Hello and welcome to bad gay, it's a podcast all about bad and complicated gay men from history.

My name's Hugh Lemmy. I'm an author and writer. And I'm Ben Miller, a writer and researcher

and member of the board of the Gay Museum in Berlin. Last week we talked about Pietro Aratino,

a blackmailer, poet, and sodomite. Who are we talking about this week, Ben?

Well, we'll find out in a minute, but I want to start with a poem.

So in 2011, a professor of French literature at the Humboldt University here in Berlin.

The professor's name is Vanessa de Saint-Aclan uncovered a poem among some letters.

Written in 1740, and addressed to the Venetian philosopher and poet Francesco Algarotti,

the poem was entitled La Juisance, or The Pleasure, or the Orgasm.

And here's the poem, which is titled, From Kurnigsberg to Monsieur Algarotti, Swan of Padua, the Orgasm.

This night, vigorous desire in full measure, Algarotti, Swan of Padua, the orgasm. This night, vigorous desire in full measure.

Algarati wallowed in a sea of pleasure.

A body not even apraxatiles' fashions redoubled his senses and imbued his passions.

Everything that speaks to eyes and touches hearts was found in the fond object that inflamed

his parts.

Transported by love and trembling with excitement, in Clarice's arms he yields himself to contentment.

The love that unites them heated their embraces, and tied body in arms as tightly as laces.

Divine sensual pleasure to the world a king, mother of their delights and

unstonchable spring, speak through my verses, lend me your voice and tenses, tell of their

fire acts, the ecstasy of their senses.

Our fortunate lovers transported high above, know only themselves in the fury of love, kissing enjoying, feeling,

sighing, and dying, reviving kissing, then back to pleasure flying, and in Canidos's

...