In the end, the political milieu in France is neither more nor less homophobic than any other. What is clear, however, is its resistance to change in relation to society as a whole, regardless of political affiliation.
—Françoise Gaspard
Adam, Barry D.
The Rise of a Gay and Lesbian Movement
. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1987.
———, Jan Willem Duyvendak, and André Krouwel.
The Global Emergence of Gay and Lesbian Politics: National Imprints of a Worldwide Movement
. Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press, 1999.
Borrillo, Daniel.
L’Homophobie
. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2000.
———, ed.
Homosexualités et droit
. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1998.
Butler, Judith, and Joan Scott, eds.
Feminists Theorize the Political
. New York/London: Routledge, 1992.
D’Emilio, John.
Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities:The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States, 1940–1970
. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1983.
“Femmes travesties, un ‘mauvais genre’,”
Clio
(1999).
Front homosexual d’action révolutionnaire.
Rapport contre la normalité
. Paris: Champ libre, 1971.
Gay Left Collective.
Homosexuality: Power and Politics
. London: Allison & Busby. 1980.
Gury Christian.
L’Honneur perdu d’un politicien homosexuel en 1876
. Paris: Kimé, 1999.
Marotta, Toby.
The Politics of Homosexuality: How Lesbians and Gay Men Made Themselves a Political and Social Force in Modern America
. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981.
Mécary, Caroline, and Géraud de la Pradelle.
Les Droits des homosexuel(les)
. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1997.
Tamagne, Florence.
Histoire de l’homosexualité en Europe, Berlin, Londres, Paris, 1919–1939
. Paris: Le Seuil, 2000. [Published in the US as
A History of Homosexuality in Europe: Berlin, London, Paris, 1919–1939
. New York: Algora, 2004.]
Weeks, Jeffrey.
Coming Out: Homosexual Politics in Britain. from the Nineteenth Century to the Present Time
. London: Quartet Books, 1977.
—Adoption; Criminalization; Decriminalization (France); Favorites; France; Henri III; Marriage; Mirguet, Paul; Monsieur; Outing; Parenting; Privacy.
POPE JOHN PAUL II.
See
Catholic Church
PORTUGAL
Legislation in Portugal prior to the nineteenth century was modeled on the Visigothic Code, or
lex gothorum
in its
vulgata
version, a set of laws established by Chindasuinth, the Visigothic king of Hispania, in the seventh century. It is here that the penalty for the act of sodomy appears for the first time, and was maintained in the
Ordenações Afonsinas
of 1446–47, the
Ordenações Manuelinas
of 1521, and the
Ordenações Filipinas
of 1595. Despite the lack of substantial documentation available today, it is reasonable to suspect that condemnations for sodomy were only rarely applied during the Middle Ages, in particular the sentence of being burned at the stake. Likewise, the Portuguese
Inquisition
’s relentless persecution of sodomites between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries was characterized by the “quality” of trials rather than the quantity. Generally, the main victims were Jewish
conversos
(converts) accused of covertly pursuing their religious practices; the accusation of sodomy was mostly directed at “old Christians” who could not be included in the genealogical lists of either the
conversos
or “new Christians,” and who could not be suspected of Crypto-Judaism. This accusation was the perfect means by which authorities could eliminate not only true sodomites, but also the alleged enemies of the Inquisition or the Church, notably intellectuals and scientists. On the other hand, the function of social control is doubtless: many of the condemned were monks, slaves, or colonists in Brazil.
Sodomites were condemned by
auto da fé
(act of faith) (the solemn proclamation of public penance of condemned heretics during the Middle Ages issued by the Inquisition) from 1551 to at least 1752, but for the most part it was the seventeenth century that was the Inquisition’s golden age: during this time, moral sanction often served as a pretense for political persecution. Formally, the Inquisition represented the interests of the Spanish Crown, which governed Portugal from 1580 until 1640 as an all-powerful entity within the Portuguese state. One of the revolutionaries of 1640—the year that Portugal substantially attained its independence—was D. Rodrigo da Cunha, Count of Vila Franca; his morals made him very vulnerable to the Inquisition and he became its most famous victim. Condemned to life imprisonment in 1652, he died after twenty-one years of incarceration.
