The history of the word “gay” | The Gayly

Contents:

• GAY LERATURE: POETRY AND PROSEGAY LERATURE: POETRY AND PROSE
• THE HISTORY OF THE WORD “GAY”
• GAY

GAY LERATURE: POETRY AND PROSEGAY LERATURE: POETRY AND PROSE

Numero anthologi of short gay fictn clu The Faber Book of Gay Short Fictn (1991), Pengu Book of Gay Short Stori (1994), Pengu Book of Lbian Short Stori (1994), the seri Men on Men (begng 1988) and Women on Women (begng 1990), and even an anthology of gay and lbian science fictn, Kdred Spirs (1984). The lerature of homosexualy has evolved to the pot where is often grouped not only acrdg to ethnicy and genre, for example, Lata and China, Ain-Amerin, Asian and Native Amerin, but also to sorts of sexualy, such as gay, transsexual, and bisexual not to mentn the lerary genr that reprent , cludg mystery, science fictn, and tective fictn, and even geographic regn.

Categori: Gay and Lbian Novels, Genr Studi, Lerature, Queer Theory, Short StoryTags: Amerin Lbian Short Fictn, Amerin Lerature, Gay and Lbian Fictn, Gay and Lbian Stori, Gay Fictn, Gay Men’s Wrg, Gay Short Stori, Homosexualy and Lerature, Homosexualy Amerin Lerature, Homosexualy Lerature, Homosexualy Short Stori, Lbian and Gay Cricism, Lbian Short Stori, Lerary Cricism, The Bt New Gay Fictn, Them of Homosexualy Lerature. Bisexualy has been viewed wh gay studi as distct om homosexualy, and bisexuals have found themselv exclud om gay events and anizatns although a great many “gay ins” om Socrat to Shakpeare to Osr Wil were married and fathered children.

The word “homosexual” was, fact, created the late neteenth century as an English equivalent for German Homosexualtät, which first appeared prt 1869 a pamphlet argug agast the Pssian legal that prcribed punishments for men who engaged same-sex relatns. Adoptg his posn, crics have argued, for example, that Walt Whman and Osr Wil (1854–1900) were not, strictly speakg, homosexuals, at least the sense that medil and psychologil tablishments unrstood that “ndn” or “speci” the twentieth century. Whether the dividual is born homosexual or his or her homosexual sir are socially nstcted, is clear that medi-scientific theori of homosexualy as a curable disease were an ventn of the late neteenth and early twentieth centuri.

THE HISTORY OF THE WORD “GAY”

One rells thgs as var as Ernt Hemgway's dismissive attu toward homosexuals his books, the “pansi” played for lghs Hollywood films of the 1920s and 1930s, and Hart Crane's joyo announcement—havg, he believed, fallen love wh a woman—that he was not homosexual after all. Although Amerin lerature the first two-thirds of the twentieth century almost always impli the medi-scientific fn whenever homosexualy enters the text, Whman had his own succsors, om Bliss Carman (1861–1929) and Richard Hovey (1864–1900) to Marsn Hartley (1877–1943) to Langston Hugh (1902–1967) and Gerr Lansg (b.

Sedgwick se Jam as a homosexual who rarely alt openly wh male timacy but whose work foc on “homosocial” (her term) suatns that occur when, for example, two men stggle for the attentn of a woman; emotns are directed by each man more strongly toward his petor than toward their shared object of sire. Although Sedgwick nsirs Billy Budd to be suffed wh homosexual sir, she pots out that there is only one homosexual the morn sense the story: Claggart, who has the self-loathg of those who have ternalized homophobia, and who is “praved bee he is, his sir, a pervert, ” or “homosexual” (Sedgwick, 1990, p.

GAY

The many homosexual Amerin poets the early twentieth century who were athet clud Amy Lowell (1874–1925), Wilbur Unrwood (1876–1935), Donald Evans (1884–1921), Gee Sylvter Viereck (1884–1962), John Gould Fletcher (1886–1950), Clark Ashton Smh (1893–1961), and Samuel Greenberg (1883–1917), whose poems Hart Crane emulated his own early work.

