After watching the movie "Wilde" I was shocked to find out that at one time in some places it was actually ILLEGAL to be gay, and you could get 2 years in jail for it?? I'm not talking about what people think of homosexuality morally or in their own opinion, I mean, against the law? Jail? Is that true a person could be put away just for being gay? Wilde got 2 years in the movie and it ruined his health so he died young Was that true? I also heard it mentioned in the life of Rimbeau. When Prince Felix Yussoupov wrote his autobiography in France in the 1950's, the well know bisexual alluded to 'my secret life' and 'my double life' and said he didn't know what some people had against "a love affair of a special kind." But he never openly admitted to being gay or bi. I heard that in France in those days you could be sentenced to hard labor busting rock in the Great Pyrannes mountains for admitting gay relations. By that time he was in his 60's and didn't feel like risking it. So is/was it really against the law to even be gay?