Mundane truth about so-called Hellfire Clubs

The Hellfire Clubs Sex, Satanism & Secret Societies. By Evelyn Lord, Yale University Press, €27

The great advantage that cross-dressers have over the rest of us is that they don’t need an excuse to dress up. They are either in the closet or in the club and if they are in the club, then the club needs no other manifesto to justify its existence.

Nowadays, there are fewer clubs than in the 18th ...