research. He will be greatly missed. Kara Brown and other members of the Department staff helped considerably with deadlines, bureaucracy, and the red tape of academia: thank you for all your support! Thank you to the wonderful librarians and archivists at the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the Bristol Record Office, the British Library, Cambridge University Library and the National Archives, who helped me locate files, fetched books and boxes, and made materials available online. A big shout-out to Liz Mantz at Western University Library, who ordered books and subscribed to databases to further facilitate my research. iv v I would also like to thank the members of my examination committee (in addition to Dr. Bell), whose thoughtful comments and critical insights have been incorporated into the final version of this thesis: Dr. Nancy Rhoden of Western’s History Department, Dr. Joel Faflak, Western’s Department of English, and Dr. Brian Lewis of McGill University. Finally, thank you to the Social Science and Humanities Research Council, the Government of Ontario, and the estates of Kenneth Hilborn and Ivie Cornish, whose financial support has been crucial to this project. v vi Table of Contents Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................ i Summary for Lay Audience ................................................................................................ ii Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. iv Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... vi Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Terms, Scope and Sources ............................................................................................. 2 Historiography ............................................................................................................... 6 History of the History of Sodomy ........................................................................... 7 History of Emotions .............................................................................................. 12 Sodomy in the 18th Century ......................................................................................... 21 Understanding the Emotions in 18th-Century Britain .................................................. 32 Social and Political Context ......................................................................................... 36 Chapter Summaries ...................................................................................................... 42 Chapter