The gay subculture is clearly present in the Netherlands, especially in August. During the highlight of the Amsterdam Gaypride, the canal parade on August 1, everyone will once again marvel at mainly scantily clad and exuberantly dancing men. However, the Dutch gay scene has been around for a lot longer and came to light by accident in 1730.
Over the centuries, homosexuality has been viewed in different ways. One of the biggest differences with today is that the homosexual (gay or lesbian) did not exist. Neither do the straight. You had men and women and they generally had sex with someone of the opposite sex, but sex with the same sex also happened. This was not always thought negatively. The ancient Greeks, for example, considered it quite normal for men to have sex with each other, although these were often young men. Or an older man with a young man.
Sex between women
Sex between women also occurred, but because it did not involve penetration, it was rather seen as a natural intimacy between women. Even now we don't think much when we see women hugging, while hugging men quickly get the stamp 'gay'. We did think in Europe since ancient times that there were hermaphrodites, women with oversized clitoris, with which they could penetrate another woman.
After the Renaissance, the rediscovery of antiquity in the fifteenth century, this physical "abnormality" was mainly attributed to exotic women, when explorers saw that the "savages" had different sexual habits. Only when women had sex with each other without a penetrating clitoris but, for example, with self-made leather strap-on dildos, did justice scratch the surface. This was not the intention and fell under sodomy:the penalty for this was the death penalty.
Sharing the bed together was normal
Sodomy was a broad term. It could be sex between two people of the same sex, but also sex with animals, between Christians and Jews or incest. In any case, it was forbidden and a serious matter, but the death penalty was rarely given. When punishments for sodomy did exist, they were usually accompanied by charges of witchcraft or complaints from a peasant that his beast had been abused.
Sexual acts between the sexes were not rare either, they just weren't talked about so as not to encourage it further. It occurred within monasteries, during months of travel on VOC ships or other places where people of the same sex were stuck together for a long time. People didn't get married until they were in their late twenties, if at all, and until then they mostly worked and lived with the same sex.
In addition, relatives, guild brothers and even complete strangers shared a bed without any second thoughts, for example during an overnight stay in an inn. Possible nighttime escapades were sexual games, whether or not enforced by an (elder) superior who had control over the body and limbs of his minors.
The autonomous individual with self-determination over his own body and with accompanying desires was unknown in this hierarchical society. You belonged to God, your superiors, and to a family whose honor you were to uphold. This image would only be shaken with the arrival of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century. Until then, sex with someone of the same sex was only seen as an act to gain your pleasure.
Masturbation club and Scheveningen Bosjes
In the nineteenth century, medicine and psychology took off and from 1869 the term "homosexual" came into use, probably coined by a journalist ("gay" means both "equal" and "man"). What exactly this meant, the scientists and doctors were not in agreement. What was new was that they saw homosexuals as sick people who could be cured. This idea did not stand alone but was the outcome of a historical process that began at the end of the seventeenth century. The emerging Enlightenment made people think more about the individual and personal desires. With the rise of science, the omniscient and decisive God was no longer the center of the universe. Especially the elite started to think more for themselves, instead of leaving the thinking to God or His deputies on earth.
Criminal records show that from the end of the seventeenth century, men started to meet in fixed places, such as cafes with rooms to retreat to, or on the street. The now known meeting places, such as the Scheveningse Bosjes, can also be found as such in these registers. Men of all kinds, young and old, rich and poor, came here in search of sexual partners. These men were usually married and not just had sex with other men. Masturbation clubs and prostitutes went hand in hand. It is not yet possible to talk about a sexual orientation and the men mainly had quick sex with each other.
Sodomy processes
Although the 'cruising' men started to take notice, the mess only broke loose in 1730. The sexton of the Utrecht Dom, in order to avoid punishment himself, told the court that he had seen men messing with each other. Several arrests followed and after interrogations it turned out to the alarm of the Utrecht court that this was a network that extended beyond the city. And even worse, men of different classes had sex with each other voluntarily, with the higher-ranking also being the receiving party! This was unheard of and the court informed other cities about their sodomy-perpetrating inhabitants.
According to pastors, the 'sudden' presence of the many sodomites in 1730 was a result of the wealth in the Republic and the punishment of God. Once seduced you couldn't get rid of your sodomite feelings and you would seduce others. This would inevitably follow God's punishment and the collapse of the Republic. Because of this fear of undermining society, cities often thought it was a good idea to openly execute sodomites and use them as a fearsome example. The relatively large-scale penance on the scaffold could also turn the tide.
More than three hundred arrests with almost a hundred executions were the result. This was the heaviest persecution of sodomites in Dutch history. These men were strangled, drowned in a barrel or hanged. Most were banned, however, often in absentia because they had already fled. Although almost ten percent of the suspects were high-ranking men, such as the mayor of Leiden, the people sentenced to death were mainly servants and small independents. This caused a lot of unrest among the population.
From fast sex to subculture
With the revelations during the sodomy processes after 1730, important substantive information about the sodomites emerged:a subculture appeared to have emerged with its own gestures, jargon and habits. Stepping on someone's foot at the public urinals turned out to be a nationally known gesture when seeking contact. Before 1730, a man could not tell that he was a sodomite:an effeminate appearance was the very hallmark of a womanizer. From now on it would be attributed more and more to sodomites and there was a stronger separation between male and female. Sodomites were mentioned in the same breath as female prostitutes, not only because of the frequent sharing of meeting places for men seeking sexual contact, but also because of the similarity of a whorish appearance.
This strongly accentuated feminine appearance was the mirror to the soul, it was realized in the second half of the eighteenth century, when body and mind were no longer separate from each other:desires could be purely spiritual. Slowly it dawned on me that sodomites chose the same sex not only to satisfy their sexual needs at the time, but because their own sex was preferred. Or as they put it themselves:they had a male body, but a female mind that longed for men. They were a different kind of person.
Sodomy no longer a neck issue
The realization that sodomy went beyond pure sexual pleasure did not lead to excesses or undue persecution. The popular anger that had erupted in 1730 had cooled after a few months and sodomites did not withdraw from society. For the first time in Dutch history, a gay scene arose. Sodomites accepted that they were different and initially that there was a punishment for that.
Less than a hundred years later, we find in correspondence that men explicitly do not want and cannot conform to the ideologies of the Enlightenment with regard to marriage and the norms and values that go with it. Men form love relationships with other men and even live together. In the public space, on the other hand, behavior was more sharply defined. Naked men with each other in an inn bed had become inappropriate.
After Napoleon in 1811 the Civil Code (Code Pénal ) in the Netherlands, homosexual behavior was no longer punishable. Yet there were still sentences, in which men were arrested for dishonorable behavior. They were subsequently convicted on the basis of their reputation and not because it was conclusively proven that anal sex had taken place. The death penalty was no longer imposed.