Pollak, Michael. “L’Homosexualité masculine, ou: le bonheur dans le ghetto?”
Communications
, no. 35 (1982). New Edition in
Sexualités occidentales
. Edited by Philippe Ariès and André Béjin. Paris: Le Seuil, 1984. [Published in the US as
Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times
. New York: Blackwell, 1985.]
—Closet, the; Communitarianism; England; France; Germany; Heterophobia; North America; Peril; Rhetoric.
GIDE, André
André Gide (1869–1951), an influential man of letters and a well-known pederast, was a prime target for satirists of his time. Often attacked for his lifestyle, Gide responded with a certain detachment; in this sense, he was probably not the writer most affected by homophobic attitudes, but nonetheless he was particularly vulnerable due to his notoriety. In fact, from the moment his homosexuality was known or suspected, he was the subject of numerous homophobic discourses.
Until 1924, André Gide was a lost soul who could still be saved. His many writings were certainly haunted by homosexuality; one only has to think of works such as
La Tentative amoureuse
(
The Attempt at Love
),
Les Nourritures terrestres
(
The Fruits of the Earth
),
Saül
, or
Les Caves du Vatican
(
Lafcadio’s Adventures
). However, any subversive qualities were subdued under the pretense of fiction. In
L’Immoraliste
(
The Immoralist
), the sensory exaltation of oases and young Arabs gave the impression of reckless hedonism, and the title was such as to denounce the protagonist. As a result, readers could feel reassured that the author was not sympathetic to that which was being portrayed. At worst, one could criticize Gide’s unhealthy indulgence of an overly curious mind.
However, a few perceptive writer friends finally saw the direction in which Gide was going. In a letter from 1914, the poet Paul Claudel strongly urged him: “If you are not a pederast, why the strange interest in this subject? And if you are one, unfortunate; cure yourself and do not expose these abominations. Consult Mrs Gide.” One week later, seeing Gide continue in the error of his ways, Claudel admonished him again, in this inimitable manner: “No, you know very well that the behaviors that you are talking about are neither allowed, nor excusable, nor respectable.… Moreover, Revelation teaches us that this
vice
is particularly hated by God. It is useless to remind you of
Sodom
, the
morte moriatur
of Leviticus, the beginning of the Epistle to the Romans, the
Neque fornicatores, neque adulteri, neque masculorum concubitores
.”
Gide’s friends—Claudel, François Mauriac, and Charles Du Bos among them—then found it necessary to try and prevent him from perverting the youth of France, but their efforts were unsuccessful. After a failed attempt to prevent Gide from publishing
Corydon,
author Jacques Maritain concluded with sadness: “Intelligence has crossed over to the devil.”
In 1924, the “devil” published
Corydon,
which according to the author was “the most important of my books.” In his defense of homosexuality, or more to the point pederasty (although the author included neither the inverted [passive types] nor effeminates, who were abnormal according to him, thus in keeping with homophobic prejudices of the time), the novel’s eponymous character tries to convince his interlocutor of the legitimacy of his behavior. Written in the great tradition of moral and philosophical dialogues, the novel clearly demonstrated Gide’s ideas and ambition, thus forcing critics to confront that which they had wanted to ignore in his work up until then. But as German novelist Klaus Mann noted, critics came to the conclusion “that Gide had generally gone too far this time. The press reacted either with icy silence or with rabble and obscene comments.”
Before
Corydon,
campaigns instigated against Gide refrained from directly addressing his homosexuality, using euphemism or circumlocution instead. Thus in 1923, writer and activist Henri Béraud led an aggressive fight against what he called “La Croisade des longues figures” (The Crusade of the Long Figures)— specifically, a campaign against the growing influence of the literary magazine
La Nouvelle revue Française
, of which Gide was the patron—but Béraud had confined himself to generic morality arguments against Gide’s harmful influence on youth. Novelist Roland Dorgelès, who had sided with Béraud, perhaps went a little further: “I condemn André Gide not only in the name of Catholic spirit that is mine, but in the name of my moral health. We are for fortifiers; he is for poison. He believes that he enlightens souls: what a mistake! He troubles them…. Virtues are not what interest him, flaws are…. I understand it, of course: evil is more attractive than good, and this is why so many youths go to Gide.”
