Home_____Sex Crimes In The Distant Past
In Sex Crimes: From Renaissance to Enlightenment, William Naphy reveals that kinkiness has a long history. In 16th century Geneva, despite the effort of John Calvin to settle a repressive pall over the city, people looked for prurient pleasure wherever they could find it. Drawing on official court reports, Naphy shows the reader that sex crimes took a rather bizarre turn even then.
About 10,000 in population, Geneva had its morality presided over by about a dozen elders and the same number in ministers, always looking for behavior "tending towards fornication." This included somebody singing a bit too bawdily, even if only to themselves. A Genevan could be charged with a sex crime if dancing at a wedding. If an individual smiled too boldly at a stranger, he or she could be brought before the tribunal. Citizens were encouraged to spy on one another and report anything that even seemed like odd behavior. This must have been the hey day of busy bodies and voyeurs. Those who held grudges or were downright malicious also had wonderful opportunities. Court records show many situations in which spite, greed, and unrequited love were the causes of innocent people being charged with sex crimes.
Unmarried pregnant girls often wound up in court. They could not claim they were raped because they had to have an orgasm in order to conceive--so went the thinking. Thus, even if forced, a pregnant girl must have enjoyed it. If she named a long-time lover as the father, both risked probable imprisonment.
Adultery was also taken seriously as it threatened the marriage with a false heir to property. In Calvinist Geneva, money and business matters were taken seriously indeed, so much so that both the woman and her partner were likely to be executed. Given their choice, the condemned usually chose drowning. If a male servant committed adultery with his mistress, he frequently was executed because he had robbed his master of a valuable asset. The effect of economics went far to lessen a crime if the male adulterer was equal in social and economic stature to the cuckolded husband. He would be flogged and banished. (Eventually authorities realized that some people found flogging as sexually exciting, and they stopped it as punishment.)
Homosexuals were officially nonexistent. Acts of sodomy occurred, and were punishable by death. Even though homosexuality was not recognized, defense would take the form of one person pointing out that he had a wife and four children. The prosecution would argue that the offender had habitually committed offenses with other men.
In 1551 Jean Fontanna and Francois Puthod were arraigned before court for "wrestling in the nude." Fontanna explained that their relationship began when he noticed Puthod "had an enormous member." Much younger, Puthod tearfully pleaded that he hadn't realized he did anything wrong. He was banished from the city. Fontanna, with a wife and child, had a long history of nude wrestling and was chained to a large stone for a year and a day.
Despite the stern godliness of John Calvin, 16th century Geneva was no bastion of high morality. Overcrowded quarters meant that children regularly witnessed parents engaged in sex. Single men shared beds. Peasants lived intimately with animals. In 1660 a cowherd told the court he wasn't having sex, but had merely urinated over the cow's behind to rid it of parasites. He was acquitted.
In 17th and 18th century Britain, homosexuality had effeminacy as its characteristic. Fops paraded it and even heterosexuals adopted the pose as entree to certain artistic or thespian cliques. Effeminacy became camp. In the early 18th century Margaret "Mother" Clap became proprietress of a molly house, and she left her name as a lasting sign of those venereal times. In Samuel Stevens' testimony at her trial he stated he saw, "40 and 50 Men making Love to one another, as they call'd it. Sometimes they would sit in one anothers Laps, kissing in a leud Manner, and using their Hand[s] indecently. Then they would get up, Dance and make Curtsies, and mimick the Voices of Women."
Homosexuality had moved into the open, and unlike Geneva, had to be officially recognized. Sodomites were put in stocks and blinded with cow dung.
In our relatively more enlightened times, the public and the authorities still struggle with how to define and legislate such matters.
Sex Crimes by William Naphy at Amazon.co.uk
