shagging & fucking

[Joel S. Berson]

At 9/3/2010 12:39 PM, George Thompson wrote:
> > > I'm confused about this. Does this mean that the speaker
> occasionally did men as well as women?
>
>I have only read enough of this book as was necessary to find the
>letter quoted.  It's from Ch. 5, "The Lecture of Venus's Arse:
>Richard Cosway's Charles Townley with a Group of Connoisseurs, c.
>1771-5", pp. 159-90.
>This chapter deals with the homosocial relations among the
>collectors and connoisseurs of ancient statuary and their group
>sexual stimulation from the nudes.  The title of the chapter refers
>to a painting by Cosway which shows Townley and friends admiring
>three statues of females, including 2 nudes.  An odd detail is that
>on the opposite side of the painting from the statues, one member of
>the group seems to be giving the bum's rush to one of the others,
>who is looking back at the statues.  (plate 18)  She also reproduces
>(fig. 55) a preliminary sketch showing details which I can't myself
>make out in the reproduction.  She says that several of the men are
>exposing themselves to the statues -- now that she tells me, I guess
>I can see that.  She says that one of them is finger-fucking (not
>her term) a statue -- that I can see.  She says that another is
>gesturing with his thumb and index finger making a circle, and that
>that gesture "simulates the female genitalia".  This detail I take
>her word for.  (pp. 182-83)

Some of these Connoisseurs like women, one apparently prefers (or
also likes) men.

>...
>Coltman identifies Radicati as "the itinerant Italian pantheist,
>Count Radicati di Passerano . . . . , who arrived in England in
>1730.  He fled to the Continent after being arrested and threatened
>with prosecution for his radical views, which encouraged homosexual
>practices.["]

The 1730s are about when Rictor Norton places an increase in
homosexual gathering places and activity in London (IIRC).  This was
also a time of increased prosecution and persecution, and Norton
mentions some who fled to the more permissive Continent (at least the
allegedly more permissible southern Continent, France and Italy).  I
don't recall if Norton mentions Radicati.

>["]In his letter to Townley, Cosway masquarades as a devotee of
>Radicati's position."

The last word above an interesting choice.

>(p. 182)  She cites M. C. Jacobs, The Radical Enlightenment (1981),
>pp. 172-74 & 216, and G. S. Rousseau, "The Sorrows of Priapus", in
>G. S. Rousseau and R. Porter, Sexual Underworlds of the
>Enlightenment (1987), pp. 101-53.
>"Cosway masquarades as a devotee of Radicati's position" -- I don't
>know whether this indicates that Coltman knows other sources that
>show that Cosway's reference to Radicati's Arse was a pose or in-joke.

Not clear from the letter.  Cosway praises the abilities of Italian
women -- although that may be second-hand reporting -- and would not
"fuck an English woman again (if I can help it)" -- implying he had
once, and might again.  On the other hand, he writes "but as for
myself I stick as close to Radicati's Arse as a Bum Bailiff to Lord
Deloraine's."  Which is the pose and which the reality?  Or both?

Joel

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