Proust clearly represents a borderline case of self-censorship, but one which is fundamental and to which most homosexual authors can relate. It is thus quite significant to see writer Jean-Louis Bory quote Proust as part of an article entitled “Le Refus du masque” (Refusing the mask), in which he recalls his own self-censorship:
From my very first piece, I knew that one day or another I would get around to writing plainly about this subject [of homosexuality]. For far too long I would avoid it, I would procrastinate, I would … in the end … cheat, in the same way that Proust cheated. It was in one of my first novels (entitled
Usé par la mer
[Worn by the Sea]) where I finally dealt with the subject frankly (yet still hypocritically), by telling the story of the love of a man named Félicien with a certain … Georgette, who (extraordinarily) was in the military. It is possible; there are some in the AFAT (Army Women’s Auxiliary). The feminization, the Albertine side to my Georgette, was so awkward it was transparent—Georgette even had tattoos! And naturally, no one was really fooled. But I still wasn’t proud of it; it was still evading the subject. And yet in the same book, I described a passionate relationship between Mr Bonaventure, a film presenter, and Mr Suzanne, a hairdresser. Again, I made a little progress, but it was simply a nod. And the subject is really too serious for a simple nod. Then, in a later book,
Un Noël à la tyrolienne
[A Tyrolean Christmas], I described, much more precisely, the love between a man named Aloys and a man named Pierre. But even then I was already thinking of the next book, to be entitled
La Peau des zèbres
[The skin of zebras]. I burned my bridges. We can see that Aloys is really named François-Charles, and he was in love with Pierre. Here we find again Félicien from
Usé par la mer
, and become aware of the true nature of the relationships. The mask was terribly transparent now, but it was still a mask, in so far as the “I” that I used was the “I” of a novel. You knew that it was François-Charles or Félicien who was doing the talking. You could say to yourself: “Okay, here it’s François-Charles, and here it’s Félicien … but where is the author in all of this?”
—
Hervé Chevaux
Bier, Christophe.
Censure-moi, histoire du classement X en France
. Paris: L’Esprit frappeur, 2000.
Bory, Jean-Louis. “Le Refus du masque,”
Arcadie
(“L’Homophilie à visage découvert,” November 1973).
Boswell, John.
Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality:
Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century
. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1980.
Courcelle, Pierre.
La Consolation de philosophie dans la tradition littéraire
. Paris: Editions augustiniennes, 1967.
Dollimore, Jonathan.
Sex, Literature and Censorship
. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2001.
Douin, Jean-Luc.
Dictionnaire de la censure au cinéma
. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1998.
Francklin, Thomas.
The Works of Lucian
. London: T. Cadell, 1781.
Meyer, Richard.
Outlaw Representation: Censorship and Homosexuality in Twentieth Century American Art
. New York/Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2002.
Ory, Pascal, ed.
La Censure en France à l’ère démocratique (1848- )
. Brussels: Ed. Complexe, 1997.
Russo Vito.
The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies
. New York: Harper & Row, 1987.
Sergent, Bernard.
L’Homosexualité dans la mythologie grecque
. Paris: Payot, 1984. New edition in
Homosexualité et initiation chez les peuples indo-européens
. Paris: Payot, 1996. [Published in the US as
Homosexuality in Greek Myth
. Boston: Beacon Press, 1986.]
Viau, Théophile de.
Théophile en prison et autres pamphlets
. Utrecht: Jean Jacques Pauvert, 1967.
—Communism; Fascism; Gide, André; Heterosexism; Hirschfeld, Magnus; History; Literature; Media; Police; Scandal; School; Viau, Théophile; Villon, François.
CENTRAL EUROPE.
See
Europe, Central & Eastern
CHINA
To the Chinese, sexuality is something natural, and to indulge in it on a moderate basis is considered a key to one’s health and longevity. Thus, erotic practices for their own sake were not to be condemned nor legislated against; in addition, the Chinese did not believe that one’s personality was centered around one’s sexual orientation. However, a careful study of historical Chinese literature identifies some reticence against homosexuals, beginning in particular during the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1912) dynasties. It was not until the twentieth century, with the intrusion of Western ideologies and Western medical and psychiatric theories, that this reticence was transformed into a radical and systemic homophobia, manifested mostly in ostracizing “deviants,” including loved ones.
