ABSTRACT:
In the 18th century the sodomite became an individual interested exclusively in his own gender. The early 18th century molly houses (named from Latin for "soft") were set-up clubs where cross-dressing was practiced and little vanities that the convention has reconciled to the female sex like affected speech, walk, curtsy etc. were parodied by "vigorous and lusty bonhomie." According to Trumbach the molly houses amounted to the development of the same-sex subculture. It was a subculture that was the extension of the area in which homosexuality could be expressed: clothes , gestures, and language. This will be the focus of my lecture.
