Turkey, however, it is stated by Adler Bey that homosexual prostitution
has almost disappeared.[24]

There is abundant evidence to show that homosexual practices exist and
have long existed in most parts of the world outside Europe, when
subserving no obvious social or moral end. How far they are associated
with congenital inversion is usually very doubtful. In China, for
instance, it seems that there are special houses devoted to male
prostitution, though less numerous than the houses devoted to females, for
homosexuality cannot be considered common in China (its prevalence among
Chinese abroad being due to the absence of women) and it is chiefly found
in the north.[25] When a rich man gives a feast he sends for women to
cheer the repast by music and song, and for boys to serve at table and to
entertain the guests by their lively conversation. The boys have been
carefully brought up for this occupation, receiving an excellent
education, and their mental qualities are even more highly valued than
their physical attractiveness. The women are less carefully brought up and
less esteemed. After the meal the lads usually return home with a
considerable fee. What further occurs the Chinese say little about. It
seems that real and deep affection is often born of these relations, at
first platonic, but in the end becoming physical, not a matter for great
concern in the eyes of the Chinese. In the Chinese novels, often of a very
literary character, devoted to masculine love, it seems that all the
preliminaries and transports of normal love are to be found, while
physical union may terminate the scene. In China, however, the law may be
brought into action for attempts against nature even with mutual consent;
the penalty is one hundred strokes with the bamboo and a month's
imprisonment; if there is violence, the penalty is decapitation; I am not
able to say how far the law is a dead letter. According to Matignon, so
far as homosexuality exists in China, it is carried on with much more