#thomas cannon

[amphibious-thing]

No matter how many times I read it I’ll never get over the note from John Cleland where he accuses Thomas Cannon of attempted murder and sodomy.

[inziladun]

Other versions of that scene I want to archive here:

Tosca - Te Deum (AMARTUVSHIN ENKHBAT) Teatro di San Carlo (2020)

The grotesque penitents, Scarpia's dog, the living statue in the precarious stone structure... I love it. (Also, I haven't posted a Scarpia whose voice I didn't like, but this one is just absolutely gorgeous)

Ambrogio Maestri "Tre sbirri, una carrozza…Va Tosca" (Te Deum) Opening Gala Firenze

Love this more traditional production still putting a little at the end by having the revolutionaries stage a (futile, but unnerving) demonstration and capturing the priest. Also love Scarpia grasping the cross at the end...

And this is not production related, but I love the twisted camera angles slowly untwisting. Hell yeah

Jared Ice - Va, Tosca! (Te Deum) (2017)

These costumes just look to me like they were designed by Tom of Finland idk we stan. You could not convince me this Scarpia wants Tosca for herself tho and I'm writing Scarpia/Cavaradossi fanfic in my mind as I watch this... I do like the choir being hostages forced to pray immensely, I think it's a very inspired choice

"Va, Tosca" (Tosca) Te Deum - Thomas Cannon 2017

Set in the Spanish civil war! A thousand points for that alone! A small detail, but Scarpia bowing politely to the priest and simply continuing his depraved daydream feels right. I also love the inconstancy -- Scarpia smiles, frowns, then smiles again, etc, etc, just to end on (what looks like) a sensual daydream. Sometimes the most banal is also the most terrifying in context.

[solarpunkpresentspodcast]

Episode 2.4: Solarpunk Music to Inspire Action with Thomas Cannon

Ep 2.4 SOLARPUNK MUSIC TO INSPIRE ACTION WITH THOMAS CANNON is live in the feed! Join Ariel and guest Thomas Cannon to talk about his new album of #solarpunk #ambient #music and discuss #instruments #artwork #collaborative #musicmaking and more! #podcast

On today’s episode, Ariel talks with Thomas Cannon about solarpunk music and his new album MESH NETWORK. What was the inspiration behind this work of solarpunk ambient music? What is solarpunk music, anyway, and how can it help us today to create the just, sustainable, and equitable future that we all want to live in? Join us for a discussion of the album tracks, artwork, instruments, the process…

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[amphibious-thing]

In the 18th century the roles in anal intercourse were known as “pathic” or “patient” (bottom) and “agent” (top). We often assume that men on the receiving end of anal intercourse were always more stigmatised than their partners, however Rictor Norton suggests this wasn’t necessarily true in 18th century England. Looking at the records of the Old Bailey Norton observes that “the one who is stigmatised and hence given an identity is the one who expresses a homosexual desire, regardless of the sexual role or specific act,” while “the one who submits to the sexual request, even if it involves ‘passive’ sex, does not feel implicated in the desire, hence escapes the stigmatisation and the identity.” (Recovering Gay History from the Old Bailey, p20)

The language used by the Old Bailey is that of one man (the agent) “assaulting” another (the pathic), even in explicitly consensual cases.

For example Samuel Taylor was found guilty of “assaulting John Berry, and committing with him the horrid and detestable Crime of Buggery.” But John Berry was found guilty of “wickedly consenting with Taylor the said unnatural Crime”. Taylor was found with Berry “sitting in his Lap” with “both their Breeches being down”. (Trial of Samuel Taylor & John Berry, 22 February 1738)

William Hollywell was found guilty of “an Assault, with an Intent to commit the detestable Crime of Buggery” on William Huggins, who was found guilty “for consenting and submitting to the same.” A witness discovered them in the “upper part of the Cathedral of St. Paul's” and “surpriz'd them in the following Posture; Huggins's Breeches were down, he stooping very low, so that he could not see his Head, his Shirt was turn'd up on his Back, and his Back-side was bare; Hollywell was standing close by, with his fore Parts to the other's Posteriors, and his Body in Motion”. (Trial of William Hollywell & William Huggins, 4 December 1730)

Sodomy was often presented as an awful thing to do to another man, the agent doesn’t escape stigmatisation for acting the traditionally masculine role as he is seen as “assaulting” the pathic; even in consensual cases.

