Yes David but while intra-class homosexual encounters were  
clandestinely accepted, Eugenides being a Smyrna merchant would not  
qualify for that. A liaison with him would have been seen differently.

Diana

Sent from my iPod

On May 10, 2010, at 3:28 AM, David Boyd <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>
> If I may suggest, Mr Eugenides might be seen as part of just one  
> intertwined  theme in TWL of arid/wasted/casual/forced sexual  
> relations at a personal level, along with, at a geopolitical one,  
> the post-WW1 disintegration of the former (eastern) European  
> Empires, Ssuch as Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman.
>
> Smyrna for example was prominent in the news around that time,  
> regarding post-WW1 ceding of that area from Turkey to Greece.
> ps Carroll
>
> Whatever the draconian penalties for it, 'sodomy' was a very well- 
> established (almost institutionalised) part of English culture,  
> especially in closed, exclusively-male communities such as the Royal  
> Navy; the Church and especially the 'public' schools (Eton etc.),  
> where most of the nation's future leaders and thinkers and writers  
> grew up.