Marriage
was considered vital by most families in order to ensure descendants, but even so, it was not necessarily an obstacle to masculine or sapphic love. Once the familial relationship is duly met, nothing forbade a spouse (at least, not the man) from loving someone else or seeing a young man on the side (all it took was finding an accommodating wife). On the other hand, it was inconceivable and antisocial for one to refuse to marry; only Buddhist clergy were permitted to avoid this obligation (not that this granted the celibate any greater legitimacy).
Perdition’s Favorite
Many works written by ancient China’s moralists and chroniclers speak out against debauchery, but it is the excesses of passion and the abuse of wine and women (or young men) that they condemned, and not the act itself. The philosophers warned against the deleterious influence of royal favorites, catamites, or eunuchs on those managing the affairs of the empire. Historians made examples of fallen kingdoms and imperial houses ruined by men who fell victim to their passions. The fate of the state or even a family was too important to subject to irrational ardor, and chroniclers castigated the useless sycophants who lured the rulers into trouble.
Buddhism
Against the Sins of the Flesh
Buddhism, which first appeared in China around the first century CE and exerted a profound influence on the religions of the Middle Kingdom between the sixth and ninth centuries, introduced the concept of the sins of the flesh. Sexuality in general was considered an obstacle to spiritual life. It was mostly the female temptress that one must resist (Buddhist texts were written by men for men, after all); there was a recognition of homosexuality as well, which was usually condemned, but only slightly more than heterosexual acts. In
India
, a system of rules for both laymen and men of religion was developed which was far more detailed than China’s interdictions against crimes such as rape and adultery. All Buddhists were required to abstain from lustful acts, including those with men. The
Vinaya
, the curriculum of rules and procedures for Buddhist monks, which describes all variants of sexual acts, was more precise. Penetration with ejaculation, regardless of the orifice or the partner, would mean exclusion from the community. Mutual masturbation among monks would incur a slight penance, and nuns would not incur any. Sins committed with a
pandaka
(definitions vary, but usually a transvestite or a eunuch) were punished less severely than if they were committed with a woman, but more so than if they were committed with a virile man. There were also rules set out so monks might avoid temptation, such as governing their quarters, baths, and latrines. Nonetheless, these rules did not prevent monks or nuns from having relationships, whether they be masculine or sapphic, and pederast traditions, such as that of monks and their catamite
chigo
in Japan.
Toward a Moral Order
During the Song dynasty (960–1279), a kind of Puritanism arose that was inspired by neo-Confucianism and influenced by Buddhism which insisted on abstinence and mastery over desire. This tendency became government orthodoxy by the beginning of the Ming dynasty. Certain members of the elite viewed the increasingly urbanized societies of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as hedonistic and the empire as incompetent while outside threats loomed (such as the Japanese and the Manchurians); as a result, they reacted negatively against what they perceived as dilettantism and the corruption of traditions which threatened their security. The Qing Empire, taking care to get scholars on their side, carried out a campaign of moral renewal, which included confining sexuality to heterosexual marriage.
Shanshu
, or morality books, which began to appear during the Song dynasty alongside treatises on public morals, as well as
gongguoge
, or “ledgers of merit and demerit” (which rated acts as either good or bad deeds), had a strong influence during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Based on the Buddhist idea of retribution but representing a syncretism of popular Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, these texts promoted an ethic that was zealously strict. Hostile to the concepts of adultery and debauchery, at least two texts from the seventeenth century criticized same-sex male love affairs, in which concubines and male prostitutes were denounced, as well as pederasty and the frequenting of brothels.
The law began to address sodomy (but not lesbianism) around the middle of the Ming dynasty. Previously, two literary sources (though not legal texts) of the Song dynasty made mention of a Zhenghe era law which allowed for the arrest and beating of the capital’s prostitutes for indecent offenses. Anal penetration (though not necessarily with a man) was criminally unclean, likened to introducing refuse into the mouth, as noted by a Jiajing era (1522–67) amendment to the legal code established during the Ming dynasty which made it punishable by 100 strokes of a cane. The code of the Qing dynasty adopted the same laws, but grouped them under a coherent category, “Fornication.” These laws were designed to address not only the kidnapping and rape of male youths (which may or may not cause their death), but also consensual sodomy (
jijian
). Those convicted of these crimes were punished by 100 strokes of a cane and were forced to wear a cangue (a device used for public humiliation and corporal punishment, similar to the stocks but instead of being fixed in place, the board had to be carried by the prisoner) for a month. The seduction of a boy younger than twelve was also considered rape Essentially, the same scale of punishments was used for all sexual crimes. The application of this legislation against kidnapping, rape, and murder is well-documented by the archives of the Minister of Justice and the royal courts. It is more difficult, however, to find evidence of actions taken against consensual sodomy, which did not require the approval of the central authorities.