However we see push back against this view of sodomy as innately an “assault” in Jeremy Bentham’s defence of sodomy Offences Against One's Self. Bentham states plainly that “it is evident that it produces no pain in anyone. On the contrary it produces pleasure”. He clarifies “If either of them be unwilling, the act is not that which we have here in view: it is an offence totally different in its nature of effects: it is a personal injury; it is a kind of rape.”

In fact Bentham argues “it is not the pain that angers them but the pleasure.” He explains; “according to the notions of these moralists and these religionists, that is, of the bulk of moralists and religionists who write, pleasures that are allowed of, are never allowed of for their own sake”.

While Bentham’s defence of sodomy is quite academic and logical Thomas Cannon’s is somewhat more cheeky. Hal Gladfelder describes it as “veering in style from erotic rhapsody, to scholarly essay, to dirty joke.” (In Search of Lost Texts, p30)

Cannon acknowledges the homophobic preconception that people “commonly conceive the P-th-c’s (meaning Pathic’s) Part disagreeable” but counters that the pathic can share “in the accurst Rapture” and enjoy the “Lewdness.” (Hal Gladfelder, The Indictment of John Purser, p45)

Cannon portrays anal intercourse as pleasurable for both agent and pathic in the story of Amorio and Hyacinth. In this tale a “young and blooming Amorio” meets a Lady at a Masquerade, but when he gets her to bed he finds "a Body past Imagination delicate; but of Gender masculine.” Amorio is surprised but not deterred:

Penetrating Love takes the Meaning; and the most lib-d-nous (meaning libidinous) Fire ever felt by our wondring Glower, seizes his panting Frame. He is quickly piloted into a Streight whose potent Cling draws all the Man in cl-mmy (meaning clammy) streams away. Recovering, he perceives the deeper absorpt P-th-c (again meaning Pathic) quite motionless, and thus exclaims; then do you leave me? do you leave your passionate Lover? O ever beautiful Boy, did I taste the Joys, thou only cou’dst give, to know the Bitterness of their Eternal Absence?

Now he endeavours with a gluing Kiss to infuse his own Spirit into the strongly o’er powered Hyacinth; then renews the recalling Plaint; return, fairer Hephestion to the fonder Alexander. Open to Love’s Warmth, thou folded Rose; O let me no longer endure the Horror of existing without you. Hyacinth revives, ardently uttering himself; bounteous Deity, in what a Gulph of Pleasure have I been plung’d; They vie in Raptures, and after more and more Am-ro-s (meaning amorous) Embraces; drop asleep in one another’s Arms.

After they awake in the morning they “love away an Hour or two; then rise and recruit with a long Breakfast.” (Hal Gladfelder, The Indictment of John Purser, p47-50

It’s perhaps worth noting that John Cleland once called Cannon a "white-faced, rotten catamite” and referred to him as “Molly Cannon” so perhaps Cannon is speaking from experience when he mentions the pathic “sharing in the accurst Rapture” and “over and over enj-y’d (meaning enjoyed) urges on the detestable Lewdness.” Although Cleland also accused Cannon of poisoning him “five times with common arsenic” so who knows what went on between Cleland and Cannon. (Hal Gladfelder, In Search of Lost Texts, p25)

While John Cleland didn’t publish a defence of sodomy per se he did include a male-male sex scene in his erotic novel Fanny Hill Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. In the book Fanny finds a peep-hole between her room and that next to it. Looking through she observes two “young sparks” having sex. Fanny at first doesn't believe anal sex is even possible based on “the disproportion of parts” but she is soon cured of this disbelief.

