by Theo Aronson
Sometimes the dreams of such men might come true. Carpenter established a stable relationship with a young artisan called George Merrill. Symonds enjoyed long-standing affairs with first, a nineteen-year-old Swiss sledge-driver and then a Venetian gondolier. Edward FitzGerald, translator of the celebrated Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, spent much of his life with a giant Norfolk fisherman whom he described as looking ‘every inch a King’.5 E.M. Forster longed ‘to love a strong young man of the lower classes and be loved by him and even hurt by him’.6 ‘The greater tolerance of the working class towards sexual deviation’ was claimed to be ‘in healthy contrast to middle-class inhibition and hypocrisy’.7
‘There will be nothing surprising in this to those who have seen the humorous generosity, the unquestioning ease with which the unsophisticated young male in any country can respond to the aching introspective need of the intellectual,’ wrote Rupert Croft-Cooke, who knew such situations very well. ‘Never wavering in his ultimate desire for women, with nothing in the least extraneous in his nature, unspoilt by doubt, having no need to rationalize or probe into motive, or to look for explanation or defence, he can give himself with grace and cheerfulness, even with enthusiasm, and this is enchanting to a more tired and experienced partner. He finds no mystique in this and has no wordy hesitations or self-conscious restraints. There may be an element of sexuality in what he does, or one of gainfulness, but generally it is a bountiful careless instinct which leads often to happy and enduring relationships.’8
Idealists tended to be shocked by the cynical approach of men like Oscar Wilde and those members of Queen Victoria’s Court, Roden Noel and Lord Ronald Gower, who unashamedly set out to seduce working-class youths for a night’s pleasure. Wilde, as Croft-Cooke put it, ‘never ceased to believe that he was a pioneer from another class, adventuring into dangerous places’. ‘Feasting with panthers’ was Wilde’s way of describing these pleasurably dangerous excursions into the underworld.9 Yet, curiously enough, if it was not socialism that drove such men into the arms of working-class youths, their very interest in them was regarded as proof of socialist tendencies. Oscar Wilde’s critics were as shocked by his association with the lower classes as they were by the nature of that association. ‘What enjoyment was it to you’, asked the puzzled prosecuting counsel at the time of his trial, ‘to entertain grooms and coachmen?’10
⋆
One of the chief centres of all this sexual activity was London. Then the world’s largest city, the heart of the greatest empire ever known, it had a higher than average population of homosexuals. It was a city of ostentatious wealth and appalling poverty; a situation always conducive to the gratification of sexual lusts. In its foggy, gas-lit streets, noisy with the sound of horse-drawn traffic clashing over the cobbles, the predatory or even the desperate homosexual could usually find whatever he wanted: toffs in top hats, red-tunicked soldiers, bowler-hatted businessmen, whistling errand boys, muscular artisans, flamboyant male prostitutes.
As in any big city, there were recognized places in which to meet or pick up sexual partners. One Victorian guidebook, The Yokel’s Preceptor or More Sprees in London – while ostensibly deploring the increase in the number of ‘monsters in the shape of men, commonly designated Margeries, Pooffs’ – went on to explain to the visitor exactly where such monsters were to be found. Charing Cross station was one such place; in the windows of several nearby bars were pasted notices warning the public to ‘Beware of Sods!’ They also congregated ‘around the picture shops, and are known by their effeminate air, their fashionable dress etc. When they see what they imagine to be a chance, they place their fingers in a peculiar manner underneath the tails of their coat, and wag them about – their method of giving the office.’11
The parks, with their dense, shadowy trees, were favourite places for quick, anonymous encounters. One barrister, famous for securing acquittals for sexual offences in London’s parks, complained bitterly that since the lighting in Hyde Park had been improved, he had lost more than £2,000 a year in fees. Public lavatories, too, made perfect locations for impersonal sex: the urinals at Victoria and South Kensington stations were especially notorious. The walls of the cubicles at the Marble Arch lavatories made lively reading: they were full of what Frederick Rolfe, the self-styled Baron Corvo, described as ‘storiettes’ – graphically written but often imaginary accounts of sexual adventures.
