Global History of Sexual Science, 1880-1960 by Fuechtner Veronika

Author:Fuechtner, Veronika
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780520293373
Publisher: University of California Press

III. READING ANAL “TRUTHS”

Argüelles Medina and Quiroz Cuarón thus identified Margarito as a dangerous homosexual. Nevertheless, one form of evidence carried more weight in their catalogue: the “truths” read from Margarito’s anus.52 Above all else, Mexican medical jurists, social workers, and sexologists relied on anal truths to determine deviance, well into the twentieth century. These authorities viewed “signs of passive pederasty” such as the infundibular anus as trumping counterindications found in other forms of physical, social, or testimonial evidence; that is, an earlier view of anatomical importance formed the foundation of analysis, rather than being replaced by later perspectives. Even psychiatrist Millán affirmed that these signs remained critical “for the medico-legal diagnostic of the passive homosexual.”53

The importance of anal truths emerged well before modern sexology, and their persistence in cases like Margarito’s offers evidence of the continuity of “traditional” views on sexuality even as newer forms of knowledge emerged. As early as Renaissance Europe, secular and religious officials adjudicating sodomy trials contracted doctors to conduct anal examinations looking for truths on both victims and the accused; the same was true in the Spanish Empire during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.54 The presence or absence of somatic stigmata could make or break a case, and their importance as evidence grew thereafter. Italian Paolo Zacchia’s multivolume Quaestiones medico-legales (1621–52) offered protocols in which fissures, hemorrhoids, and anal loosening were signs of penetration and asserted that the penis should be examined to see if it was capable of committing the acts.55 Two centuries later, Spaniard Mateo Orfila argued in his Tratado de medicina legal (1847) that sodomy or pederasty would leave a “rectum distended in the form of a funnel”—an idea he referenced from French physician Michel Cullerier.56 Other signs included a sphincter “dilated and without resistance,” and “thickened, slack, and inflamed” flesh. Irritation and swelling suggested that the crime had just occurred.57

Like Orfila, most medical jurists scrutinized receptive partners. German forensic scientist J.L. Casper wrote in his Handbook for the Practice of Forensic Medicine (1852) that habitual passive sodomy left two important marks: a “horn-like depression . . . towards the anus . . . and a smooth condition of the skin around the anus, apparently arising from the frequent stretching and friction of the skin.”58 In contrast, French forensic physician Ambroise Tardieu, in Les attentats aux mœurs (1857), argued that both passive and active pederasts could be identified through signs. Actives had “pointy penises” similar to those of dogs, while passives had excessively developed buttocks.59 Mexicans accessed these texts directly, through scholars like Lombroso, and via local texts like Roa Bárcena’s manual and Hidalgo y Carpio’s compendium, which cited Orfila, Casper, and Tardieu. Mexicans examined both actives and passives, often charging each with crimes; nevertheless, greater interest, if not always punishment, was levied at receptive partners.

As Mexican sexology matured, anatomical paradigms still carried significant weight in medical jurisprudence. In an 1889 case, authorities examined two men caught having sex near the Oaxaca cathedral; both exhibited signs of recent sex.60 In January

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