The Sins of the Cities of the Plain; or, The Recollections of a Mary-Ann: with Short Essays on Sodomy and TribadismSaul, Jack
General
The Sins of the Cities of the Plain; or, The Recollections of a Mary-Ann: with Short Essays on Sodomy and Tribadism
Saul, Jack
Gay men -- England -- Fiction
He speaks of that monarch having two wings to his harem, one for boys
and one for girls. When the King would have connexion with one of his
boys, the latter is well purged and brought to the King fasting, scents
and oil being injected up his bottom. Then the boy has his dinner to
give him courage and spirits to amuse the King, after which his Majesty
has the boy in the presence generally of two or three of the royal
wives. This traveller speaks of the salacious ways of these boys, the
enlargement of their bottom-holes, and growths around the orifice, which
made it appear very like the private parts of a woman.
Tardieu speaks of this growth too, but he also speaks of other
developments, as well as the consequences of passive sodomy, such as
piles and various disagreeable matters. We think, too, that the King of
Bokhara's habit of purging his boys before having connexion with them
corroborates Tardieu's statement and the observations of many others,
that the effect of being continually buggered (and Tardieu suggests as
well the use of laxative ointments), is to so relax the _sphincter ani_
that it will not retain the faeces.
In the most civilized places of the present day sodomy with males is
rarely practised--with females it is practised oftener; but in Rome it
was the habit, the recognized habit, and it only became hateful when the
man always received the attention and never gave. In those days men
loved a lusty fellow as much as women do now, and the lusty fellow could
give as much pleasure to a man as he could to a woman, and be thought
none the worse for it.
The vice was so general and fashionable that the chastest of the Cæsars,
Augustus, was charged by many mouths with practising it; but Suetonius
says, excepting his weakness for deflowering little girls, all the
charges brought against him were calumnies.
Tiberius revelled in sodomy, and was surrounded by lusty Catamites, and
rendered his name imperishable by indelibly connecting it with the
Spintriæ. At this chaste court Vitellus was apprenticed, and soon
acquired the name of Spintria, raising his family by his prostitution,
and showing when he in his time came to the throne, what a long train of
evil one bad man in power can lay.
Caligula's mutual prostitutions with his pantomimic friend were well
known, as was also his connexion with certain hostages; and the state of
Roman decency may be presumed when we are told that V. Catullus, a young
man of consular family, bawled out publicly that he had been having the
Emperor until his back ached.
Cladius stuck to women, although he saw no harm in boys being debauched.
Even his own son-in-law (to show the prevalence of the vice), we may
observe, was stabbed and murdered while in the act of having his
favourite boy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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