Pederasts and Others

by William A. Peniston

Examine how a community of support in Nineteenth-Century Paris became a blueprint for modern sexual identity!

A unique social history, Pederasts and Urban Culture and Sexual Identity in Nineteenth-Century Paris is a valuable addition to the growing field of gay and lesbian studies. The book examines the interaction between the city's male homosexual subculture and Parisian authority figures who attempted to maintain political and social order during the early years of the French Third Republic by using laws against public indecency and sexual assault to treat same-sex sexuality as a crime. Faced with a constant cycle of surveillance, harassment, and arrest, the city's gay men survived the hostile urban environment by forming a community of support that had a widespread and lasting influence on the development of modern sexual identities.

Pederasts and Urban Culture and Sexual Identity in Nineteenth-Century Paris is based on a statistical analysis of more than 800 working-class and middle-class men who were arrested or investigated by Parisian police between 1873 and 1879. Their stories, presented through long and short case studies, represent nearly 2,000 names recorded by police in Pederasts and Others, a ledger detailing the arrests of male homosexuals for public offenses against decency and other minor offenses. (The term pederast identified those suspected of same-sex sexual activity, not the modern definition that indicates homosexual relations with a minor.) The ledger entries reveal specific habits, attitudes, values, and characteristics about these men that set them apartthe same traits that identified them as part of a community based on their behavior and relationships.

Pederasts and Urban Culture and Sexual Identity in Nineteenth-Century Paris and takes an expanded look at three case Pederasts and Urban Culture and Sexual Identity in Nineteenth-Century Paris also includes tables, appendices, and maps linked to statistical data. The book is an essential resource for historians, sociologists, sexologists, criminologists, and other scholars working in the fields of gay and lesbian studies, urban studies, social and cultural history, and French history.

Genres: History

270 pages, Paperback

First published August 4, 2004

Reviews

[Nadja · Rating 4 out of 5]

It must be extremely hard gathering material surrounding a subject such as queer culture. This book tries to use specific sources and extract as much as possible from them while being punctual and logical at all times, filling the gaps with the literature from the time and the studies made by recent scholars. A very interesting read.

[Rachel Pollock · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a scholarly book, and a great resource of conjectural information about a narrow subculture/time/place told through the interpretation of statistics and statements gleaned from police blotters and arrest records. I read it as part of ongoing research, but i also enjoyed reading it and found myself wondering about the fates of so many of these men who, but for police persecution and the records that generated, would otherwise be invisible in the historic record.

[Ella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid, if slightly dry, work of history. It’s a bit like what Michael Rocke did for quattrocento Florence, except Rocke is a better writer and you get more of a sense of the city and the group dynamics from that one.

[Joanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

The only thing more frustrating than a lack of queer scholarship on a given time/place/topic is some sloppy queer scholarship on it that passes itself off as "well-researched". You may have done a lot of research on pederasty in Victorian London, but applying those descriptions directly to post-Haussmann Paris WITHOUT specifying that the scholar you're quoting wasn't working at all within your region of focus is grossly irresponsible.