(08-17-2010 09:07 AM)Gary Wrote: [ -> ]Don't know about MrsH, but I would enjoy learning about it.
Okey dokey.
Oscar Wilde was a notorious Sodomite, at a time when sodomy was not considered a healthy life-style. He was flamboyant and "out" about it; he was like the Elton John of his time. Like most Sodomites, he had a fondness for younger men. Not pedophile stuff: just young, virile men.
He seduced a teenager named Alfred "Boisie" Douglas. This was a mistake. "Boisie's" father was Lord John Sholto Douglas, the 9th Marquess of Queensberry (1844 - 1900). The Marquess was not pleased, and launched a public exposure of Wilde, whom he accurately described as a "Sodomite." (There was a time when people used correct terminology.) Wilde, outraged, sued the Marquess for libel. This was another mistake: because, as any lawyer knows, a statement cannot be considered libelous if it is true.
Because of his many "affairs," Wilde was sentenced to two years hard labor in prison. Generations of schoolchildren have read his "Ballad of Reading Gaol" without knowing that he was in gaol (jail) for Sodomy.
Subsequently, "Boisie" went straight, and publicly condemned homosexuality and Oscar Wilde in particular. He married, and stayed married.
His father, the Marquess of Queensberry, a great sportsman, commissioned John Graham Chambers to draw up a new set of rules for boxing, to replace the old, brutal, bareknuckle "London Rules." The rules became popular and are in effect today: they are known, obviously, as the Queensberry Rules.
It is because of the Marquess of Queensberry that boxers now use gloves, have three-minute rounds, are not allowed to foul, and various other things. Every professional boxing match you see on television is conducted according to the Queenberry Rules.
