I'm currently reading an autobiography by C.S. Lewis ('Suprised by Joy') and was a little taken aback by the matter-of-fact way he describes the role of the 'tart' at his school, Malvern College:
"A Tart is a pretty and effeminate-looking small boy who acts as a catamite to one or more of his seniors, usually Bloods [popular seniors] ... The Tarts had an important function to play in making school (what it was advertised to be) a preparation for public life. They were not like slaves, for their favors were (nearly always) solicited, not compelled. Nor were they exactly like prostitutes, for the liaison often had some permanence and, far from being merely sensual, was highly sentimentalized. Nor were they paid (in hard cash, I mean) for their services; though of course they had all the flattery, unofficial influence, favor, and privileges which the mistresses of the great have always enjoyed in adult society .. I ought to know, for one of my friends shared a study with a minor Tart; and except that he was sometimes turned out of the study when one of the Tart's lovers came in (and that, after all, was only natural) he had nothing to complain of."
Was this a common phenomenon at this time (about 1910?) Was it well known outside of public schools, or was it a well-known secret? When did it stop, or become socially less accepted?
I read a book on homosexuality in regency era England, and it appears to have been very common in the British boarding school tradition. Symonds said that the first thing another boy said to him when he got to school was "come frig me," and lord Byron almost certainly consummated in one way or another his many famous school boy relationships. As late as the 1950's, Christopher Hitchens talks about some same sex experimentation while he was at school.
Sources- Lord Byron and Greek love, and Hitch-22