The Enormities Known to Exist
Added 2022-04-05 21:35:54 +0000 UTCI think we've settled on a title, at least for the time being. Some background on the title:
This was a phrase used by the anti-transportation league in Tasmania who were lobbying England to cease sending convicts to the colony. Those 'enormities' of course being sodomy, which while the crown could care less about most things the free persons of Tasmania complained of, they really clutched their pearls at the thought of all the steamy sex taking place in the absence of ladies between convict men. (female convicts were kept separate in what were called 'female factories' where a huge amount of lady sex took place but this didn't really upset anyone that much.)
Their strategy worked. Transportation was ceased and Tasmania had a bigotry hangover with the harshest laws against homosexuality in the western world until 1997. Then the United Nations got involved, which hugely embarrassed Tasmanians, and perhaps because of this Tas now has some of the strongest LGBT protections on earth., speeding ahead of the rest of Australia in 2003 to be the first allowing same-sex couples to register.
Otherwise regarding the title, I feel like it evokes a certain trashy British romance novel aesthetic, which were some of the popular reading of the day. Except this time the novels going to have a fuck ton more explicit drawn out gay sex.
