Anti-Homosexual and Gay: Rereadg Sartre | Hypatia | Cambridge Core

Contents:

• ANTI-HOMOSEXUAL AND GAY: REREADG SARTRE
• WERE THE SPARTANS GAY? HOMOSEXUALY SPARTA, ANCIENT GREECE
• SCREEN: SARTRE'S 'NO EX' PREMIERE AT SUTTON:HIS ONE-ACT PLAY WAS ADAPTED BY TABORI THREE OTHER PICTUR HAVE OPENGS. 'GAY PURR--EE' CARTOON

ANTI-HOMOSEXUAL AND GAY: REREADG SARTRE

Terri Murray says that Jean-Pl Sartre was simply wrong about gay people and self-ceptn.

To illtrate this, Sartre imag a homosexual explog the ambigui to ny that he has chosen his homosexualy. The homosexual who would impute the e of his sexual orientatn to ‘nature’, or an ‘sential ndn, ’ or (nowadays) his geic make-up is actg bad fah. Sartre assum that homosexualy and wardice are alike that both are misnsted as beg evable, or as havg some e other than the dividual’s choice.

” Likewise, says Sartre, the homosexual treats his ‘ndn’ as termg his behavur. One problem wh this analogy is that rts on an unproven assumptn, and one that has always been absolutely ccial to the ratnale of homophobia (sofar as homophobia has any ratnale). Image for a moment that stead of drawg the analogy between wardice and homosexualy, Sartre had stead ed wardice and heterosexualy.

WERE THE SPARTANS GAY? HOMOSEXUALY SPARTA, ANCIENT GREECE

So why do Sartre imply that homosexualy is a choice some fundamental way that heterosexualy is not? The most likely answer is that whether homosexualy is nature or nurture is still a lively issue. Until there is nclive proof that homosexual orientatn is ‘natural’ (i.

Geic and th evable) the same way that heterosexualy is so, there will always be many who regard homosexualy as the liberate ‘viant’ behavur of an otherwise heterosexual person. Once is nced, or ‘disvered, ’that homosexualy is evable (not particular homosexual acts, but the orientatn self) homosexuals will have to be judged on a level playg field. Jt as women are now regard as a genr their own right, rather than as ‘ficient’ mal, so homosexuals will be humans their own right, rather than ‘dysfunctnal’ or ‘fective’ heterosexuals.

SCREEN: SARTRE'S 'NO EX' PREMIERE AT SUTTON:HIS ONE-ACT PLAY WAS ADAPTED BY TABORI THREE OTHER PICTUR HAVE OPENGS. 'GAY PURR--EE' CARTOON

What mak Sartre’s acunt of homosexualy so offensive to Queers is that the homosexual, orr to merely tablish the te ndns wh which he n be thentic any signifint way, mt first ‘e out’ agast the backdrop of a world that is prumably heterosexual some universal sense. As such, the homosexual bears an unually heavy existential burn – negatively, he mt reject the false ndns of existence assigned to him by his heterosexual culture, fay, etc. The homosexual is born to a society and culture that perpetuate the myth of universal human heterosexualy.