Butterflies Will Burn: Prosecuting Sodomites in Early Modern Spain and MexicoAs Spain consolidated its Empire in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, discourses about the perfect Spanish man or "Vir" went hand in hand with discourses about another kind of man, one who engaged in the "abominable crime and sin against nature" sodomy. In both Spain and Mexico, sodomy came to rank second only to heresy as a cause for prosecution, and hundreds of sodomites were tortured, garroted, or burned alive for violating Spanish ideals of