The Inquisition shaped homophobia until the dictatorial regime of the Estado Novo (Portuguese for “New State”) (1926–74), when modern
medicine
used scientific arguments to reinforce theological morality as interpreted by Catholic fundamentalism. Portuguese
psychiatry
followed the tendency to pathologize homosexuality since the nineteenth century, but it was Portuguese neurologist Egas Moniz, 1949 Nobel Prize winner for the discovery of the prefrontal leucotomy (the precursor of the lobotomy), who was the biggest influence on medical and legal attitudes toward homosexuals in Portugal. His 1901 treatise
Una Vida sexual (fisiologia e patologia)
(The physiological and pathological aspects of sex life), which has been published in numerous editions, is a monumental example of scientific-based homophobia. In it, Moniz affirms his knowledge of the first well-organized homosexual communities, such as the one in Berlin, as well as the work of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, the nineteenth-century German writer and pioneer of gay rights, whom he cites only in order to condemn him. The Portuguese First Republic, as the period between the October 5th revolution of 1910 and the coup d’état of 1926 was known, was a time of openness on many levels; nonetheless, one of its presidents,Teixeira Gomes, was forced to resign in part because of his homosexuality, to which he admitted in his writings.
Clearly homoerotic literature appeared in Portugal in the 1920s, written not only by Fernando Pessoa (the poet and writer who has been referred to by Harold Bloom as being among the most representative poets of the twentieth century) but also by António Botto and Judite Teixeira, writers who were also the victims of a smear campaign led by the Lisbon Students’ Fascist League. Even though Pessoa and others came to their defense, they were eventually forced into self-imposed exile due to the pressure of public hostility, which had become unbearable after the country’s dictatorship was installed in 1926. Earlier, Botto was expelled from his job at the Ministry of the Colonies and, under pressure from the Catholic Church, his request for a return from exile was refused; both died destitute in 1959. The cases of Botto and Teixeira left a deep and lasting mark on Portugal’s writers, who became adept at self-censorship in addition to the official
censorship
instituted by the dictatorship. Until 1974, the expression of homosexuality in Portuguese
literature
could only be made through allusion or by using very discreet codes.
The story of the anonymous victims of homophobia during the Estado Novo dictatorship, whether social, medical, religious, or legal, remains to be told. However, it is known that verbal and physical assaults of homosexuals by
police
were common, at least until the 1960s, and victims were also subject to public humiliation. On occasion, in order to conceal a “disgraceful” relative, higher-class families would resort to committing them to psychiatric hospitals. Other procedures, such as being sent to a penal colony or being placed under house arrest, were reserved for members of the lower classes who had become too notorious due to their “indecent exposure” or “sexual offence.”
Highly influenced by French criminal law, Portugal’s 1886 penal code foresaw the application of measures against “all those who habitually practice
vices against nature
,” meting out punishment for “the sexual assault of a person of one sex or the other.” Anti-homosexual legislation remained in force until the penal code was revised in 1982, when all sexual relations between those aged sixteen years or older were decriminalized. The overthrow of Portugal’s dictatorship by a military coup eight years earlier in 1974 had created the formal conditions for freedom of association and expression, setting the stage for the emergence of the first LGBT organizations in the country. At the same time, however, right-wing political forces were always opposed to the formation of such groups; for example, General Galvão de Melo, a prominent member of the National Salvation Junta that overthrew the Estado Novo, gave a virulent speech against early attempts in Portugal to create a gay and lesbian movement. As for left-wing parties, the discourse was not much more favorable; while politicians and unions monopolized civic activities, LGBT movements were accused of dividing, weakening, and demoralizing the workers’ movement with demands that diverted attention from more important battles, bringing into question the dignity of homosexuals as well. In a remarkable way, certain members of the
Communist
Party even used homosexuality against its political enemies, renewing a long and tiresome homophobic tradition among communists. Prior to the end of the Estado Novo, Júlio Fogaça, one of the Communist Party’s disgraced leaders, was denounced as a homosexual and imprisoned with the connivance of the party. Today, it is mostly the Council of Catholic Bishops that adopts the most homophobic positions in Portugal; the Council vigorously opposed the 2001 Uniões de Facto (Civil Union Act), which opened the door to the possibility of same-sex
marriage
, yet to be made legal.
