Time Line 1800
- 1800's
in Washington DC, We'wha, a two-spirit leader and representative for the Native American Zuni tribe, is married to a man.
- 1801, March 6
Sade and his publisher, Nicolas Masse, are arrested. Police searches find manuscripts and printed works, including Juliette and La Nouvelle Justine and a tapestry depicting "the most obscene subjects, most of which were drawn from the infamous novel Justine."
- 1801, April 2
The Minister of Police decides that a "trial would cause too much of a scandal which an exemplary punishment would still not make worthwile" So de Sade is "placed" in Sainte-Pelagie prison as "administrative punishment" for being the author of "that infamous novel Justine" and of that "still more terrible work Juliette."
- 1805
Publication of Ein Jahr in Arkadien (A Year in Arcadia), by Herzog August von Sachsen Gotha, the first homoerotic book in the German Language. [AA]
- 1809
New York: In Genton vs Reed, the state Supreme Court recognizes common-law marriage, which won't be declared void until 1901.
- 1809, Mar. 31
Birth of Edward Fitzgerald, English writer who cruised the Suffolk docks "looking for some fellow to accost me and fill a very vacant place in my heart." [Greif 82]
- 1809, Dec. 29
Birth of William Gladsone (death May 19, 1898) The four time Prime Minister of England was dedicated to self flagellation both to punish himself for impure thoughts and to achieve a pleasure from the act, which he then repented. [JWB]
- 1810
The Napoleonic Code is instituted in France. It eliminates all laws forbidding homosexuality. [AA]
- 1810
The mother of a schoolgirl accuses Marianne Woods and Jane Pirie, mistresses at a boarding school for girls, of "imporper and criminal conduct" with each other, The British courts debate whether a sexual relationship between women was even possible. Lillian Hellman used his plot 120 years later as the basis for her play The Children's Hour. [AA]
- 1813
Bavaria decriminalizes sexual acts between men
- 1813, April 28
Prince Mikhail Kutuzov, who lead the defense of Moscow against Napoleon, dies of a heart attack while having sex with a soldier.
- 1814, Sept 13
On this day Francis Scott Key wrote "The Star Spangled Banner." This deserves a healthy "so what?" from most readers of this list. But Key set his flag waving poem to music originally titled "Anacreon In Heaven". The Anacreonitics, who delighted in copying the Greek poet's style, seemed to miss the subject, which was largely about boys he diddled. OK, whatever the etymology the anthem is unsingable.
- 1814, Dec. 2
Death, at Charenton Asylum of Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade, the Marquis.
- 1820, May 12
Birth of Florence Nightingale, who is alleged to have said, "I have lived and slept in the same bed with English Countesses and Prussian farm women...No woman has excited passion among women more than I have."
- 1821, Nov. 11
Birth of Feodor Dostoeovski (death Feb. 9, 1881). The writer's letters to his beloved Anna are peppered with direct references to his fetish for her feet. His contemporary, Turgenev, called him "the Russian Marquis de Sade," perhaps suggesting more than the Anna letters reveal.
- 1824, Nov. 6
In France the Marquis Astolphe de Custine is sadistically gang-raped by a group of soldiers with whom he had made an assignation.
- 1825, Aug. 28
Birth of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, German sexologist and activist [Greif 82]
- 1826
Karl Ernst von Baer discovers the human ovum. [wd]
- 1828
The English Parliament closes a loophole in its definition of the capital crime of buggery. It would no longer be necessary to demonstrate "The actual Emission of Seed" to convict someone of buggery or rape. [AA]
- 1828
First publication, in Leipzig, Germany, of "The Memoirs of Casanova".
- 1830
Publicaton in France of the two volume work La Marquise de Gange, of which de Sade is the anonymous author.
- 1833, Jan 28
The birth of Charles George "Chinese" Gordon, military hero of Imperial Britain and martyr at Khartoum. He was fond of picking up street urchins, bathing them, feeding them and mending their clothes with his very own needle and thread." [Greif 82]
- 1834 - 36
Heinrich Hoessli, a Swiss milliner, publishes his two volume set Eros: On the Love of Men, in German. It collected all the examples he could find of homosexual love in ages past -- Greek, Roman, and Persian love poems and manuscripts - and was one of the first books in modern times to give a positve view of homosexuality. [AA]
- 1835, June 15
Birth of Adah Isaacs Menken (death Aug. 25 1868). This most famed sexpot of the Victorian age was the star of "Mazeppa ↗". She flashed apparent nudity in the face of Emperor Franz Josef -- he like it. She was also the lover in reality, or publicly held fantasy, of many famous men including numerous crowned heads and chiefs of government. She was once paid by Dante Gabriel Rosetti to spend the night with poet Algernon Charles Swinburne, giving him the flogging he wanted, possibly in an attempt on Rosetti's part to convince the poet that women were desirable sex partners. [JWB]
- 1836
Death of Threse Berkeley who supervised a flagellant brothel at 28 Charlotte St, London. Ms Berkeley is the inventor of the Berkley bench/horse, a specialized piece of furniture for flogging and bondage. [R]
- 1836
The last execution for homosexuality takes place in Britain, although the death penalty for homosexuals will remain on the books until 1861. [AA]
- 1836, Jan 27
Birth of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, author of Venus in Furs. The man who put the "M" in SM.
- 1837, April 5
Birth of British poet Charles Algernon Swinburne who wrote many lines in praise of switches on asses.
- 1840, Aug. 14
Birth of German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing in Mannheim, Germany [wd]
- 1843
Massachussetts repeals its 138 year old antimiscegenation law.
- 1843
Hungarian physician Heinrich Kaan publishes his report named Psychopathias sexualis, reinterpreting sins of the flesh as psychological disorders. The theological terms "deviation", "aberation", and "perversion" are introduced into medicine. [wd]
- 1844
In The Queen vs. Millis, common law marriages are declared illegal in England.
- 1844, March 30
Birth of Paul Verlaine, poet and lover of poet Arthur Rimbaud (born Oct 20, 1854). He was imprisoned for two years after shooting his lover. He wrote Sonnet to an Asshole which begins "Dark and wrinkled like a deep pink, / It breathes, humbly nestled among the moss / Still wet with love..." [Greif 82]
- 1844, July 25
Birth of Thomas Eakins in Philadelphia. The great American artist specialized in painting muscular, nude male models, nude male athletes and nude male bathers. [Greif 82]
- 1844, Aug. 29
Birth of Edward Carpenter, the great English "sexual emancipator." Believing the effeminacy of "Uranians" a myth, he affected a form of macho dress, as did his working-class lover George Merrill, that make them both look, almost a century later, awfully contemporary. [Greif 82]
- 1844, Oct. 15
The birth of Friedrich Nietzche. (death Aug. 25 1900). The philosopher was not an ardent of SM, but listed among the four women in his life one married woman whom he flogged during sex and who, dressed as a man, beat him senseless before another sexual encounter. Also, a photo of Nietzche shows him as one of two gentlemen horses "pulling" a cart on which Lou Andreas-Salome (not "the" married woman) crouches with a knotted whip raised. [JWB]
- 1846, Feb. 20
New York City policeman Edward McCosker is dismissed for "indecently feeling the privates" of a male passerby while on duty.
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