Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/471



In prisons occurs much similisexual prostitution, difficult as may appear the opportunities. Such intercourse is however relatively facile, especially if two men must be confined in one cell. A warder of an Italian prison, and a high official in a large French prison, alike admitted to the writer that homosexual intercourse between male prisoners is taken for granted, and even accepted as a necessity. Of course external decencies of prison-discipline must not be affronted. In the maritime prison of Cherbourg occurred in August, 1908, a great scandal because of homosexualism rampant among the prisoners and jailers. According to an official conclusion published in the daily papers … "Homosexualism goes on every hour of the day in the prison, not only with the knowledge but full connivance of the guardians, and in a most open manner. Men and boys are to be observed mutually practising pederasty—with scarcely any concealment. All new-comers are subjected to an examination as to their physique and tastes, and young sailors are forcibly violated." One young man named Brisset, from the "Valmy" was. obliged to submit his person to the embraces of a roomful of men, and was also épilé by singeing his sexual parts.

In centers of Convict-life in colonies—New Guiana, Siberia, Algeria and other stations, the same undercurrent is incessant. Criminal psychologists have written of this penal inconsistency. Terrible dramas of sexual love and jealousy are met in the criminal settlements of Bussia and France. In the certain of the British penal colonies, now abolished, the story was similar.

The non-military male-prostitute (still differentiating him from the soldier-prostitute) is as legion in countries of South America, Eastern Asia, Africa, and Central and Southern Europe, whether there exists or not special legislation against