Now that the system has been stirred up, it is interesting to discuss the “kioutsekia” (κιουτσέκια) further and their possible connection with the “tsoutsekia” (τσουτσέκια).
Sкуvaras (“From the Meadow of Tradition: Pelion Matters II”, ASTIR 1983) cites a nineteenth-century scholar:
“Among the Turkish inhabitants of Thessaly, improper practices became prevalent, particularly in coffeehouses during the nights of Ramadan and in the baths (artificial hot baths) of the towns and cities. Vicious habits also became prevalent, practised in the divans (men’s quarters), which established a kind of pederasty with the knowledge of their relatives, their harems (wives) and their daughters, through the invitation of handsome servants (tsimpouk oglan) to their homes. Pederasty was practised chiefly in the hammams, particularly those of the towns and large cities and especially Larissa, where it was openly practised by the city’s dignitaries, as well as by the local magnates and the other Muslim inhabitants of the city.
It was also practised, as we have said above, in the coffeehouses, where handsome boys, called tsoutsekia, dressed in women’s clothing, danced convulsively and most indecently before large numbers of Muslim patrons and often Greeks as well—depraved, dissolute men called alanhides [alanhides?], that is, profligates and scoundrels, especially derbendérides and asikis. The dancing boys, coming down to collect money (baksheesh), made obscene gestures and received equally obscene gestures themselves, offending public morals. I also saw hanendes, exceptionally fine-voiced Ottoman musicians, singing pederastic asiki songs, provoking reciprocal exchanges between pederasts in the form of amorous question-and-answer, on account of which murders were even committed. The pederastic obscenities committed in the hammams also established festivals in the baths, at which many people indulged together in orgies while drunk, called ‘Tsoutsek tsimpous’.”
Also, in “The Latest Trophies of Greece against Asia”, 1835, we read:
“Intoxication had already spread all around, lulling and stupefying all the mental faculties of the barbarians, and the children of lust (the kioutsekia) were already gathering with their lips the bitter silver coin, the fitting payment for their lascivious and luxurious dances, from the tongues of the drunken spectators […]”
Finally, in Kasomoulis we read: “Mouchtar Pasha, staying in Tziaritziani with most of the army and indulging himself with the kioutzekia”
where a footnote reads:
kioutzekia: enslaved Christian boys, trained to dance while striking the zilia