Prostitution in the Service of the Lord

From Australia, we have a story of a father who allegedly forced his 14 year old son to have sex with a prostitute, because he suspected the boy was gay. There is nothing new in enlisting the services of prostitutes to "cure" gay men: church and state alike have at times encouraged (female) prostitution in the defence of public morals.

"Augustine had argued that prostitution was a necessary evil that the state should tolerate to protect wives and virgins, and Aquinas had endorsed this view in his Summa".

-L Crompton, "Homosexuality & Civilization"

Backed by the authority of these eminent theologians, fifteenth century Venice licenced the activity, and the church accepted it. Crompton notes that Venice at that time was internationally renowned for its courtesans, and famous for its sexual opportunities. That emphatically did not include same-sex opportunities. Between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, several hundred men were executed for sexual activities with men, mostly by burning at the stake. At the heart of Venice's tourist route, the little square in front of beside the Doge's palace, beside St Mark's square, was the site of "more executions for sodomy than anywhere else in Europe, before Hitler." (Crompton)

Venice was not alone in supporting prostitution while prosecuting "sodomites." In Florence, where there were far more prosecutions than in Venice, the sentences were at least less severe. They were also more explicit in their support of prostitution as a remedy. Where Venice created a special magistracy to hunt down and prosecute sodomites, the Florence counterpart,which was called the "Office of Decency", was specifically set up to extirpate the vice of sodomy. But the method was to set up brothels, and to recruit women to work in them. Nearby, in Lucca, similar tactics were adopted, with the dedicated sodomy police specially authorized to promote female prostitution.

These examples show yet again how, in defence of their stand against the supposed "horror" of loving relationships between men, the church , and the secular authorities which relied on its support, were willing to ignore all respect for the dignity of women, and the pretence that sexual relationships could only be approved in marriage, for procreation.

The bigger picture, of the role of the church in the horrific executions of many thousands of men and women for loving relationships, is one I shall return to again.

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This is part of the news story that prompted the above. (Read the full report at "The Morning Bulletin").

Father 'forced son into sex with hooker'

A ROCKHAMPTON dad is accused of forcing his son to have sex with a prostitute because he feared the 14-year-old was gay.

During a family barbecue around Christmas time in 2007, the dad allegedly phoned a prostitute and arranged to meet her at a motel on Yaamba Road, North Rockhampton.

The father drove his son to the motel and paid the prostitute in $50 notes.

The prostitute took the boy into a motel room while the father waited on a balcony.

The dad walked in and out of the room to check on his son and told him he wanted to see a used condom as proof that they’d had sex. After the boy and the prostitute had finished the dad took his son home.

A magistrate yesterday found there was enough evidence against the father for him to stand trial for the rape of his son.

Giving evidence during the committal hearing in Rockhampton Magistrates Court, the boy’s mother testified she questioned the youngster about where his father had taken him.

"Out West" at the Autry

Say the words "gay cowboy" and chances are the conversation will turn to "Brokeback Mountain," the 2005 film starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, and based on the Annie Proulx short story.

The Oscar-winning drama, which is set in the 1960s to '80s, highlighted a long-submerged facet of frontier culture. But as a new series at the Autry National Center shows, the presence of homosexuals and transgender individuals in the American West is much older than the movie might lead you to think. It is, in fact, almost as old as the West itself.

Take for instance the tale of One-Eyed Charlie.



A stagecoach driver known for his hard drinking and itchy trigger finger, Charlie worked for the California Stage Co., where he earned his reputation as one of the best drivers in the wild West. He traveled between Oregon and California and, the story goes, got his nickname when he lost an eye while attempting to shoe a horse.

But Charlie kept a secret that was revealed only after his death in 1879. When his body was being prepared, a coroner discovered that One-Eyed Charlie was actually a woman.

It turns out that Charlie, nee Charlotte Darkey Parkhurst, had passed much of her adult life as a man. The discovery of her true gender became a local sensation. And her story still fascinates U.S. historians, some of whom believe that she was the first woman to have voted in a presidential election, long before the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

Stories like One-Eyed Charlie's will be part of the Autry series titled "Out West," looking at the roles of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in frontier history.

"It doesn't just start with 'Brokeback Mountain.' In a way, the movie is an exclamation point to that history," said Stephen Aron, an executive director at the Autry.

