Rictor Norton compiled his research in a new essay titled “The Gay Subculture in Early Eighteenth-Century London.” In it, he quotes English politician Clement Walker as chronicling gay sex in Mulberry Garden, now the site of Buckingham Palace.In 1649, Walker wrote of the “new-erected sodoms and spintries at the Mulberry Garden at S. James’s.” (For the uninformed, “sodoms and spintries” refer to brothels and sex workers.)Norton also quotes another writer from the 1600s, John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, who penned a poem about his love of linkboys–that is, young men tasked with carrying a torch alongside noblemen at night in the city:Nor shall our love-fits, Chloris, be forgot,When each the well-looked linkboy strove t’enjoy,And the best kiss was the deciding lotWhether the boy f*cked you, or I the boy.Apparently, the Earl of Rochester was also versatile.