The end of the Ming dynasty and the beginning of the Qing saw the arrival of a homophobia that was more asserted by certain authors. In a culture where social norms were considered more important than laws with regard to governing the populace, sexual passivity was seen as subverting the hierarchy of the sexes as well as social status. It was associated with servility and prostitution (both particularly visible under these two dynasties), and brought with it a fear of dishonor, gossip, and sometimes even blackmail. The fickleness of male prostitutes (whose chief preoccupations were money and privilege) only fueled more distaste. The first homophobic
insults
that began to appear mostly referred to the “feminine role,” but more generally, love between men was judged to be absurd (without any real explanation why) and a pitiful substitution for heterosexuality (when it occurred in
prison
or in the
army
, for example). The union of the
yin
and
yang
was considered the ultimate design of heaven and earth, and the love of a woman was part of the order of things. The love of boys was thus a curiosity, made unclean because of anal penetration (which in turn made its pleasure incomprehensible and “
against nature
”); and when combined with a refusal to marry, it was evidence of a supreme immorality.
Medical Discourse & the Bourgeois “Morals”
This new intolerance, however, did not obstruct those with a taste for cross-dressers, nor did it dampen same-sex affairs between students or scholars. But the intrusion of the West in the twentieth century intensified the spread of homophobia, condemning homosexuality to silence. Traumatized by the humiliations inflicted by both Westerners and the Japanese during the Opium Wars, the intelligentsia of the early twentieth century called for a complete intellectual, cultural, and political “modernization” of the country, based on foreign examples. The fall of the empire in 1911 and the May Fourth Movement of 1919 opened the floodgates to a disjointed sort of Westernization which identified tradition and Confucianism as the source of all troubles. Democracy and science (viewed as social and moral virtues) became the new idols. But intellectuals and students, in their desire to shake off the chains of ancient standards, did not realize that they were endorsing a narrow and petit-bourgeois mentality, not to mention blind scientism, all of which had an impact on the course of homophobic attitudes.
Medical and psychiatric discourse on sexuality and the concept itself first appeared in China via translations (works by Havelock Ellis, the British sexual psychologist, were published there in 1926 and 1947), and was crystallized as a result of essays by Chinese
medical
doctors and
psychologists
during the 1920s and 30s, which incorporated Western ideas. The term “homosexuality” (
tongxinglian
) along with its crazy trappings appeared in the 1920s and displaced all of the ancient theoretical concepts on the subject. The new Chinese discourse incorporated all of the associated ways of thinking: homosexuality was an “anomaly” (i.e. transitory and curable), an “
inversion
,” and was now under the jurisdiction of medicine and
psychiatry
. Medical literature on the art of lovemaking and on how to create beautiful children lent credence to the idea that medicine dictated matters of sexuality. The ancient preoccupation with social and moral correctness produced a sexology that was more normative than the previous one, which was analytical and focused on the individual’s search for pleasure. Concerned for the “quality” of the population, theorists began to steer the subject toward eugenics, whereby all examples of non-procreative sexuality (e.g., prostitution, masturbation, sodomy) were considered either sicknesses to be stamped out (by any means, including electroshock therapy) in the name of the
family
and the state, or a “social scar” that was condemned to absolute silence. The subject became taboo: China produced
nothing
on the subject of homosexuality between 1940 and 1980; even Taiwan and Hong Kong had nothing to say on the subject until the 1970s. There were not even any public, inflammatory diatribes (à la Heinrich
Himmler
) to be found in literature published by the Chinese government, whether nationalist or communist. Between 1950 and 1970, one could almost seriously deny that gays and lesbians even existed in China, or claim that homosexuality had somehow been “eradicated” (in the same way as venereal diseases). Embraced by the totalitarian regimes and popularized by the
communists
, this was the general opinion in mainland China until the 90s (and in Taiwan until the 80s), isolated as it was from Western ideas on the subject. In fact, it was not until 2001 that the Chinese Society of Psychiatry took homosexuality off its list of mental illnesses.