BACON,FRANCIS, SIR matter exclusively in terms of male exem- (1561-1626) plars. Also significant is his Machiavel- English statesman, philosopher, lian commendation of dissimulation; the and essayist. After asornewhat shaky start best policy is "to have openness in fame in the service of Queen Elizabeth, during and opinion, secrecy in habit, dissimula- the reign of James I Bacon advanced from tion in seasonable use, and a power to knight (1603) to the offices of attorney feign if there be no remedy." The need to general (1613)and lord chancellor (1618). "edit" one's persona thus recognized is of In 1621, however, his position collapsed courseone facet of the closeted life, though when he was forced to plead guilty of Bacon's caution may have been reinforced charges of taking bribes; he then retired to by sensitivity regarding his occult and study and write. In the philosophy of sci- magical interests, which were scarcely ence Bacon has become identified, some- popular among the masses. times simplistically, with the method of induction, the patient accumulation of BIBLIOGRAPHY. Fulton Henry Anderson, Francis Bacon: His Career data toreach conclusions. Recent research, and His Thought, Los Angeles: Univer- however, has shown that this stereotypi- sity of Southern California Press, 1962; cal picture of a skeptical, essentially Paolo Rossi, