GAY STUDIES AND THE VICTORIAN PERIOD on JSTOR

Contents:

• BEFORE STRAIGHT AND GAY
• THE 200-YEAR-OLD DIARY THAT'S REWRG GAY HISTORY
• SEX SYMBOL: HOW ANTO BEME A GAY CO WORD THE VICTORIAN ERA
• HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI
• GAY MOSW MOSW CY GUI
• NOT THE ONN: MOSW BANS GAY PRI FOR NEXT 100 YEARS
• GAY MOSW · CY GUI

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.

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.

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

” 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.

HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI

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. This lack of rmatn om different mediums of munitn is the reason why discsn of homosexualy was not seen throughout society.

GAY MOSW MOSW CY GUI

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. Homosexualy Victorian eraAttus and expectatns about maral and timate relatnships were very strict durg Victorian era.

Homosexualy Victorian eraPublicly homosexualy was not discsed and was hard to accs private sexual behavur.

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. Homosexualy was very rarely discsed Victorian society and whenever was discsed there were severe nsequenc for the men.

NOT THE ONN: MOSW BANS GAY PRI FOR NEXT 100 YEARS

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.

Image ptn, Claire Pickerg Wakefield library imag the diary wrer speakg a Yorkshire accentA diary wrten by a Yorkshire farmer more than 200 years ago is beg hailed as providg remarkable evince of tolerance towards homosexualy Bra much earlier than prevly imaged. Historians om Oxford Universy have been taken aback to disver that Matthew Tomlson's diary om 1810 ntas such open-md views about same-sex attractn beg a "natural" human diary challeng prenceptns about what "ordary people" thought about homosexualy - showg there was a bate about whether someone really should be discrimated agast for their sexualy.

"In this excg new disvery, we see a Yorkshire farmer argug that homosexualy is nate and somethg that shouldn't be punished by ath, " says Oxford rearcher Eamonn O' ptn, The diari were handwrten by Tomlson the farmhoe where he lived and workedThe historian had been examg Tomlson's handwrten diari, which have been stored Wakefield Library sce the thoands of pag of the private journals have never been transcribed and prevly ed by rearchers terted Tomlson's eye-wns acunts of electns Yorkshire and the Ludd smashg up O'Keeffe me across what seemed, for the era of Gee III, to be a rather startlg set of arguments about same-sex relatnships.

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Tomlson had been prompted by what had been a big sex sndal of the day - which a well-rpected naval surgeon had been found to be engagg homosexual ptn, Historian Eamonn O'Keeffe says the diari provi a rare sight to the views of "ordary people" the early 1800sA urt martial had orred him to be hanged - but Tomlson seemed unnvced by the cisn, qutng whether what the papers lled an "unnatural act" was really that unnatural.