GAY STUDIES AND THE VICTORIAN PERIOD on JSTOR

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

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. 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.

SEX SYMBOL: HOW ANTO BEME A GAY CO WORD THE VICTORIAN ERA

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.

The Victorian era is important to be looked at so that we know the cultural ntext which Osr Wil ed to live homosexualy went agast the notn of masculy, was talked about rarely and threatened the fay stcture as well as was believed to go agast beg fundamentally Brish. Discsns about homosexualy among society was very mimal bee Victorian cizens tried to ignore the fact ncept that mal might have sexual relatnship wh other mal.

THE 200-YEAR-OLD DIARY THAT'S REWRG GAY HISTORY

Many believed that one uld be moral and at the same time have sexual was one of the reasons why homosexualy was extremely problematic issue the Brish society faced at that time.

In the fundamental Brish society, was embarrassg to speak of this sexual was only when the trials of Osr Wil were gog on that the term and ia of classifyg homosexualy me to limelight.

Observable homosexualyEven though heterosexualy was nsired normal and natural throughout Victorian era, there is seen visible crease homosexualy pecially among men as well as telligentsia durg that perd of history. The reason was that homosexualy was prohibed as cent behavur public and privately, gay sex behd closed doors was not nsired crimal offence until 1885. It is believed that Victorians had a more lenient attu towards gay relatnships or attu to sex between men than their 1960s unterparts.