Good golly, Miss Molly! A look si the velopment of both gay culture and homosexual inty the 18th century.
Contents:
- A BRIEF HISTORY OF POLARI, GAY ENGLAND’S ONCE-SECRET LGO
- GAY DICTNARY ENGLISH
- THE FOTTEN SECRET LANGUAGE OF GAY MEN
A BRIEF HISTORY OF POLARI, GAY ENGLAND’S ONCE-SECRET LGO
* 18th century slang for gay *
Though uld still fetly be ed to refer to a gay/bi man or a man spected of same-sex sexual activy, the late eighteenth century bugger was also often ed as a general term for any man that a person disliked, cludg a memorable piece of hatemail wrten to Thomas Jefferson. Though a gay or bi man (or a man perceived as such) would certaly have fallen unr the term, may also have been applied to someone assigned male at birth, who we would now regnize to be a transgenr woman, or to non-bary people, agenr people, or even genr-transgrsive cisgenr people.
GAY DICTNARY ENGLISH
Eventually gay and bi men were g the term to refer to themselv, as a journalist named Ned Ward disvered when he went unrver a club for LGBT+ men (referred to as “molly ho”).
It has been suggted that when the soldiers lled Sampson/Shurtliff “molly” they were not tendg to e the term molly meang homosexual, but rather were nicknamg her after Molly Pcher, a famed Revolutnary War heroe, but this is most likely not te.
Thurdsday”, The Diary of John Adams, to Thomas Jefferson, 13 June 1804, Fop”, Merriam-Webster, Exampl of “fop” meang effemate man: “Poor Richard Improved”, Benjam Frankl,, and “15 Monday”, The Diary of John Adams, Madison to William Bradford, 9 November 1772, Smh Adams to William Smh Shaw, 2 Febary 1799, “Rearchers Notebook: Queer Cas: The ‘He-She’ Ladi and Mother Clap’s Molly Hoe”, The Still Pot Journal, “Of the Molli Club”, Satyril Reflectns on Clubs, Edward Ward, via Rictor Norton, Ed., “The Molli Club, 1709-10”, Homosexualy Eighteenth-Century England: A Sourcebook.
THE FOTTEN SECRET LANGUAGE OF GAY MEN
But for Brish gay men (and sometim women) the first half of the 20th century, Polari wasn’t jt a cute jargon: It was a secret , one that was absolutely gay Bra before about 50 years ago was dangero bs, and even beg perceived as gay then uld st you a prison sentence (homosexualy was crimalized the UK 1967).