The building, during the latter half of the nineteenth century, of elaborate, iron-work public urinals, resembling the French vespasienne, created havens for homosexual activity. ‘These small, unobtrusive urinals were, in many ways, the most important meeting places for homosexuals of all and every kind,’ remembered one frequent user. ‘Always open, usually unattended, and consisting of a small number of stalls, over the sides of which it was quite easy to spy and get a sight of one’s neighbour’s cock, they were ideally built for the gratification of the voyeur’s sexual itch. Many homosexuals spent hours going from one of these places to the next, spying, feeling and indulging in all forms of homosexual pleasure …
‘Frequently there would be several men in these places and they would take turns to keep a watch out against anyone coming in suddenly and disturbing the remaining others while they gratified themselves … This keeping “a watch out” was often very easy, as there were perforations in the iron walls of the urinal – which allowed the watcher to see anyone coming suddenly on the scene. And in some cases the “watching out” was even easier in the case of there being only one entrance to the place. They were generally so dimly lit that anyone coming in out of the more brightly lighted street was unable to see distinctly for a moment or two exactly what was happening, which would give the actors time to set themselves more or less to rights.’12 The dense, ‘pea-soup’ fogs that were so characteristic of late Victorian London, afforded even more effective cover for such activities.
Regent Street, the Haymarket, the area lying between Leicester and Trafalgar squares were all well-known picking-up areas. The arches under the County Fire Office at Piccadilly Circus were especially rewarding. From any of these crowded, well-lit streets, one could, having made contact, slip into a dark alley or lane such as Brydges Place or Dove Mews. Theatres were always fruitful terrain: the Alhambra, the Empire Music Hall, the London Pavilion and the bar of the St James’s were all recognized meeting-places. A skating rink in Kensington was very popular. There were numerous pubs and clubs, the most famous bars being the Crown in Charing Cross Road, the Windsor Castle in the Strand and the Packenham in Knightsbridge.
The most celebrated club was undoubtedly the Hundred Guineas Club off Portland Place. This was a lavishly appointed establishment, part-brothel, part-club, where some members and their guests assumed not only women’s names but also women’s clothes. The sight of those moustachioed and bewhiskered men decked out in the sumptuously swagged and bustled dresses of the 1880s must have been a singular one. Appropriately named – for the subscription was one hundred guineas, well over £3,000 by today’s reckoning – the club was managed by the equally appropriately named Mr Inslip. Here, in the long drawing-room, all gilt, plush and potted palms, the gentlemen could lounge on ‘French’ furniture, sipping champagne as they eyed members of the staff dressed in ‘exquisite female attire’.
‘For the evening, Fred,’ explained Mr Inslip to a couple of new employees, ‘your name is Isabel and yours, Mr Saul, is to be Evelyn.’ During the first half of the evening, things were very decorous – dancing, hand-holding, small-talk. But at 2 a.m. all the lights were put out; a ruse, claimed one old hand, to prevent any of the members from being disappointed. On no account, the staff were warned, were they to reject any advance. But, as it was impossible to see, it hardly mattered. ‘Before time was called, about 6 a.m.’ claimed one employee, ‘I had had six different gentlemen, besides one of those dressed as a girl. We sucked, we frigged [masturbated] and gamahuched, and generally finished off by the orthodox buggery.’ He was careful, he went on to explain,
to appear at the club on only two evenings a week, ‘for fear of getting used up too soon’.13
On another occasion, he was invited to a small private party in a house in Grosvenor Square. Present were an earl, three page-boys (one of whom was black) and ‘three gentlemen whom the Earl assured us could be found in the pages of Debrett but preferred to be known by their sobriquets – Messrs Wire-In, Cold-Cream and Come-Again’. The evening ended with a playing of the ‘Slap-Bum Polka’.14
Homosexual prostitution or ‘renting’ was widespread. In his study, The Intersexes, ‘Xavier Mayne’ – pseudonym of the American researcher, Edward I. Stevenson – claimed that, by the end of the nineteenth century, male prostitution was almost as prevalent as female. These male prostitutes ranged from the casual to the professional. There were young men who were satisfied with the odd expensive present; there were members of the armed forces, labourers, errand boys and stable lads who would occasionally prostitute themselves for a few shillings; and then there were the professionals who, having been known as ‘Mollies’ in the eighteenth century and ‘Marjories’ in the early nineteenth century, were by now usually referred to as ‘Mary Annes’. When the average wage of an unskilled labourer was £1 a week and when a working man would do anything rather than face the disgrace of applying for public assistance in the ‘workhouse’, the chance to double one’s weekly wage by allowing oneself to be fellated or to sodomize some ‘toff’, was to be welcomed.