First, then, moistening well with spittle his instrument, obviously to make it glib, he pointed, he introduced it, as I could plainly discern, not only from its direction and my losing sight of it, but by the writhing, twisting and soft murmured complaints of the young sufferer; but at length, the first straits of entrance being pretty well go through, every thing seemed to move and go pretty currently on, as on a carpet road, without much rub or resistance; and now, passing one hand round his minions’ hips, he got hold of his red-topped ivory toy, that stood perfectly stiff, and shewed, that if he was like his mother behind, he was like his father before; this he diverted himself with, whilst, with the other he wantoned with his hair, and leaning forward over his back, drew his face, from which the boy shook the loose curls that fell over it, in the posture he stood him in, and brought him towards his, so as to receive a long breathed kiss; after which, renewing his driving, and thus continuing to harass his rear, the height of the fist came on with its usual symptoms, and dismissed the action.

Throughout the scene Fanny represents the perspective of the general public, at first disbelieving the possibility of it, then assuming the pathic to be a “sufferer”, but she soon observes that “every thing seemed to move and go pretty currently on, as on a carpet road, without much rub or resistance;” and that indeed while the pathic was “like his mother behind,” he “was like his father before” (i.e. he had an erection).

Of course the fact that the pathic could enjoy sodomy did not stop bigots from being bigots. Bentham hit the nail on the head when he wrote “it is not the pain that angers them but the pleasure.” William Pulteney in A Proper Reply to a Late Scurrilous Libel; Intitled, Sedition and Defamation Display’d, argues that the pathic and agent are “equally guilty” in cases where the pathic finds sodomy enjoyable:

but you seem, pretty Sir, to take the Word Corruption in a limited Sense and confine it to the Corrupter – Give me Leave to illustrate This by a parallel Case – There is a certain, unnatural, reigning Vice (indecent and almost shocking to mention) which hath of late, been severely punish'd in a neighbouring Nation. It is well known that there must be two Parties in this Crime; the Pathick and the Agent; both equally guilty. I need not explain These any farther. The Proof of the Crime hath been generally made by the Pathick; but I believe that Evidence will not be obtained quite so easily in the case of Corruption when a Man enjoys every Moment and Fruits of his Guilt.

Montesquieu argued that sodomy “ought to be proscribed were it only for its communicating to one sex the weaknesses of the other”. (The Spirit of Laws, b12, ch6) Bentham critics Montesquieu, pointing out that sodomy has a no greater “enervating” effect than that of “the regular way of gratifying the venereal appetite”. He argues that to justify sodomy laws for this reason there must be evidence that this is the case:

If the affirmative can be shewn it must be either by arguments a priori drawn from considerations of the nature of the human frame or from experience. Are there any such arguments from physiology? I have never heard of any: I can think of none.

However Montesquieu isn’t arguing that sodomy weakens both men equally but that it weakens the pathic specifically. “This distinction does not seem very satisfactory in any point of view” argues Bentham;

Is there any reason for supposing it to be a fixed one? Between persons of the same age actuated by the same incomprehensible desires would not the parts they took in the business be convertible? Would not the patient be the agent in his turn? If it were not so, the person on whom he supposes these effects to be the greatest is precisely the person with regard to whom it is most difficult to conceive whence those consequences should result. In the one case there is exhaustion which when carried to excess may be followed by debility: in the other case there is no such thing.

