Gay communities

Abstract

For the eighteenth century, the Proceedings provide vibrant and detailed evidence of the sophisticated worlds and subcultures of London’s Gay communities. Until the 1780s trials for sodomy provide extensive accounts of the otherwise hidden world of “molly houses” and male prostitution. In the last decade of the eighteenth century, and throughout the nineteenth century, however, the details of these trials were censored, and the Proceedings give only the barest facts of each case. From this period onwards, the best details of behaviour and attitudes within the Gay community can be found in trials for blackmail, and in the incidental accounts that emerge in trials for other crimes. Throughout, because sex between women was not a crime evidence of Lesbian relationships is extremely limited.