By far the greatest number of part-time renters were soldiers. One had only ‘to walk around London, around any English garrison centre, to stroll about Portsmouth, Aldershot, Southampton, Woolwich, large cities of North Britain and of Ireland,’ wrote Xavier Mayne, ‘to find the soldier prostitute in almost open self-marketing … On any evening, the street corners or the promenades of the big music-halls and the cheap theatres of London and other cities show one the fine flower of the British soldier prostitute, dressed in his best uniform, clean shaven, well groomed and handsome with his Anglo-Saxon pulchritude and vigour, smiling, expectant.’15
The increase in the size of the armed forces as the British Empire expanded, allied to low pay and the generally more relaxed attitude of the working class – from which the majority of the private soldiers were drawn – towards homosexuality, encouraged this spectacular growth. In their bright red tunics and pill-box caps, these soldiers proved an irresistible draw for wealthy homosexuals. One could hardly move among certain densely wooded areas of Hyde Park for soliciting guardsmen: ‘their weapons’, as one ageing queen fondly remembered half a century later, ‘in their hands’.16
‘When a young fellow joins,’ explained one NCO, ‘someone of us breaks him in and teaches him the trick; but there is little need of that, for it seems to come naturally to almost every young man, so few have escaped the demoralization of schools or crowded homes. We then have no difficulty in passing him on to some gentleman who always pays us liberally for getting a fresh young thing for him. Although of course we all do it for money, we also do it because we really like it, and if gentlemen gave us no money, we should do it all the same. Many of us are married, but that makes no difference [except that] we do not let the gentlemen know it, because married men are not in request.’17
Inevitably, snobbery played its part in these sexual activities. ‘You can easily imagine it is not so agreeable to spend half an hour with a housemaid,’ claimed one guardsman, ‘when you have been caressed all night by a nobleman.’18
Tobacconist’s shops, situated near military barracks, were recognized places of contact. If a customer handed over a ten-shilling note for a box of matches, the shopkeeper would know that what he really wanted was a soldier and would arrange an assignation. A dear old lady by the name of Mrs Truman, who ran a tobacconist’s shop beside the cavalry barracks in Albany Street, did a very brisk trade. Indeed, her death affected the supply of soldiers to such an extent that several clubs had to be set up to make good the sudden dearth.
Soliciting by soldiers was often very bold. One night the twenty-four-year-old John Addington Symonds, at that stage still inhibited about his own sexuality, was walking from his club along a passageway between Trafalgar Square and Leicester Square. He was approached by a scarlet-uniformed guardsman. Quite openly, the soldier propositioned him. At first Symonds did not understand what he was suggesting; when he did, he hurried on. But the guardsman followed him, mentioning an address to which they could go. Tempted and horrified at the same time, Symonds fled, leaving the bemused soldier staring after him.
In time, Symonds overcame his inhibitions. Ten years after his flight from the soliciting guardsman, he accompanied a friend to a male brothel near the Regent’s Park barracks. Here he spent the afternoon with a brawny young soldier – friendly, open and manly – who treated the episode as though it were the most natural thing in the world, and did not overcharge. After they had had sex, the two men sat happily together, chatting and smoking. The incident encouraged Symonds in his belief that it was quite possible for a homosexual to have a fulfilling sexual and emotional relationship with a heterosexual man.
