The Dictionary of Homophobia (41 page)

Among homosexual stereotypes in the public imagination, the dancer has a prime spot alongside the hairdresser, antiquarian, and decorator. The reaction by Billy’s father to his son’s proclivity is emblematic of strict, old-fashioned beliefs in the gender divide (boys should play team
sports
such as soccer or baseball, or violent ones like boxing, while girls should engage in activities that are more feminine such as sewing or dancing), which includes the assumption that males who engage in classical dance are homosexual. It is not so much the idea in itself that his son wants “to be a dancer” that repulses Billy’s father, it is the image of seeing him become a ballet dancer.

This homophobic image of the male ballet dancer seems to be linked to the history of classical dance in the West, more specifically in France, where it was born and developed. From the beginning, however, classical dance was a heterosexual matter: Louis XIV, the “dancer king” who founded the Académie royale de danse near the beginning of his personal reign in 1661, was also a notorious skirt-chaser. It is an irony of history that the king, who was not terribly valiant when it came to war, had a younger brother (
Monsieur
, Philippe d’Orléans), who took strongly both to war-fare as well as to men. There was no perceived relation between dance and homosexuality at the end of the seventeenth century, and consequently, no homophobic portrayal of male dancers.

But by the nineteenth century, the perception of classical dance began to change. With the advent of pointes and tutus, the romantic idea of ballet found its place, based around the image of the prima ballerina; from Carlotta Grisi to Marie Taglioni, the vocabulary of classical dance revolved around the women who dance. In this new choreographic trend, the male dancer (
danseur
) was nothing more than a foil, a secondary role to better bring out his partner’s femininity and grace. These women dancers attracted attention from the great nineteenth-century writers: from Théophile Gautier, a great lover of ballet who most notably composed the libretto for
Giselle
, to Paul Valéry, author of
L’Ame et la danse
(
Dance and the Soul
), as well as Stéphane Mallarmé, author of
Hérodiade
, women were the primary subject matter in writings about dance. The
danseur
, on the other hand, was the subject of disdain: Gautier, in his
Ecrits sur la danse
(Writings on dance; published in English as
Gautier on Dance
) evoked with repugnance the “muscled body of the
danseur
, drenched in sweat.” In fact, men no longer had a respected place in classical dance, henceforth considered as a privilege of women, and an art without virility; the
danseur
was considered neither man nor woman, eliciting only disgust.

It is in Anatole France’s nineteenth-century novel
Thaïs
that one can perhaps find the most apt description of this new image of the
danseur
:

This decrepit freak, of no age and no sex, treated the child badly, on whom he vented the hate he had for all womankind. A rival of ballerinas whose grace he was nonetheless affected by, he taught Thaïs the art of pantomime, and how to mimic, by expression, gesture, and attitude, all human passions, and more especially the passions of love. He was a clever master, though he disliked his work; but he was jealous of his pupil, and as soon as he discovered that she was born to give men pleasure, he scratched her cheeks, pinched her arms, or pricked her legs, as a spiteful girl would have done.

Moreover, those few authors who did take an interest in the
danseur
were often themselves homosexual, which could not help but add to the growing association between male dance and homosexuality. It is thus that Pierre Loti, with a certain indulgence, wrote in his 1886 novel
Pêcheur d’Islande
(
An Iceland Fisherman
):

He was a charming dancer
Straight as a forest oak
He turned with a grace at once light and noble
His head thrown back

