Comments on: Humbuggery and Bumbuggery: The Greenfield Incident

By: Brian Dempsey

Brian Dempsey — Sun, 15 Jun 2025 10:07:44 +0000

The 1533, 1828 and 1861 Acts did _not_ apply in Scotland.

By: Brian Dempsey

Brian Dempsey — Sun, 15 Jun 2025 09:58:05 +0000

It is an interesting coincidence (I suspect nothing more but who knows) that Greenfield’s difficulties came one year after the 1st ed of Baron David Hume’s Commentaries on the Laws of Scotland Respecting Crimes was published. Only penile-anal penetration between men came within the definition of buggery but of course in common parlance the definition would go beyond the strict legal definition and, depending on the evidence, Greenfield might have been prosecuted for common law indecency or attempted sodomy. That said, Hume could not bring himself to define the offence beyond “those shameful and unnatural lusts [which] justly expose the offender to be punished with death, as one whose very presence is a pollution to the society of his fellow-creatures.” In 1832 the offence still could not be defined with Alison referring to “the unnatural connection of a man with a man, … after the manner and in the place where that crime is usually committed” – perhaps the author, Alison, thought his audience of law students and practitioners would be well-aware of the manner in which sodomy was performed? There were two isolated prosecutions (1570 and 1630) with the first ‘modern’ investigation of a charge of sodomy would appear to be that into John Trott’s behaviour in 1817 in which the definition of the crime appears to be clear to prosecutors.

By: Sarah Jane Sloane

Sarah Jane Sloane — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 21:03:28 +0000

I wondered that too! I wondered if it could be “rimming,” too. Or maybe Alexander Carlyle in his letter was just using a common metaphor (seems unlikely). There is so little known about gay and lesbian blife in Edinburgh in the 18th and 19th centuries it’s hard to know what were common metaphors or what were literal descriptions. Thanks for the conjecture.

By: Sarah Jane Sloane

Sarah Jane Sloane — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 21:02:18 +0000

In reply to Phil Gaskell. I wondered that too! I wondered if it could be “rimming,” too. Or maybe Alexander Carlyle in his letter was just using a common metaphor (seems unlikely). There is so little known about gay and lesbian life in Edinburgh in the 18th and 19th centuries it’s hard to know what were common metaphors or what were literal descriptions. Thanks for the conjecture.

By: Phil Gaskell

Phil Gaskell — Sat, 21 Dec 2024 22:55:12 +0000

I’d have thought that ‘eating turd’ is a thinly veiled reference to anal intercourse, a forbidden fruit as opposed to the delights of heterosexual sex. At the time even mentioning gay sex was excruciatingly painful for the pious and puritanical types from whose ranks so many ministers of religion were drawn.