XIII - City of Sin

This is the oldest business in the world, and we're not going anywhere.

Catharine Arnold, author of Necropolis and Bedlam, continues to delve into the murky underbelly of London with her new book - City of Sin - which examines the history and culture of prostitution and vice in our capital city from Roman times to modern day, going from the lowliest, near death whores of gropecunt lane (yes this was a real street name) and St James Park, all the way up to the royal courtesans and mistresses of the rich and famous. Along the way it regales stories of the early transvestites, the developing London gay scene, the development of sadomasochism, the pimps and brothels of old, as well as the varied and colourful individuals that make this particular history so interesting, and dare I say it, entertaining. While the style of the book is to a certain extent scholarly, with a modicum of references and further reading, the main 'thrust' (hur hur) of the book is aimed 'stiffly' at amusement. There's plenty to learn from the book - such as the catholic church's pivotal role in prostitution in the middle ages - but largely Arnold writes to entertain. Take this excerpt about Samuel Pepys:

Like Rochester, the diarist Samuel Pepys enjoyed London's low life to the full. But Pepys lacked the flamboyant Earl's self-destructive streak. He also lacked Rochester's patrician generosity and sexual charisma, arguing the toss with street whores and shamefully chronicling his many sexual failures. Pepys exemplified the middle-class approach to sex in Charles II's London. When not molesting the servants, such as Mary Mercer, who allows him to touch her breasts, 'they being the finest that I ever saw in my life; that is the truth of it', or visiting his mistress, Betty Lane, with a bottle of wine and a lobster for dinner, Pepys was patronizing the dockyard brothels of the Ratcliffe Highway and singing along to bawdy ballads with lyrics such as 'Shitten-come-Shite the Way to Love is!' An earthy attitude towards bodily functions is exemplified by a diary entry in which Pepys records that he was 'struck with a looseness of the bowels', dashed into a taven, paid a groat for a pot of ale and defacated in the fireplace.

City of Sin reads like a Horrible History for grown ups. There's far too many c and f bombs for it to be kid friendly, not to mention graphic sexual encounters, but Arnold's regalements of London life are for the best part spirited and strangely heart warming. She doesn't in any way shy from the horrors of a whore's life, from paedophilia, sexually transmitted disease, poverty, and death, but at the same time there is a strange celebratory undercurrent throughout, which in its frankness is quite refreshing. The world it seems has always been chocka full of strange sexual tastes, and our freedom to express them more freely in modern times is to be celebrated.

To finish, a poem, by the aforementioned earl of Rochester.

I rise at eleven, I dine at two
I get drunk before seven, and the next thing I do
I send for my Whore, when, for Fear of the Clap
I come in her Hand and I spew in her Lap.
Then we Quarrel and scold till I fall fast asleep;
When the Bitch growing bold, to my Pocket doth creep;
She slyly then leaves me - and to Revenge my Affront
At once she bereaves me of money and cunt.
I storm and I roar and I fall in a Rage,
And, missing my Whore, I bugger my Page.