Rictor Norton | |
|---|---|
 Norton, at the London Metropolitan Archives conference in 2013. | |
| Born | June 25, 1945 Friendship, New York, USA |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Florida Southern College, Florida State University |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Years active | 1970–present |
| Known for | LGBT historian |
Rictor Norton (born 1945) is an American writer on literary and cultural history, particularly queer history. [1] He is based in London, England.
Norton was born in Friendship, New York, USA, on June 25, 1945. [2] He gained a BA from Florida Southern College in 1967, and a PhD from Florida State University in 1972. His doctoral dissertation was on homosexual themes in English Renaissance literature. He worked as an instructor at Florida State University from 1970–72, where he taught a course on gay and lesbian literature in 1971, one of the earliest gay courses in the United States. He was an active member of the Gay Liberation Front from 1971–72, and was involved in campaigning for the repeal of Florida's sodomy statute.
In 1973, he moved to London, UK, where he has lived since, working as a journalist, publisher, researcher and freelance scholar. He worked as a research editor for the fortnightly London news journal, Gay News , from 1974 to 1978. He wrote articles on gay history and literature for publications such as Gay Sunshine and The Advocate throughout the 1970s, and for Gay Times later. In December 2005 he formed a civil partnership with his partner of nearly thirty years.
Norton's first book grew out of his PhD thesis on homosexuality in English Renaissance Literature. It was published as The Homosexual Literary Tradition (1974).
Norton has published academic articles in Renascence , American Imago, Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature, the London Journal, etc. He has also contributed to Sex Doctors and Sex Crimes, Who's Who in Gay & Lesbian History (Routledge, 2001) and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
His work includes Mother Clap's Molly House [3] (1992; 2nd edition 2006), a history of the molly house in England, and The Myth of the Modern Homosexual, a critique of social constructionism and the Foucaultian model of sexuality. His work My Dear Boy (1998) contains sixty sets of love letters from men to other men throughout history, from Ancient Rome to twentieth-century America.
Gay London in the 1720s; Ganymede Raped - The Critic as Censor; Reflections on the Gay Movement; The Passions of Michelangelo; Hard Gemlike Flame: Walter Pater and His Circle; The Historical Roots of Homophobia (containing material not previously published). Ed. Winston Leyland, San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press, Vol. I, 1991; Vol. II, 1993.
Enter Willie Hughes as Juliet; in Ist besser, verdorben auch zu sein ..., 21 Shakespeare Nachdichtungen von Leander Sukov, Kulturmaschinen Verlag e.K. 2008,Berlin, Kulturmaschinen Verlag der Autoren, 2020, Hamburg
Queer is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or cisgender. Originally meaning 'strange' or 'peculiar', queer came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships in the late 19th century. Beginning in the late 1980s, queer activists, such as the members of Queer Nation, began to reclaim the word as a deliberately provocative and politically radical alternative to the more assimilationist branches of the LGBT community.
Queer studies, sexual diversity studies, or LGBT studies is the education of topics relating to sexual orientation and gender identity usually focusing on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender dysphoria, asexual, queer, questioning, intersex people and cultures.
The Buggery Act 1533, formally An Acte for the punishment of the vice of Buggerie, was an Act of the Parliament of England that was passed during the reign of Henry VIII.
Margaret Clap, better known as Mother Clap, ran a coffee house from 1724 to 1726 in Holborn, Middlesex, a short distance from the City of London. As well as running a molly house, she was heavily involved in the ensuing legal battles after her premises were raided and shut down. While not much is known about her life, she was an important part of the gay subculture of early 18th-century England. At the time sodomy in England was a crime under the Buggery Act 1533, punishable by a fine, imprisonment, or the death penalty. Despite this, particularly in larger cities, private homosexual activity took place. To service these actions there existed locations where men from all classes could find partners or just socialize, called molly houses, "molly" being slang for a gay man at the time. One of the most famous of these was Clap's molly house.
Molly-house was a term used in 18th- and 19th-century Britain for a meeting place for homosexual men. The meeting places were generally taverns, public houses, coffeehouses or even private rooms where men could either socialise or meet possible sexual partners.
Hilarius, also known as Hilary the Englishman, was a Latin poet who is supposed to have been an Englishman.
