ABSTRACT
Historians of sexuality have rightly noted that early modern Spanish society displayed an almost schizophrenic interplay between repression and sexual expression. On the one hand, a whole ideological and legal apparatus sought to control, often in violent ways, sexual practices that did not fit expected Christian ideals. On the other hand, Spaniards of both genders often displayed an insouciant disregard for such norms and thus stretched the boundaries of the sexually permissible. This article explores this interpretive dichotomy between repression and desire from the point of view of male homosexual practices in Golden Age Spain. A detailed analysis of inquisitorial sodomy trials reveals the complex interplay between desire as a physiological force and its emotional and cognitive management in a context of persecution. As such, male homoeroticism, including its physical expression and how men talked about it, emerges as a precarious balancing act between desire and fear.
