Forbidden Desire in Early Modern Europe: Male-Male Sexual Relations, 1400-1750

I'm reading this book right now about how homosex was viewed in Medieval and Renaissance Europe. Italy was a hotbed of pederasty, just as in Ancient Roman times, where a man chases after teen boys as much as women. Although a crime, beardless youths seemed to be viewed as a natural temptation, whereas an adult male bottom was treated as a bizarre monstrosity. The percentage of sodomy cases involving 2 adult males was only one percent out of hundreds of cases. In contrast, in Northern Europe sodomy trials were extremely rare, only a handful over centuries, with nearly half of them involving the adult "inveterate" sodomite. This excerpt of a doctor describing such men reminds me of DLers: "such people have soft flesh, fine throats, effeminate and often slender legs, large soft ankles, pale faces, and quarrelsome dispositions"