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Sodomy and Dishonour in Eighteenth-Century Provincial England
| The history of sodomy in eighteenth-century England has been dominated by studies of metropolitan courts and spaces. London-centred research is understandable given the wealth and richness of surviving archives, but unfortunately has meant that cases of sodomy and attempted sodomy in the provinces has been largely overlooked by historians. This paper will redress this imbalance through an examination of the reporting of sexual offences in the 'new' regional presses from the eighteenth century and by also exploring the treatment of such cases at borough and county courts as well as Quarter and Assize sessions in the south of England. Sodomites in provincial areas were represented in discourses as 'foreign' or 'other', a disease infecting regional communities from outside (largely from the immoral capital city). Cases of sodomy and attempted sodomy were perceived as a threat to the identity and morality of small communities and were depicted as such in contemporary local literature. By drawing on a range of sources, I will demonstrate in this paper how representations of sexual deviance in eighteenth-century England played an important part in defining the honour and respectability of provincial communities.
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