Homoeroticism is sexual attraction between members of the same sex, either male–male or female–female. The concept differs from the concept of homosexuality: it refers specifically to the desire itself, which can be temporary, whereas "homosexuality" implies a more permanent state of identity or sexual orientation. It is a much older concept than the 19th-century idea of homosexuality, and is depicted or manifested throughout the history of the visual arts and literature. It can also be found in performative forms; from theatre to the theatricality of uniformed movements. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is "pertaining to or characterized by a tendency for erotic emotions to be centered on a person of the same sex; or pertaining to a homo-erotic person."
Terms used to describe homosexuality have gone through many changes since the emergence of the first terms in the mid-19th century. In English, some terms in widespread use have been sodomite, Achillean, Sapphic, Uranian, homophile, lesbian, gay, effeminate, queer, homoaffective, and same-sex attracted. Some of these words are specific to women, some to men, and some can be used of either. Gay people may also be identified under the umbrella terms LGBT.
The gay liberation movement was a social and political movement of the late 1960s through the mid-1980s that urged lesbians and gay men to engage in radical direct action, and to counter societal shame with gay pride. In the feminist spirit of the personal being political, the most basic form of activism was an emphasis on coming out to family, friends, and colleagues, and living life as an openly lesbian or gay person.
Gay cruising describes the act of searching about a public place in pursuit of a partner for sex. The activity has existed in England and Wales since at least the 17th century and has a colourful legal history. It differs from prostitution in that the parties involved do not seek money for sex, and from gay nightclubs or bathhouses in that they are not on private premises, although they may take place on private land to which the public have been granted access.
The Vere Street Coterie were a group of men arrested at a molly house in Vere Street, London in 1810 for sodomy and attempted sodomy. Eight men were eventually convicted. Two of them were hanged and six were pilloried for this offence. Along with Oscar Wilde's imprisonment for a similar offence, this episode was one of the major events in gay history in England during the 19th century.
Gay pulp fiction, or gay pulps, refers to printed works, primarily fiction, that include references to male homosexuality, specifically male gay sex, and that are cheaply produced, typically in paperback books made of wood pulp paper; lesbian pulp fiction is similar work about women. Michael Bronski, the editor of an anthology of gay pulp writing, notes in his introduction, "Gay pulp is not an exact term, and it is used somewhat loosely to refer to a variety of books that had very different origins and markets". People often use the term to refer to the "classic" gay pulps that were produced before about 1970, but it may also be used to refer to the gay erotica or pornography in paperback book or digest magazine form produced since that date.
Gay Men's Press was a publisher of books based in London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1979, the imprint was run until 2000 by its founders, then until 2006 by Millivres Prowler.
Sporus was a young slave boy whom the Roman Emperor Nero favored, had castrated, and married.
Mother Clap's Molly House is a 2001 play by Mark Ravenhill with music by Matthew Scott. It is based on an essay in the book of the same name by Rictor Norton.
Winston Leyland is a British-American author and editor. Called "one of the seminal figures in gay publishing" by the San Francisco Sentinel, he was originally ordained a Catholic priest and later graduated from UCLA. He worked for the Los Angeles Times and Gay Sunshine, serving as editor for the latter when it was rebranded as the Gay Sunshine Journal. Under his direction, the Journal was praised by Allen Ginsberg for "its presentation of literary history hitherto kept in the closet by the academies." In 1975, Leyland founded Gay Sunshine Press, the oldest LGBT publishing house in the United States, followed by Leyland Publications in 1984. The two imprints combined have published more than 135 books, and are known for their translations of gay-themed European and Asian literature into English, including works by Vladimir Makanin, Yukio Mishima, and Nikolai Gogol. Leyland also published written erotica, such as Mike Shearer's Great American Gay Porno Novel and collections of reader-supplied true sexual stories edited by Boyd McDonald.
The LGBT community in London is one of the largest within Europe. LGBT culture of London, England, is centred on Old Compton Street in Soho. There are also LGBT pubs and restaurants across London in Haggerston, Dalston and Vauxhall.
Robert Jones was an officer in the Royal Artillery of the British Army, who wrote and self-published the first book on figure skating, The Art of Skating, in 1772. He was known for popularising figure skating in Great Britain, and for his 1772 trial for sodomy. He also wrote a book about and popularising fireworks. The Art of Skating was called "a milestone in the history of figure skating". Jones described basic techniques of skating, which was a recreational activity at the time, before the development of figure skating as a sport in the late 1800s. He was the first to characterize skating as an art form. He wrote that he saw no reason for the exclusion of women in skating, as long as they did it for recreational purposes.
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