Thus, dance became associated with sensuality, femininity, effeminacy, and, of course, male homosexuality. But it also evoked lesbianism: specifically, feminine eroticism, which was decried by moralists. At the beginning of the twentieth century in England, Member of Parliament Noel Pemberton Billing headed a homophobic crusade which, among other things, denounced the “cult of the clitoris” by accusing dancer Maud Allan of lesbian
proselytism
after her performance of
Vision of Salomé
(based on Oscar
Wilde
’s work). It is true that certain contemporary ballets seemed to cultivate a kind of Sapphic eroticism, as illustrated by
Les Biches
(The Hinds), a show created by the Ballets Russes in 1924, based on an idea by Jean Cocteau and choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska, in which young women meet and touch each other in a rather erotically charged atmosphere. Francis Poulenc, the show’s composer, explained: “
Les Biches
is not about love … [I]n this ballet, one does not love in order to live, one lays.” More scandalous yet, the famed French writer Colette, who had relationships with both men and women, had no qualms about dancing nude at the literary salon of her lesbian friend Natalie Barney, in the role of Mata Hari. There, at least, the show was private, but she would perform again in 1907, this time publicly at the Moulin Rouge, where she danced in a very sensual way and kissed her lover, known simply as Missy, onstage. This performance provoked a riot, resulting in the
police
raiding the premises; the press denounced it as the
scandal
and the show was banned. The commotion only served to reinforce the connection between dance,
debauchery
, and lesbianism.

Since then, dance performances have been associated as much with female homosexuality as with male homosexuality. As for male classical dance, despite attempts at rehabilitating the image of the
danseur
in the twentieth century by the likes of Nijinsky and Maurice Béjart, it proved impossible to overcome the negative legacy of male dancers established in the nineteenth century. The homophobic portrayal of the
danseur
, feeding on the appearance of overtly homosexual performers such as Jacques Chazot, was deeply engrained in the public subconscious. The image of the
danseur
had been stigmatized: he was homosexual, effeminate, and lacking in intelligence. Indeed, even recently, and in openly gay or gay-friendly works, this same negative image can be found. For example, in Christopher Ashley’s 1995 film
Jeffrey,
the eponymous hero finds himself being advised by his friend Micha to move in with another man. But when Micha holds up the example of his relationship with his boyfriend Darius, Jeffrey retorts:

But Darius is a dancer … a dancer in
Cats
.
So what? I said that you need a man, not a brain.

In many respects, from the homophobic viewpoint, male dancers have rather a two-sided status: they are often stigmatized, and, given the public nature of their profession, more prone to homophobic attacks. Rudolf Nureyev was subjected to numerous pressures of this kind in the Soviet Union, which was the main reason he defected to the West in 1961. However, the prestige associated with their art also gives homosexual dancers a certain degree of freedom: for example, the recent coming out of Spanish dancer and choreographer Nacho Duato was largely well-received. And sometimes, in certain societies of the Middle East and India, dancers (as well as actors) can safely take on a specific feminine role for which they are already personally known, although if any other male dancer or actor attempted the role, it would be widely condemned. Nevertheless, this
tolerance
, like all others, is very often precarious: such was the case in
China
, where male dancers and opera singers, who had enjoyed public favor despite their feminine attributes, were quickly arrested by the police at the beginning of the Maoist Revolution in 1949 (as depicted in the 1993 film
Farewell, My Concubine
), and sometimes even sent to “re-education” camps, where they were subjected to particularly cruel
treatment
.

Over and above professional dancing, dancing for recreation and pleasure (such as ballroom dancing) should also be considered, as it has also been the object of homophobic tension. In France, for the entire duration of the Fourth Republic (1946–58), a police ordinance forbade male couples from dancing together in public places. The same rule prevailed in the United States during the same era, and the
Stonewall
Inn was originally famous for being the only bar in New York where men could dance together without being troubled. Even today, all over the world, gay and lesbian nightclubs often find themselves the target of police surveillance and repression. Incidentally, the dangers of men dancing together goes far to explain the part of the success of disco dancing in gay culture: in effect, this new type of music enabled one to dance solo, as opposed to the music of previous generations (from the waltz to rock and roll), which obliged homosexual males to engage in heterosexual flirting despite themselves if they wanted to dance. Females who dance together are, generally, more accepted, and their heterosexuality is not usually called into question. However, if they persist, they risk arousing suspicion, being perceived (whether true or not) as lesbians, and being stigmatized as such.