In fact, these casual encounters often led to more lasting arrangements. ‘I know two men in the Blues who are regularly kept by a gentleman,’ said one soldier, ‘and one has an allowance of two hundred a year for allowing himself to be sucked.’19
Edward Leeves, a rich dilettante who divided his time between Britain and Italy, fell passionately in love with a young guardsman in ‘the gallant, rollicking, blaggard Blues’.20 ‘I saw you in all your beauty, smiling as your gallant charger reared and pranced …’ wrote Leeves. ‘And then in the [sentry] box I spoke to you, and after Parade we met for five minutes and you told me your name.’21 When, very suddenly, his young lover died, Leeves took up with another of those ‘roistering Blues’: ‘a bold, audacious blackguard such as I like’ and whose name, appropriately enough, was Screw.22 Inevitably, Screw proved as unreliable as any of the breed: he lied, he borrowed money, he never answered letters, he decided to get married. But how stunning he had always looked, sighed Leeves, ‘in his White Leathers’.
‘Oh! the gallant Blues! Oh! the days that are passed!’23
⋆
Even bolder than the soldiers were the professional male prostitutes. They varied from fresh-faced boys not long up from the country to rouged and corseted queens well past their prime. Piccadilly and Piccadilly Circus were their favourite soliciting areas. ‘Been up the Dilly lately, dear?’24 their cries would ring out as perfectly respectable heterosexual men hurried by on their way home. Oscar Wilde, in the days before he had fully yielded to his own sexual preferences, once went shopping with his wife at Swan and Edgar’s in Piccadilly Circus. ‘Something clutched at my heart like ice,’ he confessed, on seeing the painted boys lolling about on the pavement.25
Xavier Mayne gives a description of a typical encounter between what he calls a ‘Uranian’ and a male prostitute. ‘Before a shop-window, or perhaps at a bench in a park, halts the Uranian. Soon another stroller, loitering in professional alertness, walks towards him – catches his eye expressively and stands or sits near him. The newcomer may be a boy of sixteen or eighteen, or much more an adult, good-looking or plain; likely not really well-dressed; and artificial aids [a padded crotch] improve his physique. He may have a certain fausse élégance – cheap jewellery and a gaudy cravat. A conversation is begun. Little by little it slips on towards confidentialities – the discomforts of living and travelling alone, the effects of the evening air, the quiet of the place, the amusements of the town. The talk grows distinctly erotic and the older man becomes surer that he has here one of the profession. Presently the Uranian, certain of his ground and well-enough suited with his interlocutor’s physical type, proposes that they take a walk together … they pause at the nearest latrine, by common consent, if the patron be especially disposed to estimate the physical capital of the other. If satisfied with the étalage, he accompanies the vendor to the nearest safe locality – a corner o
f a deserted thicket in the park, an open field, to an equivocal hotel, to the quarters of his new friend, perhaps to his own lodging … The encounter over, the client pays the tariff agreed – five or ten shillings. Anon he says good-evening to his acquaintance, who he may or may not care ever to meet again. The incident is closed.’26
Sixteen-year-olds were often fully experienced prostitutes. A boy named Wilson, whose ‘chestnut hair, dark blue eyes and a set of pearly teeth made him an almost irresistible bait to old gentlemen’, once explained his hustling technique. ‘Do you think I ever let those old fellows have me?’ he scoffed. ‘No fear, I know a game worth two of that. You see, I never bring them home with me, and in fact always affect the innocent – don’t know where to go; am living with my father and mother at Greenwich or some out of the way part of London, and only came to the West End to look about the shops and see the swells. If a gentleman is very pressing I never consent to anything unless he asks me to accompany him to his house or chambers. Once got home with him I say: “Now sir what present are you going to make me?”
‘ “Stop a bit my boy ’til we see how you please me,” or something very like that is the answer I generally get.
‘ “No: I’ll have it now or I’ll raise the house, you old sod. Do you think I’m a greenhorn? I want a fiver. Don’t I know too well that little boys only get five or ten shillings after it’s all over? But that won’t do for me so shell out at once or there’ll be a pretty good scandal.” ’27
