"There are a particular gang of sodomitical wretches in this town..."
Did you ever wonder why British men are always just a little...you know...?
Well, in truth, it's because 300 years ago they invented being a "gentleman" (gay) who doesn't work (GAY) and just wants nicer things (GAY GAY GAY!).
But round about the same time the British invented being British – a.k.a. the early 18th century – London was also home to the aforementioned "gang" of gay men who challenged traditional notions of masculinity.
The "molly" represented a new type of gay man: he was typically working class, loved to impersonate women – wear their clothes, gossip, call each other names like "The Duchess of Chamomile" and "Old Fish Hannah" – and he had a playground of taverns, inns, and gin shop back rooms to frequent to meet his fellow "sodomitical wretches".
These were the molly houses, and they represented the heartland of a working-class, gay subculture that flourished in London in the early 1700s.
Sadly, we know so much about the mollies of 18th century London because they were brutally persecuted by The Society for the Reformation of Manners, who were about as fun at parties as they sound.
Mollies faced violence, imprisonment, and even death for living out and proud. But they still lived brave lives of queer joy, gathering weekly at the molly houses for decades so that they could boink each other, fall in love, and, yes, give birth to wooden babies.
Boys will be boys!
Join me and my guest on this odyssey through early modern queer culture in one of the most fascinating periods of human history. My guest, AJ West, is the author of a forthcoming novel set amongst the mollies of the 1720s, The Betrayal of Thomas True, which is going to be an absolutely genius historical fiction mystery.
Pre-order a copy here and listen to our episode to learn the backstory of one of history's most well-documented queer subcultures, which by the way is literally older than the nation of the United States.
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This episode was written and researched by Bash, hosted by Bash, and edited by Alex Toskas. Guest host: AJ West.
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Historical Homos