Moreover, recent studies have shown that homophobia remains rather widespread in Portuguese society in general, including in the gay and lesbian community itself, notably with regard to the perceived poor public image of homosexuals, which makes it difficult to assert a proud lifestyle outside of the closed circles of the
family
or the
ghetto
.
—Fernando Cascais
Assunçào, Aroldo, and Luiz Mott. “Love’s Labors Lost: Five Letters from a 17th Century Portuguese Sodomite.” In
The Pursuit of Sodomy: Male Homosexuality in Renaissance and Enlightment Europe
. Edited by Kent Gerard and Gert Hekma. New York: Harrington Park Press, 1989.
Cascais, Fernando. “Como quem não quer a coisa,”
Fenda (In)Finda
(1983).
———, ed.
Indisciplinar a Teoria. Estudos Gays, Lésbicos e Queer.
Lisbon: Fenda, 2004.
Mendoça, José L. O., and Antonio Moreira.
História dos principais actos e procedimentos da Inquisição em Portugal
. Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional/Casa da Moeda, 1980.
Moita, Maria Gabriela.
Discursos sobre a homossexualidade no contexto clinico: A homossexualidade dos dois lados do espelho
. Doctoral thesis. Porto, Portugal: Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas de Abel Salazar, 2001.
Mott, Luiz. “Portuguese Pleasures: The Gay Subculture in Portugal at Inquisition’s Time.” In
Homosexuality, Which Homosexuality?
Edited by Dennis Altman, Carole Vance, Martha Vicinus, and Jeffrey Weeks. Amsterdam: Free Univ. Press, 1989.
———. “Justitia et Miscricordia: a Inquisição portuguesa e repressão a nefando pecado de sodomia.” Paris: CIDH, 1990.
Pessoa, Fernando.
Aviso por causa da moral
. Lisbon: Hiena Editora, 1986.
—Fascism; Inquisition; Latin America; Medicine; Police; Spain; Violence.
PRISON
As of June 1, 2002, 54,950 individuals were being detained in French prisons, of which 52,979 were men (96.4%) and 1,971 were women (3.6%). This over-representation of men in the spheres of delinquency and criminality has led to various interpretations in terms of social relations of the sexes. Because of their socialization, men are generally more exposed to taking risks, to tests of strength, to domination and
violence
; they are more present in the public sphere, on the outside. Such is the predominant example of the male image as he should be, conveyed by numerous ideas, attitudes, and behaviors. On the other hand, representations of the “eternal feminine” reflect internal, private, and domestic spheres, a reduction in risk and violence, and reason and/or wisdom.
These representations are promoted by various institutions of socialization—
family, school
, the
army
, the
workplace
, and prison—which Michel Foucault designated as a continuum within the scope of a disciplinary society. The internalization of these respective models—in the form of
habitus
—anchors dispositions toward specific practices and behaviors; with regard to male delinquency, this internalization exposes men to a greater risk of committing certain offenses, and at least partially explains their over-representation in prison as compared to their female counterparts.
Further, many young males believe that “doing time” makes one a man. Thus, going to prison becomes a rite of initiation, according to Canadian sociologist Erving Goffman. Perceived as a form of masculine validation, incarceration becomes a sign of belonging, as well as a source of secondary advantages in the eyes of one’s peers. As a sign and symbol of courage, strength, and violence, prison sometimes operates as a label, a distinction, even a “sign of nobility” that validates and consecrates a masculine identity. It becomes a form of nobility and allows one to amass a certain form of capital; as a result, many do no fear going to prison, which they see as some kind of symbolic vocation which itself inspires fear in others.
In a certain way, this transgression of what is ordinarily threatening allows one to position oneself as threatening and thus reverse the stigmatism of prison, turning it into a source of validation in certain social contexts. Thus, we go from the threat of prison to the threatening inmate: prison accords one the status of a big shot, a tough guy, based on supposed courage, strength, and virility.