Sex here seems to be followed, almost automatically, by excruciating death. But mostly the sodomites, as Malcolm grimly insists on calling them, are left to satisfy their desires in private the historian’s concern is the forbidding religious commandments that the same-sex couples flouted and the crazily brutal penalties imposed by laws that purported to uphold the divine order of the universe. Against such competition, Malcolm fields a cast that includes lustful Turkish potentates, predatory Catholic priests, corruptible scullions and smooth-cheeked choristers, together with two English kings who allegedly fooled around with virile young favourites. F orbidden Desire, Noel Malcolm’s sober and footnote-heavy history of male homosexuality between 14, has some friskier bedfellows: on Amazon it shares its title with a slew of hairy chested bromances, one or two Sapphic romps, and a sulphurous tale about a witch’s affair with a tormented demon.
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