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Encouraged by the Societies for the Reformation of Manners,
groups composed of the remnants of the English Puritan
movement, London's constables shut down about twenty taverns
in a series of raids in 1726. The taverns, called molly
houses, were havens for working class sodomites. When
police and agents of the Societies infiltrated the houses,
they were shocked to find men who took women's names, wore
dresses, and called each other "madam" or
"your ladyship." As
knowledge of the molly subculture spread throughout London,
older perceptions of sodomites as rakish libertines who
turned to boys or teenagers for sexual thrills now and then,
but mostly contented themselves with whores, yielded to a
new cultural understanding. The mollies, and by
extension, all sodomites, came to be perceived as effeminate
"woman-haters" exclusively interested in sex with
their own kind. |
