In my review of Pl Buhle and Harvey Pekar’s “The Beats”, I referred to Robert Dunn’s say “The Homosexual Society” that appeared Dwight Macdonald’s journal Polics 1944. This semal gay liberatn document certaly serv to be available on the Inter and so I have snned om Dunn’s “A Selected Prose”…
Contents:
- WATCH: MICHAEL CLARKE DUNN'S GAY CONNECTNS
- A VOICE FOR THE PARTY: ERIC DUNN ON BEG THE FIRST OPENLY GAY CONSERVATIVE MP
- ON THIS GAY DAY: POET ROBERT DUNN WAS BORN CALIFORNIA
WATCH: MICHAEL CLARKE DUNN'S GAY CONNECTNS
This paper llects the mentary surroundg Robert Dunn’s 1944 say “The Homosexual Society” to velop an acunt of Dunn’s relatnship to New Narrative, a group of younger, mostly-gay poets. The first half of the say foc directly on Dunn’s posn of the say, his emendatns of 1959, his experienc wh the edor John Crowe Ransom, and Dunn’s portns of terviews wh gay poets throughout the 1970s that brought out new tails about “The Homosexual Society” say. The send half of the say nsirs how New Narrative wrers related to Dunn and his say, cludg a shared tert gossip. Drawg on the totaly of this archive, the say suggts two new them that n be drawn om “The Homosexual Society” for ntemporary rears: the ()mensurabily of race and sexualy and the rejectn of homo-fascism. * duncan homosexual in society *
A mornist through and through, Dunn mak a public announcement of his homosexualy, and at the same time out agast mp, the cult of sexualy and s ntempt for ‘jam, ’ along wh the Beat ntempt for the square, the Jewish ntempt for the goy – favor of a mon humany. This will clu the open discsn of homosexualy lerature, and Dunn nam Herman Melville and Marcel Prot as exampl of thors who wrote about (their own) homosexualy but ultimately transcend homosexualy as a theme. 4 Includg the founrs of New Narrative, later admirers of Dunn were keen to embrace Dunn’s urage wrg the say, even as they ignored or merely set asi the challenge his msage put to the polil efforts of Gay Liberatn and later articulatns of sexual polics.
6Today, pendg on their accs to different versns of the say and related mentary by Dunn, ntemporary rears have the luxury of gag om “The Homosexual Society” a number of overlappg and potentially even ntradictg msag about homosexualy, society, and what might mean to be “” . The metaphor of the closet do not f Dunn’s purpos here, as the poet tentnally fi revealg himself to be a homosexual favor of admtg his feelgs and his experienc, molg for his rears the third posn he poed, somewhere outsi of a bary of “out” or “, ” “homosexual” or “straight. 9What Dunn also lls a “cult, ” the pany of homosexuals he mov wh, and even temporarily embrac, provis him wh a refuge om a society that would otherwise vlently disown him and grants his poetry a potency so strong that match that of the charist.
14Dunn wrote “The Homosexual Society” years before the publitn of Aled Ksey’s Sexual Behavr the Human Male or the foundg of the Mattache Society, or his volvement wh Rob Blaser and Jack Spicer durg the Berkeley Renaissance. Instead, after the say’s publitn 1944 he plemented his say wh footnot, anecdot, orig stori, and historil rrponnc so that the say ntued to have an evolvg relatnship to ntemporary attus about homosexualy, art, and polics.
A VOICE FOR THE PARTY: ERIC DUNN ON BEG THE FIRST OPENLY GAY CONSERVATIVE MP
* duncan homosexual in society *
7 But regardls of Krim’s choice not to reprt the say, 8 his solicatn of “The Homosexual Society” suggts the extent to which the Beats were already monly unrstood as a “gang” of sexual outsirs – nonnformists, queer rebels, and those unrepentant homosexuals who refed to be recuperated by rpectabily polics or silenced by pathology and normaly. 15Wrten a year before he would meet greater fame through The Openg of the Field and Donald Allen’s anthology, Dunn’s 1959 mentary lays out his sthg opns about the Beats and their ializatn of the homosexual as social pariah. 9 Dunn’s experience of a separate homosexual social realy cled him to believe both the anti-tablishment and revolutnary power of ristg a normative sexualy (and by extensn the social nformy of the Atomic Age), but he also imag that anti-social attu reachg, at s lim, Hell self.
ON THIS GAY DAY: POET ROBERT DUNN WAS BORN CALIFORNIA
If “The Homosexual Society” slyly offers a view onto a utopian otherworld, this footnote glanc the oppose directn, permanently attachg to “The Homosexual Society” stori of two lerary thori who refed to advance an open discsn of homosexualy.
At the first-ever Gay Liberatn readg on a llege mp, 10 Dunn spoke about the most heated part of his exchange wh Ransom: “He said he didn’t know what the law was, but he felt that homosexuals should be [... 22Still, Dunn found more to say about “The Homosexual Society” terviews wh younger gay wrers – wh Robert Peters and Pl Trachtenberg 1976 and Steve Abbott and Aaron Shur 1978/1979, the latter of which would be published Wston Leyland’s Gay Sunshe and Abbott’s own New Narrative magaze Soup.