But after
Corydon
and the books that followed, critiques of Gide’s work became more explicit. For example, in writing about
Les Faux-monnayeurs
(
The Counterfeiters
), Paul Souday exclaimed: “Oh! There is no bluntness of terms here. A discreet, sheltered, and innocent reader could not, even under extreme circumstances, understand what it is all about. Nevertheless it is all too clear…. And that is enough; the measure is full.” Robert Honnert, in turn, commented: “How could a man as subtle as Mr Gide not understand that he was much more interesting inhibited than emancipated?” And André Billy concluded: “That vice is a subject more appropriate for criminal court than
literature
.” The publication of
Corydon
even gave rise to books in response to it, such as François Nazier’s
L’Anti-Corydon
(The anti
-Corydon
), whose central tenet was circulated throughout Parisian circles: “Nature abhors Gide.”
During this entire period, Gide was violently attacked in this way, and these ideas found a particular resonance in France during the dark years after 1940 when Germany defeated France. It was determined that those responsible for the defeat, scapegoats or otherwise, must be found at any cost. While former Prime Minister Léon Blum and a few other leaders of the Third Republic were being judged at the Riom Trial (1942–43), certain writers demanded that there be a similar cleanup of colleagues whose literary work during the interwar years contributed to France’s defeat. The offensive, known as “querelle des mauvais maîtres” (The Quarrel of Bad Teachers), was launched by Guy de Pourtalès. Gide was the first one targeted because the “pessimists, defeatists, immoralists, and corydons” had to be punished. Writer Camille Mauclair even demanded that this “poisoner of youth” be thrown in jail.
Such declarations in the 1930s might seem indifferent in the end, but in the context of the 1940s, they were especially dangerous, and pushed the writer into exile. A conspiracy was even concocted to justify “the hunt for Gide”: a young man full of promise, who was of course unnamed, had committed suicide after having either read or met Gide. The story was more than doubtful, but it was meant to be symbolic of the distinguished man of letters’ “perverted” influence over French youth. It was thus that the wounded nation’s honor had to be avenged and necessary steps taken to oppose such harmful influences, and it is in the context of this exacerbated anti-Gidism that homosexuality was reinstated in Vichy France’s penal code in 1942.
In truth, the homophobic attacks on André Gide came from very different communities, from the nationalist or Catholic right wing to the communist left wing that never forgave him for his 1939 travel book
Retour de l’U
.
R
.
S
.
S. (Return from the U
.
S
.
S
.
R.)
. Additionally, all kinds of opposing tactics were tried on him, from friendly sympathy to false indifference to hostile violence, by critics who were in fact less embarrassed by his pederasty than by his insolent way of living it and talking about it, as if it were legitimate.
—Louis-Georges Tin
Ahlstedt, Eva.
André Gide et le débat sur l’homosexualité
;
de L’Immoraliste (1902) à Si le grain ne meurt (1926)
. Gothenburg, Sweden: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 1994.
“Comptes rendus et dossiers de presse des livres d’André Gide,”
Bulletin des Amis d’André Gide
. Also accessible online at
http://www.gidiana.net
(accessed January 8, 2008).
Cotnam, Jaques.
Inventaire bibliographique et index analytique de la correspondance d’André Gide
. Boston: G. K. Hall & Co, 1975.
Guérin, Daniel.
Shakespeare et Gide en correctionnelle?
Paris: Ed. du Scorpion, 1959.
Lepape, Pierre.
André Gide, le messager
. Paris: Le Seuil, 1997.
Lucey, Michael.
Gide’s Bent: Sexuality, Politics, Writing
. New York/Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1995.
Mann, Klaus.
André Gide et la crise de la pensée moderne
. Paris: Grasset, 1999.
—Arenas, Reinaldo; Censorship; Custine, Astolphe de; Debauchery; France; Literature; Radclyffe Hall, Marguerite; Rhetoric; Viau, Théopile de; Wilde, Oscar.