(Jeremy Bentham, Offences Against One's Self)

The parts were indeed as Bentham puts it “convertible”. In spite of the legal language of one man ‘assaulting’ another, in reality of molly sex had less strict roles. While one man may very well have had a preference for one role over the other, there were certainly men who enjoyed both roles. For example after meeting at the molly house Muff’s House in White-Chappel Isaac Milton and Jonathan Parrey went to the Three-Nuns where they “lay together”. Milton “would have had him [Parrey] committed Sodomy with him, but he refused it;” then Milton “offered to act the same Crime of Sodomy with him, but he would not suffer him.” (Trial of Isaac Milton, 16 October 1728)

Its also important to remember that anal sex was not the only kind of sex enjoyed by mollies. There are numerous references to fondling; William Brown took Thomas Newton “by the Hand, and (I shewing no dislike) he guides it to his Breeches, and puts his Privities into it.” (Trail of William Brown, 11 July 1726) Richard Challoner and John Branch Harris “put their Hands into each other's Breeches, after which they went out of the House into an Arbour in the Garden”. (Trial of Richard Challoner, 16 October 1728) Richard Manning and John Davis were caught “sitting facing one another with their knees jammed in together,” “kissing one another” with “Manning's hand in Davis's breeches” and “then Davis had his hand in Manning's breeches”, they “kissed one another for some time”. (Trial of Richard Manning and John Davis, 16 January 1745) Of course all of this could be precursory to anal sex but thats not necessarily the case.

There is one reference to fingering precursory to anal sex from the late 17th century. Preparing to “F—” William Minton, Capt Edward Rigby “pulled down Mintons Breeches, turn'd away his shirt, put his Finger to Mintons Fundament” (An Account of the Proceedings against Capt Edward Rigby, 1698)

Norton notes that “all of the available evidence, however, suggest that oral intercourse, fellatio, was rarely practised by the mollies.” However rarely is not never. In 1704 John Norton took hold of John Coyney’s privates “putting them into his mouth and sucking them” (Norton, Mother Clap’s Molly House, p107) In 1735 John Holloway testified that Henry Wolf “pull'd down his own Breeches and mine, and - in his Mouth”. (Trial of Henry Wolf, 22 May 1735)

In reviewing the proceedings of the Old Bailey Norton found “ample evidence that so-called ‘sodomites’ enjoyed an extended range of activities, including kissing, cuddling, love talk, fondling, sexual display, masturbation, oral intercourse, and reciprocal anal intercourse.” (Recovering Gay History from the Old Bailey, p15)

[amphibious-thing]

Ok but John Cleland pointing to Thomas Cannon like ‘He wrote gay erotica!!!’ Like YOU wrote gay erotica!

[amphibious-thing]

Ok but the fact that Thomas Cannon who is often credited as the first man to publish a defence of homosexuality in English was a friend/enemy of John Cleland, who wrote the erotic novel Fanny Hill (which contains an explicit m/m sex scene) is interesting to say the least.

[uranianrights]

"Unnatural Desire is a Contradiction in Terms; downright Nonsense. Desire is an amatory Impulse of the inmost human Parts: Are not they, however constructed, and consequently impelling, Nature? Whatever Modes of Thinking the Mind from Objects receives, whatever Sensations pervade the Body, are not the Mind and Body Parcels of Nature, necessarily receiving those Thoughts, necessarily pervaded by these Sensations? Nature sometimes assumes an unusual Appearance; But the extraordinary Pederast seeking Fru-t-on, is as naturally acted as the ordinary Woman’s Man in that Pursuit. The Pleasure, all Beauty gives, is even of Necessity follow’d by Desire, when Process of Time has stor’d Man with those Lights, which are the only Erudition and Accomplishment. Nature is boundless, comprehending all animate, and inanimate Things; the Libyan Marvels, with their bak’d Sands, are no less natural than Peasants whistling in the verdant Vale. I am not yet out of your hands. Licens’d Pederasty, you say, would at least defeat Nature’s manifest Design of continuing Mankind. This is the scarce specious Rant of those, who, by Reflection, know not themselves; nor by Observation the wide World. Man’s ruling Passion is the Love of Variety; you might safely trust this single Principle with peopling the Globe."

Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplify'd, A Contradiction in Terms by Thomas Cannon (1749)

[sl0wdiver]

this tom cannon is a bit of a snack