Oh dear.

[lotesse]

I knew this fandom was going to eat me alive. I think I'm going to have to register at the Kinsey Institute library - not that I shouldn't have already done that - expressly to do research on homosexual prostitution in late-Victorian London. For Holmes rentboy slashfic.

This is why I shouldn't be allowing in historical fandoms - I end up doing too much extraneous research. (I'm still sort of pondering using work on queer Holmes for one of my term papers this semester, but I'm not sure. In general, while I narratively enjoy all the tropes and issues surrounding The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name, as a scholar I try not to get sidetracked by its shinyness, because I'm ultimately unsure as to how much that work aids the feminist, woman-centric cause I want to take up. But we'll see.)

Comments

[executrix]

I'm pretty sure that Victorian male prostitutes were predominantly adolescents, so Holmes was probably too old for the job. (One exception was Guardsmen, who were probably in their 20s.)

There has been a *lot* of research published on m/m sex in Victorian England, so you can easily get up to speed and won't have to do the preliminary work yourself.

[lotesse]

Hey, he's Sherlock Holmes, he can do whatever he wants. History must bend to the demands of Porn. :P