Contents:
OSR WIL’S ‘CCIAL’ ROLE THE GAY RIGHTS STGGLE
Wil, a homosexual, was put on trial for gross cency 1895 after the tails of his affair wh a Brish aristocrat were ma public. Homosexualy was a crimal offense at this time England.
He bucked tight-laced Victorian fashn by wearg lorful velvets and silks and keepg his hair Aled Douglas Wil kept his homosexualy a secret. Homosexual acts were a crimal offense England at the time and remaed illegal there until the 1960s.
(France had crimalized homosexualy 1791 durg the French Revolutn. His ma problem was that Queensberry’s allegatns about his homosexualy were te, and therefore uldn’t be judged the trial, Queensberry’s fense acced Wil of solicg 12 other young men to m sodomy. The fense also qutned Wil about the premise of his ntroversial 1890 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, suggtg that Wil had ed the novel’s homoerotic them to sce Lord Aled.