Public attus toward homosexuals are suggted by an cint the early 1940s when John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974), who had accepted a poem by Robert Dunn (1919–1988) for the Kenyon Review, whdrew his offer after Dunn published an say another journal on homosexualy. Ransom plimented Dunn for havg taken such a bold stand—although actually the say is impartial, argug that homosexualy is no better, if no worse, than any other kd of life—but sisted that the poem schled for the Review might now be read as “homosexual advertisement” (Faas, 1983, p. 1928), and William Inge (1913–1973), and highly regard novels wh homosexual them and suatns, such as Two Ser Ladi (1943) by Jane Bowl (1917–1973), The Member of the Weddg (1946) by Carson McCullers (1917–1967), The Cy and the Pillar (1948) by Gore Vidal (b.

The so-lled School of Boston, which provid one of the avant-gar's rpons the 1960s to the mastream works of Robert Lowell (1917–1977) and Sylvia Plath (1932–1963), was almost entirely gay, cludg such poets as John Weers (1934–2002), Gerr Lansg, and Stephen Jonas (1920–1970). The gay liberatn movement and the gradual public awarens that homosexualy was not the disease the psychiatric tablishment had claimed led to a luge of “g-out” stori, which the thor narrat her or his progrs om “the closet” to an open life as a gay woman or man. Numero anthologi of gay wrg—Stephen Coote's The Pengu Book of Homosexual Verse (1983), Carl Morse and Joan Lark's Gay and Lbian Poetry Our Time (1989), and Edmund Whe's Faber Book of Gay Short Fictn (1991), to ce three of the most rpected—prent no evince that “gay wrg” is sentially more than wrg about gay life.

1965), refully documents a range of poetic tradns om the formalist to the highly experimental whout fdg any that grew om a basilly gay athetic: “Of urse there are poems that overtly flnt their sexualy, ” Liu nclus, “but there are so many quieter poems (and poets) who might elu the most fely tuned gaydar [sensivy to others' gay inty]. The thirty-two years that separate Isherwood's and Holleran's books were so fired wh crisis—the gay liberatn movement and then AIDS—that the fundamental flaw homosexual culture, namely, that has been profoundly a culture for and of the young, has not received as much attentn as should. Melville's isolato exemplify Emersonian self-reliance, but homosexualy Isherwood's and Holleran's works is seen all too accurately as a re of passage to a dimished sexual and emotnal matury that no culture should wish on s members.

The homophobia wh which early wrers had to battle has certaly not vanished, remag some parts of the untry as vilent and vlent as ever, but elsewhere gay life and valu have been tegrated to so much of the culture at large that they have often ceased to operate as an opposnal force.

Morn velopments Attus toward homosexualy are generally flux, partially as a rult of creased polil activism (see gay rights movement) and efforts by homosexuals to be seen not as aberrant personali but as differg om “normal” dividuals only their sexual orientatn.

The nflictg views of homosexualy—as a variant but normal human sexual behavur on one hand, and as psychologilly viant behavur on the other—rema prent most societi the 21st century, but they have been largely rolved ( the profsnal sense) most veloped untri. The Ksey report of 1948, for example, found that 30 percent of adult Amerin mal among Ksey’s subjects had engaged some homosexual activy and that 10 percent reported that their sexual practice had been exclively homosexual for a perd of at least three years between the ag of 16 and 55.

After the 1969 Stonewall rts, which New York Cy policemen raid a gay bar and met wh staed ristance, many homosexuals were embolned to intify themselv as gay men or lbians to iends, to relativ, and even to the public at large. In rponse to their activism, many jurisdictns enacted laws banng discrimatn agast homosexuals, and an creasg number of employers Ameri and European untri agreed to offer “domtic partner” benefs siar to the health re, life surance and, some s, pensn benefs available to heterosexual married upl.