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Mapping an Atlantic Sexual Culture:
Homoeroticism in Eighteenth-Century
Philadelphia
Clare A. Lyons
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AT the end of the eighteenth century, Ann Alweye, a male transvestite,
lived with John Crawford in a relationship presumed to be sexual.
Half a century earlier, Mary Hamilton had fled England for the New
World after her conviction for "pretending herself a Man" and living
as husband to Mary Price. Both Alweye and Hamilton were members
of the greater Philadelphia community during the second half of
the eighteenth century, and both lived out their lives unmolested
by the larger society around them. They are unusual because their
lives enter into the record of eighteenth-century sexual practice.
They are part of a small group of individuals who embraced homoerotic
desire and who are documented in an otherwise profoundly silent
historical record. Is it possible to recover the meanings of homoeroticism
(ideas about homoerotic sexual practice and desire as well as physical
behavior) for eighteenth century urban British North Americans despite
this documentary silence?
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One way to read these silences and
interpret the fragmentary evidence of homoerotic sexual practice
for the eighteenth century is to examine the dynamics of cultural
exchange in the larger Atlantic world and explore the sexual cultures
that many urban Americans had contact with. A comparative cultural
analysis will help develop a history of homoeroticism that conceptualizes
the port cities as part of an Atlantic cultural web, that follows
the movement of bodies and texts through these cultural waterways,
that draws on our knowledge of the pivotal transformations in English
and western European conceptualizations of homoeroticism in the
eighteenth century, and that analyzes the links in popular culture
between colonial ports and European metropolitan centers during
a century that saw both Europeans and colonial British North Americans
become intrigued by literary representations of homoerotic desire. |
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To develop this line of analysis fully
one would need to trace the entire eighteenth-century Atlantic seafaring
web. Here I concentrate on one particularly dense strand to explore
the links between Philadelphia, the largest English colonial city
after midcentury, and England and western Europe. Philadelphia's
maritime economy, communication network with England, and highly
developed print culture make it an ideal place to explore the dynamics
of cultural exchange of ideas about sexuality. It can serve as a
test case for this conceptual and methodological framework. Philadelphia
shared conditions with other colonial port cities and also had particular
characteristics that influenced the reception of ideas from Europe
about same-sex intimacy. Thus studying Philadelphia in an Atlantic
context will also add to our understanding of regional sexual cultures
that developed in British North America. |
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