GREECE, Ancient
From the eighth century BCE through to the Imperial Roman era in the second century CE, the Greek language did not have any significant terms for either homosexuality or heterosexuality. Greeks never defined sexual categories per se, including for those who had, as a common characteristic, an attraction to people of the same sex. Consequently, acts during this period that could be described as homophobic were not instigated against a unique, homogenous, and coherent group, but rather numerous and diverse types of behaviors, evaluated according to moral and social rules particular to Antiquity.
Greek society consisted of extreme hierarchal divisions, pitting men against women, the rich against the poor, citizens against slaves, paying clients against prostitutes, and land owners against peasants. Sexual relations were also deemed unequal, with one party more powerful than the other, and little room for individual expression. Practices that “conformed to the norm” were set in opposition to those “contrary to the norm”: if the roles of the “socially dominant” and the “socially dominated” were reversed, the persons, whatever their gender, were the object of ridicule. The idea of a person having sexual relations with someone of the same sex was not considered objectionable in and of itself so much as on other criteria. Consequently, negative reactions to homosexuality could not be construed as specifically homophobic, because the same responses could be made against other “practices contrary to the norm,” as with those between a man and a woman. It is in the context of the global condemnation based on that which is “contrary to the norm” that we can differentiate a specifically homophobic discourse, with all of its related characteristics and clichés.
Inasmuch as the Greek male was powerful and the Greek female was powerless, “homophobia” was expressed very differently against male homosexuals than lesbians. In ancient Greece, sexual intercourse between men often took the form of
paiderastia
(origin of the modern term “pederasty”), in which a mature male took up with a younger one, usually between the ages of twelve and eighteen. In these relationships, strict rules were obeyed; the younger object of desire (
eromenos
) must serve his older lover (
erastes
), who is moved by passionate desire. Physically, it was considered highly respectable for the
erastes
to insert his penis between the thighs of the
eromenos
; in this way, the
eromenos
’s physical integrity was kept intact. Society encouraged the seduction of
eromenoi
by
erastai
, but not vice versa.
Such relationships were brief and non-exclusive; adult males were still expected to marry even after having played the role of the
eromenos
, and even the
erastes
. A youth was permitted to engage in all kinds of sexual behavior, active or passive, with different partners; but if that youth continued to play the passive role as an adult, he was subjected to ridicule. Such is the case with the effeminate poet Agathon, whose relationship with Pausanias is ferociously attacked by Aristophanes in his play
Thesmophoriazusae
(
Women Celebrating Thesmophoria
), in language as violent as anything in the expression of homophobia. One characteristic of homophobic discourse in ancient Greece was the construction of the
kinaidos
, an effeminate male, whose passive role contrasted with the glorious image of the hoplite, the iconic Greek warrior.
What can explain the negative reaction against those in homosexual relationships that extend into adulthood, at the expense of
marriage
? Marriage produced children, thus perpetuating the human species so that one could attain immortality (according to Plato in
The Symposium
and
The Laws
); the refusal to reproduce was a refusal to attain immortality. The importance accorded to marriage by Greek society was also related to the ownership of land. In ancient Athens, one of the definitions of citizenship was the ability to own property (in addition, the duty to serve as a soldier). Only through marriage were land endowments allowed to be passed along; and by owning land, one was all that much more a Greek citizen. This again demonstrates that homophobia in ancient Greece was not the express disapproval of relations between men per se, but rather a means to penalize the refusal to obey Greek society’s rules of conduct: in this case, marriage, which had the ultimate goal of perpetuating the human species and allowing members to become full citizens (by having access to land).
Relationships between women, on the other hand, were rarely the subject of contemplation compared to those between men. There is relative silence on the subject except for the choir compositions of Alcman, a poet of ancient Sparta from the seventh century BCE, and the
melica
(lyric) poetry of
Sappho
, both of which explored aspects of love and desire between women. Plato was one of the rare authors to refer to it, through dialogue by Aristophanes in
The Banquet
, in which he outlined a typology of sexual behaviors where “feminine homosexuality” was very briefly mentioned, without condemnation or judgment. But for the most part it appears, through the dearth of text and imagery of lesbians from this era, that ancient Greece’s categorization of sexual practices simply excluded relations between women, perhaps in the belief that sexuality was a male prerogative.