molly house

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English

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Alternative forms

Etymology

From the Victorian slang molly (a male homosexual).

Noun

molly house (plural molly houses)

  1. (now historical, slang) A tavern or other establishment in 18th and 19th century England where homosexuals could meet for sexual encounters.
    • 1992, Rictor Norton, Mother Clap's molly house: the gay subculture in England, page 90:
      Just west of Charing Cross (where a molly named Tolson kept a brandy shop in the late 1720s, and where Whale and Horner were pilloried for keeping a molly house), we come to St James's Square and Pall Mall, ...
    • 2007, Katherine Crawford, European Sexualities, 1400-1800, page 204:
      In a vivid illustration of the dynamics created by sexual deviance, molly houses were a defense against the pressures of prejudice, but their visibility inspired new hostility.
    • 2007, Thomas A. Foster, Long Before Stonewall, page 99:
      One visitor to a molly house in the Old Bailey observed “men calling one another 'my dear' and hugging, kissing, and tickling each other as if they were a mixture of wanton males and females, and assuming effeminate voices and airs.
    • 2014, Mark Ravenhill, Mother Clap's Molly House, page 71:
      Just — we must fuck who we will. Else what's the point of a molly house?