What has a fat belly, shags about and lives in the sea?

[Richard Mason]

Originally Posted by John Gulliver

Hm, prison population and "They really are indiscriminate and shameless creatures.” That sounds typically Australian to me, Richard

Actually, (and before anyone starts, I'm talking 150 years ago), during the Transportation Era, the penitentiaries in Tasmania, such as Port Arthur, Sarah Island - Hells Gates etc had an overwhelmingly male population, living in conditions bordering on depravity, so that Van Diemans Land (as Tas was then known)l convicts had an apparently well deserved reputation as "sodomites". (So perhaps the fish learned all this stuff back then.)

The collective shame over this was so great historically, that homosexual "activity" was actually illegal here until the late '90s and decriminalisation took a huge effort by both major political parties.

Half the problem was that a sizeable proportion of the population here were confused about the term "anal intercourse will be permitted", and thought that it actually read "anal intercourse will be compulsory".

As you'd imagine, this caused a certain reluctance in certain quarters, to support a change in the law