Tag: same-sex desire

“o what happiness it wood be for me to see you once more”: A Mother’s Letter, a Royal Navy Sodomy Hanging, and the Tragic in Queer History

Content warning: Sexual violence and rape; sexual abuse of minors; state violence against queer people. Late in 1800, Britain’s Royal Navy hanged two sailors for having sex together. Just days before the new year, readers of the Hampshire Chronicle learned that “Monday morning John Hubbard and George Hynes, two seamen belonging to the St. George,… Read more →

Militaristic Homophobia: Attitudes toward Homosexuality in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia

“Sin doesn’t lie in the act itself, but in its relation to other things.”1 Mikhail Kuzmin wrote these words in his novel Wings, which depicts a homosexual relationship between a middle-aged man and an adolescent boy. Kuzmin’s quote highlights that homosexuality was not harmful because of the sexual act itself, but in how it was… Read more →