Queer Spirit Full Moon Imbolc Circle

Radical Faeries and Queer Spirits gather in south London just before the Virgo full moon, the last full moon of winter!

This month we celebrate London's gay history - and specifically the spirit of the Mollies: 300 years ago London's queer subculture was already developing (and maybe had been for much longer). In February 1726 London's molly houses were raided, mollies arrested, tried and 3 men were sent to the gallows.

Mother Clap's molly house in Holborn was one of several establishments raided after an undercover surveillance operation by members of the Society for the Reformation of Manners, which had been exposing the existence of mollies since the start of the century - describing a scene that was already well formed: groups of men met regularly at molly ‘clubs’ where they used ‘maiden’ nicknames for one another, danced together, camped it up, sometimes dressed in drag on special ‘festival nights’, and had a specialized molly slang.

"Most of the sodomites convicted from 1698 through 1709 were entrapped due to the zeal of one man, Rev William Bray, the leading organizer of the Society for the Reformation of Manners. Most of the raids on molly houses through the 1720s were lead by six members of the Society who infiltrated the molly houses. The founding leaders of the Societies, such as Rev Bray, were dead by 1730, and due to a financial scandal the Societies formally disbanded in 1738. Relatively little is known about the queer subculture after that date: not because queers went underground, but because specific groups of moral reformers no longer worked actively to reveal them." Rictor Norton, A Critique of Social Constructionism and Postmodern Queer Theory, "Queer Subcultures," 24 October 2002, updated 19 June 2008 <http://www.rictornorton.co.uk/social27.htm>

You are invited to dress to express your Faerie or indeed your MOLLY spirit!
We gather from 7 to set up the space and cast circle around 8pm, then drum, dance and socialise through the evening.

There are lots of drums and percussion to use. you can also bring your own.
also welcome to bring snacks to share and your own liquid refreshments
donation requested to cover venue hire. £5/£10 as you can afford, cash on door or PayPal to https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/shokti

NOTAFLOF - No One Turned Away For Lack Of Funds.
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