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. 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.
GAY DICTNARY ENGLISH
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).
In fact, gay culture was discsed so rarely that newspapers would report on gay people who were arrted as beg guilty of "gross cency, " sce was nsired taboo to even wre (or speak) the words "gay" or "homosexual.