But sodomy, that alleged crime which will draw the fire of heaven upon cities addicted to it, is sodomy
not a monstrous deviation whose punishment could not be severe enough? Ah, sorrowful it is to
have to reproach our ancestors for the judiciary murders in which, upon this head, they dared indulge
themselves. We wonder that savagery could ever reach the point where you condemn to death an
unhappy person all of whose crime amounts to not sharing your tastes. One shudders to think that
scarce forty years ago the legislators' absurd thinking had not evolved beyond this point. Console
yourselves, citizens; such absurdities are to cease: the intelligence of your lawmakers will answer for
it. Thoroughly enlightened upon this weakness occurring in a few men, people deeply sense today
that such error cannot be criminal, and that Nature, who places such slight importance upon the
essence that flows in our loins, can scarcely be vexed by our choice when we are pleased to vent it
into this or that avenue.
What single crime can exist here? For no one will wish to maintain that all the parts of the body do
not resemble each other, that there are some which are pure, and others defiled; but, as it is
unthinkable such nonsense be advanced seriously, the only possible crime would consist in the
waste of semen. Well, is it likely that this semen is so precious to Nature that its loss is necessarily
criminal? Were that so, would she every day institute those losses? and is it not to authorize them to
permit them in dreams, to permit them in the act of taking one's pleasure with a pregnant woman? Is
it possible to imagine Nature having allowed us the possibility of committing a crime that would
outrage her? Is it possible that she consent to the destruction by man of her own pleasures, and to
his thereby becoming stronger than she? It is unheard of—into what an abyss of folly one is hurled
when, in reasoning, one abandons the aid of reason's torch! Let us abide in our unshakable
assurance that it is as easy to enjoy a woman in one manner as in another, that it makes absolutely
no difference whether one enjoys a girl or a boy, and as soon as it is clearly understood that no
inclinations or tastes can exist in us save the ones we have from Nature, that she is too wise and too
consistent to have given us any which could ever offend her.
The penchant for sodomy is the result of physical formation, to which we contribute nothing and
which we cannot alter. At the most tender age, some children reveal that penchant, and it is never
corrected in them. Sometimes it is the fruit of satiety; but even in this case, is it less Nature's doing?
Regardless of how it is viewed, it is her work, and, in every instance, what she inspires must be
respected by men. If, were one to take an exact inventory, it should come out that this taste is
infinitely more affecting than the other, that the pleasures resulting from it are far more lively, and that
for this reason its exponents are a thousand times more numerous than its enemies, would it not
then be possible to conclude that, far from affronting Nature, this vice serves her intentions, and that
she is less delighted by our procreation than we so foolishly believe? Why, as we travel about the
world, how many peoples do we not see holding women in contempt! Many are the men who strictly
avoid employing them for anything but the having of the child necessary to replace them. The
communal aspect of life in republics always renders this vice more frequent in that form of society; but
it is not dangerous. Would the Greek legislators have introduced it into their republics had they
thought it so? Quite the contrary; they deemed it necessary to a warlike race. Plutarch speaks with
enthusiasm of the battalion of lovers: for many a year they alone defended Greece's freedom. The
vice reigned amongst comrades-in-arms, and cemented their unity. The greatest of men lean toward
sodomy. At the time it was discovered, the whole of America was found inhabited by people of this
taste. In Louisiana, amongst the Illinois, Indians in feminine garb prostituted themselves as
courtesans. The blacks of Benguéla publicly keep men; nearly all the seraglios of Algiers are today
exclusively filled with young boys. Not content to tolerate love for young boys, the Thebans made it
mandatory; the philosopher of Chaeronea prescribed sodomy as the surest way to a youth's
affection.
We know to what extent it prevailed in Rome, where they had public places in which young boys,
costumed as girls, and girls as boys, prostituted themselves. In their letters, Martial, Catullus, Tibullus,
Horace, and Virgil wrote to men as though to their mistresses; and we read in Plutarch19 that women
must in no way figure in men's love. The Amasians of Crete used to abduct boys, and their initiation
was distinguished by the most singular ceremonies. When they were taken with love for one, they
notified the parents upon what day the ravisher wished to carry him off; the youth put up some
resistance if his lover failed to please him; in the contrary case, they went off together, and the
seducer restored him to his family as soon as he had made use of him; for in this passion as in that
for women, one always has too much when one has had enough. Strabo informs us that on this very
island, seraglios were peopled with boys only; they were prostituted openly.
Is one more authority required to prove how useful this vice is in a republic? Let us lend an ear to
Jerome the Peripatetic: "The love of youths," says he, "spread throughout all of Greece, for it instilled
in us strength and courage, and thus stood us in good stead when we drove the tyrants out;conspiracies were formed amongst lovers, and they were readier to endure torture than denounce
their accomplices; such patriots sacrificed everything to the State's prosperity; it was beheld as a
certain thing, that these attachments steadied the republic, women were declaimed against, and to
entertain connections with such creatures was a frailty reserved to despots." Pederasty has always
been the vice of warrior races. From Caesar we learn that the Gauls were to an extraordinary degree
given to it. The wars fought to sustain the republic brought about the separation of the two sexes,
and hence the propagation of the vice, and when its consequences, so useful to the State, were
recognized, religion speedily blessed it. That the Romans sanctified the amours of Jupiter and
Ganymede is well known. Sextus Empiricus assures us that this caprice was compulsory amongst the
Persians. At last, the women, jealous and contemned, offered to render their husbands the same
service they received from young boys; some few men made the experiment, and returned to their
former habits, finding the illusion impossible. The Turks, greatly inclined toward this depravity
Mohammed consecrated in the Koran, were nevertheless convinced that a very young virgin could
well enough be substituted for a youth, and rarely did they grow to womanhood without having
passed through the experience. Sextus Quintus and Sanchez allowed this debauch; the latter even
undertook to show it was of use to procreation, and that a child created after this preliminary exercise
was infinitely better constituted thanks to it. Finally, women found restitution by turning to each other.
This latter fantasy doubtless has no more disadvantages than the other, since nothing comes of the
refusal to reproduce, and since the means of those who have a bent for reproduction are powerful
enough for reproduction's adversaries never to be able to harm population. Amongst the Greeks, this
female perversion was also supported by policy: the result of it was that, finding each other sufficient,
women sought less communication with men and their detrimental influence in the republic's affairs
was thus held to a minimum. Lucian informs us of what progress this license promoted, and it is not
without interest we see it exemplified in Sappho.
In fine, these are perfectly inoffensive manias; were women to carry them even further, were they to
go to the point of caressing monsters and animals, as the example of every race teaches us, no ill
could possibly result therefrom, because corruption of manners often of prime utility to a government,
cannot in any sense harm it, and we must demand enough wisdom and enough prudence of our
legislators to be entirely sure that no law will emanate from them that would repress perversions
which, being determined by constitution and being inseparable from physical structure, cannot render
the person in whom they are present any more guilty than the person Nature created deformed.
