Love, Sex, and the Noose: The Emotions of Sodomy in 18th-Century England

Frances H.I. Henry, The University of Western Ontario

Abstract

At the end of the 19^th century, it was believed that men who desired other men were 'despicable, degraded, depraved, vicious, and incapable of humane and generous sentiments'. This dissertation examines how the emotional reactions of and towards sodomites in England between 1691 and 1828 shaped this perception. It considers six sets of paired emotions: lust and disgust, love and hatred, hope and fear, gratitude and anger, joy and sadness, and pride and shame. It examines how changes in law, gender norms, in religious and philosophical thought, the rise of sentimentalism, evangelism, nationalism and the middle-class shaped these emotional reactions. This dissertation is interdisciplinary, with secondary sources from literature, philosophy, religion, gender studies, sociology, law and psychology. The first chapter shows how understandings of desire became tied to nature and reason, and so the ‘unnatural’ became the target of moral disgust. This re-framing of desire also rooted love in marriage and domesticity. This same process was used to justify hatred and violence towards sodomites. The third chapter considers the emotions of hope, fear, gratitude and anger. Fear of sodomites was used to justify anger against them; living in constant fear made hope difficult, leading to sadness and despair; sodomy was also held out as ungrateful to women and to God. Sentimentalism and evangelism led to the conflation of happiness to the presence and influence of women, excluding sodomites. Finally, the shame created and enforced through disgust, hatred and disgrace became internalized by the 19^th century.