More from LA Times

Homerotic Christianity: The Medieval Flowering

In the modern popular imagination, the middle ages have generally had a bad press, compared unfavourably with the classical civilizations which preceded it, the Renaissance flowering which followed it - or even the Islamic and Byzantine centres of scholarship and learning alongside medieval Europe. However, the thousand or so years between the fall of Rome and the high Renaissance cover a wide range of conditions. In the midst of this period, at the start of the second millenium, lies a period which deserves greater attention from anyone interested in the history of the church, or of homosexuality, or (most particularly) of the intersection of the two. This was a period of the most visible, most public "gay" sub-culture in Europe before the late twentieth century. It was also a great age of church reform - and despite strong pressure from vocal opponents, the church reformers generally ignored it.

This coinciding of Church reform and homosexual tolerance is important: Classical writers observed that in Greece, those cities where male love was most common, were also those with "good laws". (A superficial look at the modern countries and US states which have approved gay marriage or civil unions certainly matches my perception of those with "good", i.e. democratic, laws. Does the same principle apply to the Christian church?) Because it is important, let me spell out the evidence.The abuses of the papacy and bishops before the Reformation are well known. However, there are specific periods that stand in stark contrast to these. The period I am looking at here, the opening of the second millenium, is described by Eamonn Duffy in his history of the papacy, as the great "age of reform", featuring among many notable reformers, the reign of Gregory the Great.

Now note also, that this same period is seen, from the prism of modern teaching, as a key point in the development of anti-gay theology. In "The Invention of Sodomy" Mark D Jordan shows how Saint Peter Damian's hostility to homoerotic relationships is central to modern homophobic theology. Now, here's the fascinating thing: the clear homophobia expressed by Peter Damian, central to modern approved thinking, is the one part of Damian's proposals that was REJECTED by the popes and other churchmen of his time. Although the official line at the time was that same sex relationships were sinful, this was not taken very seriously. Instead, the evidence from actual practice, was that such relationships were at worst tolerated, at best celebrated. Let's look at some "for instances".

From literature, we have the example of bishops and other clergy writing verse with frankly homoerotic themes: Marbod of Rennes, Baudri of Bourgueil,and Hildebert of Lavardin wrote poems which, while superficially orthodox, also treat frankly homoerotic themes with remarkable frankness and authenticity. All three of these later were consecrated bishops. (Much earlier, two other bishops had written homoerotic verse, which may be read today in the Penguin Book of Homosexual Verse. St Paulinus of Nola wrote erotic love poems to his male lover, while St Vergilius Fortunatus wrote verse with a clearly homoerotic flavour.) Alcuin of Tours also wrote gay love letters, such as one to Arno the bishop at Salzburg:

Love has penetrated my heart with its flame,

And is ever rekindled with new warmth.

Neither sea nor land, hills nor forest, nor even the Alps

Can stand in its way or hinder it

From always licking at your inmost parts, good father...

(Read the full letter, and also one by Marbod of Rennes, at Gay Love Letters through the centuries: Medieval clerics)

Another notoriously (and promiscuously) gay bishop was John of Orleans, whose lovers included two archbishops of Tours, and the French king. Yet when widespread opposition to his consecration was presented to the Pope, it was not on the basis of his orientation or promiscuity, but on the grounds of his youth. Even so, the objections were ignored, and the consecration of an openly and promiscuously gay bishop went ahead.

At much the same time, the Archbishop of Canterbury, St Anselm, was presented with a decree by the council of London calling for harsher penalties against "sodomites". But he refused to publish the decree, noting that the practice was widespread, and that ordinary people did not even know it was wrong. St Anselm himself was notable for the intensity of his (chaste) relationships with this predecessor at Canterbury, and a succession of his pupils. (Read some of his letters to a pupil at "Gay Love Letters through the centuries: Anselm"). He also undid centuries of earlier monastic practice, by recommending, not prohibiting, close friendships among men in monasteries. Across the channel in France, another famous Monastic saint was in a similar position. St Aelred of Rievaulx was another celibate, chaste priest who nevertheless penned letters containing extraordinarily clear, frankly homoerotic sentiments to his pupils.

Sadly this medieval flowering of a gay sub-culture, described as the most open and visible in Europe until the 1970's, was all too brief. Not long after attitudes changed, and saw active persecution by the church and state which was horrifying in its severity. That too is a period in gay church history which deserves to be remembered, for exactly opposite reasons. For now, though, let us simply reflect on the thought that at one important time in church history, church reform and "good laws" did indeed co-incide with homosexual tolerance.

Sources:

John Boswell: Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality

Louis Crompton: Homosexuality & Civilization

Eamonn Duffy: Saints & Sinners