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John Wilmot 2nd Earl of Rochester
(April 1, 1647 - July 26, 1680) U.K.

Earl of Rochester

Poet

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Born at Ditchley in Oxfordshire to a Cavalier hero and a deeply religious Puritan mother, Wilmot was a member of the court surrounding Charles II. He was educated at Wadham College, Oxford, and went on a European tour before returning to court in late 1664. When he was 18 he abducted the heiress Elisabet Malet to whom he was married some eighteen months later and with whom he had four children.

Earl of RochesterHe fought with conspicuous gallantry at sea against the Dutch, but chiefly he was a leading member of the group of "court wits" surrounding Charles II. He wrote graceful lyrics and A Satire Against Mankind that rivals Swift. He was a patron to John Dryden and is remembered for his wit and sexual frankness. He wrote also The Maimed Debauchee, which recalls his ménage à trois with his mistress and a page boy.

He wrote scurrilous lampoons, dramatic prologues and epilogues, "imitations" and translations of classical authors, and several brilliant poems such as his grimly funny Upon Nothing. Rochester is famous for having, in Johnson's words, "blazed out his youth and healt in lavish voluptuousness". In his early thirties he became wery ill, and died when he was only thirty-three year-old. He was exiled from the court by the king in a number of occasion for his libellous poetry.

He wrote,

"I storm and I roar,
and I fall in a rage,
and missing my Whore,
I bugger my Page."

He, being a bisexual, no doubt got it off with the Duke of Buckingham and other homosexuals in the nobility, as well as a host of stable-boys and others, and on occasion even disguised himself as a woman, for Rochester eschewed none of the pleasures of either sex.

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A superficial reading of Rochester's work might suggest that he was an indiscriminate bisexual. The following lines are often quoted to support this view:

Nor shall our love-fits, Chloris, be forgot,
When each the well-look'd linkboy strove t'enjoy,
And the best kiss was the deciding lot
Whether the boy fucked you, or I the boy.
(A linkboy lights the street lamps at night with his "link," or torch.)

But on a more careful reading we discover that he may have been both an antifeminist and predominantly gay:

Earl of RochesterLove a woman? You're an ass!
'Tis a most insipid passion
To choose out for your happiness
The silliest part of God's creation.

Let the porter and the groom,
Things designed for dirty slaves,
Dredge in fair Aurelia's womb
To get supplies for age and graves.
Farewell, woman! I intend
Henceforth every night to sit
With my lewd, well-natured friend,
Drinking to engender wit.
Then give me health, wealth, mirth, and wine,
And, if busy love entrenches,
There's a sweet, soft page of mine
Does the trick worth forty wenches.
These lines explicitly declare a preference 40-to-1 in favour in gay sex - way off the Kinsey scale, and hardly evidence of "bisexuality"!

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Sources: Rictor Norton, "England's First Pornographer", A History of Homoerotica , 1974, 1998; updated 19 January 2007 . - and Wikipedia. the free encyclopedia

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