Robert K. Mart, GAY STUDIES AND THE VICTORIAN PERIOD, Newsletter of the Victorian Studi Associatn of Wtern Canada, Vol. 13, No. 1 (SPRING 1987), pp. 69-76
Contents:
- BEFORE STRAIGHT AND GAY
- SEX SYMBOL: HOW ANTO BEME A GAY CO WORD THE VICTORIAN ERA
- THE 200-YEAR-OLD DIARY THAT'S REWRG GAY HISTORY
BEFORE STRAIGHT AND GAY
* homosexuality in victorian times *
Before Straight and GayThe discreet, disorientg passns of the Victorian eraMarc BurckhardtEven by the formidable standards of ement Victorian fai, the Bensons were an timidatg lot.
SEX SYMBOL: HOW ANTO BEME A GAY CO WORD THE VICTORIAN ERA
As a great al of queer history has by now monstrated, the strictly fed tegori of “homosexual” and “heterosexual” are relatively new: bright l drawn across the late-20th-century sexual landspe that ma “g out” a dichotomo the Victorians, the suatn was much more fluid.
THE 200-YEAR-OLD DIARY THAT'S REWRG GAY HISTORY
Though sex between men was a crimal offense ( Bra, lbianism was visible before the law), there was, as yet, hardly a homosexual inty fed by same-sex sire.
And when he did e , after a theoretil nversatn on the subject wh Fred, he wrote the word out—“the homo sexual qutn”— a way that suggted ’s another way of unrstandg reticence, though, which Fred, Arthur’s sunnier brother, suppli.
Unlike Fred Benson, she was unsentimental about her Victorian upbrgg, yet as the dichotomy between homosexual and heterosexual solidified, she uld see what had been lost: “Where people mistake, as I thk, is perpetually narrowg and namg the immensely pose and wi flung passns—drivg stak through them, herdg them between screens. ” The irony of all this is somethg that no gay liberatnist would have thought possible when the mpaign for homosexual rights was regard as a grave threat to the social orr. Sandwiched between the fluidy of the Victorian years and the proliferatg sexual and genr inti of the new lennium, the late 20th century’s straight-gay paradigm looks cidly old-fashned—maybe even a ltle stodgy.