Rum Sodomy and the Lash: Piracy Sexuality and Masculine Identity

About this book

An examination into the homoerotic and other transgressive aspects of the pirates world Despite or perhaps because of our lack of actual knowledge about pirates an immense architecture of cultural mythology has arisen around them. Three hundred years of novels plays painting and movies have etched into the popular imagination contradictory images of the pirate as both arch-criminal and anti-hero par excellence. How did the pirate-a real threat to mercantilism and trade in early-modern Britain-become the hypermasculine anti-hero familiar to us through a variety of pop culture outlets? How did the pirates world marked as it was by sexual and economic transgression come to capture our collective imagination? In Rum Sodomy and the Lash Hans Turley delves deep into the archives to examine the homoerotic and other culturally transgressive aspects of the pirates world and our prurient fascination with it. Turley fastens his eye on historical documents trial records and the confessions of pirates as well as literary works such as Robinson Crusoe to track the birth and development of the pirate image and to show its implications for changing notions of self masculinity and sexuality in the modern era. Turleys wide-ranging analysis provides a new kind of history of both piracy and desire articulating the meaning of the pirates contradictory image to literary cultural and historical studies.