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Podcast: Today In History with The Retrospectors
Episode: Inside The Molly House
Description: Margaret "Mother" Clap stood before a London court on 23rd July, 1726, accused of running a “Molly house” - a social club for gay men that was part-brothel, part-safe haven.
She argued, perhaps naively, that as a woman she couldn’t possibly be involved in such "unnatural" practices, but the jury was unconvinced: she was fined, sentenced to two years in prison, and subjected to public humiliation on the pillory, where the crowd’s abuse was so severe she reportedly fainted multiple times.
In the shadowy corners of early 18th-century London, queer life pulsed with secret vitality...