La Faune des dancings, 1925
(
Dancehall Wildlife
):
“These little gentlemen” who gather to dance (here, rue de Lappe), appear to simultaneously arouse amusement and disgust in caricaturist Jean Auscher.

Dance occupies an important place in the social organization of sexual conventions. Balls, sock-hops, parties, and other social events where people dance are often also where adolescents experience their first erotic interactions. In this way, learning to dance constitutes a sort of initiation to heterosexuality, despite the fact that it often starts solo (with a broom, for instance) or part of a same-sex pair (two friends together, alone in a room). Technical mastery of dancing is thus a crucial symbolic issue: after all, if the adolescent does not know how or does not want to dance, he risks being exposed to ridicule or suspicion. He must prove his power and his ability to “lead” a girl, even if only on the dance floor, to avoid having his masculinity called into question. Conversely, he may be suspect if he enjoys dance too much, or engages in the activity with a little too much enthusiasm. The 1997 film
In & Out
makes a good example of this when the hero, a repressed homosexual, buys an instructional cassette to help him explore his masculinity. He is unable to resist dancing to the music accompanying the tape, where-upon the audio recording warns him to calm down, and that a “real man” would be able to resist! Arnold Schwarzenegger would never dance like this; he is so muscular, he can hardly walk. In short, these contradictory injunctions portray the homosexual as someone who dances too much, or too little, while once again, the heterosexual man is the one who remains moderate in all things.
—Hervé Chevaux and Louis-Georges Tin

Ashley, Christopher, and Paul Rudnick.
Jeffrey, Sex or not Sex?
Film. Orion Classics, 1995.

Daldry, Stephen.
Billy Elliot
. Film. Universal Pictures, 2000.

Desmond, Jane, ed.
Dancing Desires: Choreographing Sexualities On and Off the Stage
. Madison, WI: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 2001.

Fédorovski,Vladimir.
Histoire secrète des ballets russes: de Diaghilev à Picasso, de Cocteau à Stravinski et Noureev
. Monaco: Le Rocher, 2002.

Gautier, Théophile.
Ecrits sur la danse
. Arles, France: Actes Sud, 1995.

France, Anatole.
Thaïs
. Lausanne, Switzerland: Editions du Livre Monte-Carlo, 1948.

Kristeva, Julia.
Le Génie féminin III, Colette
. Paris: Fayard, 2002.

McNair, Brian.
Striptease Culture
. New York: Routledge, 2002.

Oz, Frank, and Paul Rudnick.
In & Out
. Film. Paramount, 1997.

Schouvaloff, Alexander.
The Art of Ballets Russes
. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1998.

Thomas, Anthony. “The Gay Black Imprint on American Dance Music,”
Out/Look
(Summer 1989).

—Art; Debauchery; Heterosexism; Literature; Music; Songs (France); Sports.

DEBAUCHERY

The word
debauchery
is usually defined as “excessive or unmoderated use of all the pleasures of the senses, especially sex or food.” In the moral vocabulary of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, the term was mostly used to describe a morally reprehensible excess, an infringement of the bourgeois principles of economy, but also suggested the stigma of giving in to one’s senses, to the detriment of reason. Any discourse on debauchery is rooted in a line of thought that started in Ancient Greece and Rome, as well as Biblical precepts. In a recurring and sometimes obsessive manner (though not explicitly), debauchery was referred to in a particular definition of masculinity, part of a code of conduct specific to men; that is, activities which expended one’s energies, both moral and sexual. Consequently, it comes as no surprise that from very early on, debauchery was associated with male homosexuality (much more than lesbianism). In one of his epistles, St
Paul
the Apostle drew a connection between a person who had lain with a prostitute, “whose body becomes one with her,” and men of despicable morals: “Neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals … will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor 6:9–10). In the definition of the true role of Biblical law, found at the beginning of the First Epistle to Timothy (from the New Testament, in which St Paul counseled his younger colleague about his ministry), “immoral persons” and “sodomites” (this last term as used by the Revised Standard Version translation of the
Bible
) appear side by side in a list of those whom Biblical law primarily addresses.