Homosexuals the cy: reprentatns of lbian and gay space neteenth-century Paris
Contents:
- CHAPTER 15: GAY PARIS, 1889 90
- HOMOSEXUALS THE CY: REPRENTATNS OF LBIAN AND GAY SPACE NETEENTH-CENTURY PARIS
CHAPTER 15: GAY PARIS, 1889 90
Th, no geographer has llaborated wh the many dictnari and encyclopedias published recent years, which have been voted to homosexual cultur, nor participated the symposiums spired by Gay and Lbian Studi the Uned Stat on this subject, (such as the Renntr ternatnal sur l cultur gays et lbienn [Internatnal Meetgs on Gay and Lbian Culture] anized Paris by the Ge Pompidou Center 1997). Do not this shortg arise – part – om the perpetuatn of the fluence of iologil rp which promote analys of balanc of power of another nature?2“What we should be askg ourselv is not about why gay and lbian cultur exist (…); but rather why they are ncealed,” the philosopher and soclogist Didier Eribon, a specialist on homosexual culture France, pertently remds (2003, 16). It requir a knowledge, or even a practil experience of the terrori ncerned, an sight to the logic of those who nstct them and of the habs of those who equent them, difficult issu bee the anizatn and the dynamic of the spac of homosexualy are part visible, as we will monstrate.3Our ambn is limed spe as we only have at our disposal a certa number of ditors and a limed amount of quantative data, maly relatg to what is available mercially.
In this report we would like to propose some elements of analysis of the way of life and spatiali of homosexual muni – by replacg the outdated qutn of “why” (homosexualy?), wh that of “how” (is lived?) takg a geographil approach, i.e. That is why we n wele the exceptn, which is the recent Dictnnaire la géographie et l’pace s sociétés, eded by Jacqu Lévy and Michel Lslt (2003) which, unlike prev works of the same genre, propos an entry for “sexualy” and another for “sexuatn,” and even refers to Gay and Lbian Studi.
While their fluence has always been nsirable artistic and lerary productn (Eribon 2003; Tamagne 2000) and the var movements mpaigng for equal rights, seems that homosexual women have a more discreet liftyle, more stable, and any se very different om that of men (particularly rpect of their needs and ways of meetg). Homosexual relatnships were mon and accepted the ci of ancient Greece (Halper 1990), jt as they were wispread (but already tolerated ls) the Italian ci of the Renaissance (Rocke 1996), or most of the large European ci om the seventeenth century onwards (Higgs 1999). But above all, like other mori (ethnic, relig, social, etc.), homosexuals, bee of their limed number and their safety needs, mt fd or create plac of solidary and fe works of sociabily, build livg spac which, if not a muny, are at least llective nature (Altman 1983; D’E 2002; Murray 1996).
HOMOSEXUALS THE CY: REPRENTATNS OF LBIAN AND GAY SPACE NETEENTH-CENTURY PARIS
The cy is the terrory that n bt meet the expectatns and is even the only one allowg pe om the domatn, even hostily, of the majory groupgs: “They (ci) beme plac where gays uld, to some gree, pe om the nstant prsur of an tolerant heterosexual society” (Lria and Knopp, 1985, 158).8Whereas studi Germany dite that homosexuals live maly ci (Grésillon, 2000), there is no rmatn of this type available France. Two ditive pots: even if not only lookg at homosexual upl, wh nearly 130 “regnized upl” [4] per 10,000 habants aged 18 years or more, pared wh the average of 60 France at the end of the 2004 [5], Paris is well ahead terms of the number of people signg a PACS (uple’s civil ntract), regardls of the sex of the signatori.