Other Witnesses, Other Stories

This chapter talks about a series of newsletters that were sent from Rome on the arrest of some young men that performed a wedding and went to bed together after getting drunk. It refers to the description of the youths' relations wherein the euphemism coricarsi was used by the author, noting that the association of marrying followed by sex echoes closely the accounts of Michel de Montaigne and Antonio Tiepolo. It also cites the evidence from Rome that attests to the prevalence of more sinister variants of socializing among groups of men. The chapter reviews Marina Baldassari's analysis of cases in which boys were abducted for sexual purposes by older youths or adults. It highlights the cultural scenario of pederastic exploitation, abduction, and rape that reflects the reality of certain aspects of the relations between the members of the group of men and their actions.