Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition: English Sea Rovers in the Seventeenth-Century Caribbean, Second Edition

by B.R. Burg

Book Overview

Explores the sexual world of the one of the most fabled and romanticized characters in history--the pirate

From Blackbeard to Captain Hook, pirates have been the subject of countless movies, books, children's tales, and even a world-famous amusement park ride. In Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition, B.R. Burg looks beyond the myth to analyze the social and sexual world of sea rovers. Through his innovative analysis of archival...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0814712355
• ISBN13: 9780814712351
• Release Date: March 1995
• Publisher: New York University Press
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.2" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Arrgh mateys

Ahoy me fine salty sailors. If ye be lookin for gripping adventure on the high seas, this be the book for ye. It hoisted me mizzen mast and shivered me timbers, Yar! If you've ever wondered exactly what to do with a drunken sailor, this is the book for you. The author, Barry Richard Burg is a great expert on seamen and it really shows through. I was dissapointed to find that the nautical phrase "a three days blow" didn't mean what I thought it did, but the author's loving descriptions of how these pirates would oil each other up with whale blubber and lash each other with the cat o' nine tails more than made up for it. I'm tempted to go summon my cockswain, rent "The Pirate Movie", then kick back and mourn the passing of the days when burly pirates would start their day by opening the seacock and pumping furiously. Customers who bought titles by Barry Richard Burg also bought titles by J. K. Rowling -- coincidence? I think not.

Out of Body Experience

Reading this book really was an experience in deja-vu. I'm a leading authority on reincarnation and a honorary pirate at Sea-fair. In on of my previous lives I was a pirate on board the Devon.. the meanest roughest ship of queer sea pirates that ever sailed the Caribbean.We boarded and looted many a fine merchant ship in my day making off with countless jewels and silver and big hairy men that we passed around between us like a cheap flask of wine. The 3rd chapter of the book really hits home when the author describes the games we use to play like oiling each others nude bodies down with whale blubber and racing up the mast while our fellow pirates attempted to hang sharks teeth from are testicles. How I long for those days when we lay 3 to a rack waiting for the next ship of treasure and men to conquer. What a great book. I recommend this to all my seafaring men.

BRAVO!!

This book is very indepth in explain how pirates would survive on long journies abroad by sleeping nude three to a bunk like spoons. With the weather conditions, that was their only means of survival. It makes one understand that sodomy was part of their lives, as they usually had several male lovers aboard the vessel. The chapter on hot racking was especially revealing, considering 90% of all pirates engaged in that. This is a very good book about pirates and their lifestyles and I would recommend it to anyone.

Well, it did happen, so there!!

One needs to take their hat off to Mr. Burg for an excellent book of the life and times of English family life in the 17th and 18th Centuries. He certainly searched through qiute a lot of archival material to find many of the accounts contained within this unique book. Cats who are abandoned are known as feral cats and are not, as rule very sociable. So who would have believed that children (both boys and girls) would be asked to leave their homes at a very young age and fend for themselves? Who would have believed that society would have turned a blind eye to sodomy, or in many cases, pederasty? It is worth noting that since these "feral" boys had probably never seen or had known about heterosexual sex between two consenting adults, sex to these boys was probably considered a rite of initiation, or at other times, a recreational pastime at best. There were two entries within Burg's book which I found to be of special note. When a pirate ship seized a merchant ship in the Indian Ocean, the ship was borded, the crew was murdered and the only woman on the ship was tossed into the ocean. She was probably seen as a piece of worthless baggage in the pirate's eyes. In another instance, a sixteen year old from England (John Durrant) was engaged in sexual activity with a Hindu man (Abdul Rhyme). The incident happened in plain view of the other pirates and was considered normal behavior. But since John Durrant should have realized that a Christian should not have intimate relationships with heathens, both he and his "lover" were punished for his indiscretion upon the ship's arrival in England. They were sentenced to 40 lashes, with an administration of water and salt applied to their wounds. They were fed bread and water for an unknown period of time, and the punishment was repeated with 10 lashes. For someone looking for a first or second person account of sex between boys, or worse yet, between a boy and a man, this book is not for you. "Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition" is a carefully researched, historical sociology book-specifically about the lives of some married couples who saw their children as young adults, and not as the unique and cherished people which they truly are.

Well, it did happen, so there!

One needs to take their hat off to Mr. Burg for an excellent book of the life and times of family life of England in the 17th and 18th Centuries. He must have searched through quite a lot of material to find many of the accounts contained in this remarkable sociology book. Cats who are abandoned are known as feral cats and are not, as a rule, very sociable. So who would have believed that children (both boys and girls) would be asked to leave their homes at a very young age and fend for themselves? Who would have believed that society would have condoned sodomy (more like pederasty) between boys and men? It is worth noting that since these "feral" boys had probably never seen or had known about heterosexual sex between two consenting adults, sex to to these boys was considered a rite of initiation, or at other times, a recreational pastime, at best. There were two entries within Burg's book which are of special note. When a pirate ship seized a merchant ship in the Indian Ocean, the ship was borded, the men seized their hapless crew and threw the only woman on the merchant ship into the Indian Ocean. She was probably seen as worthless baggage, in the pirate's eyes. In another instance, a sixteen year old boy from England (John Durrant) was having sex with a Hindu man (Abdul Rhyme) who was in his 30's. This incident happened in international waters. Ordinarily, this was not considered a crime, or offensive to the other pirates around them. But since the boy was not having an affair with a Christian, he and his "lover" were given 40 lashes, and then salt was rubbed into their wounds upon their return to England. Afterwards, they were fed bread and water, and the punishment was repeated some time later, this time with 10 lashes. For someone looking for a first or second person account of sex between boys, or worse yet, between a man and a boy, this book is not for you. "Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition" is a sociology book-specifically about the lives of some married couples who saw their children as young adults, and not as the unique and cherished people which they truly are.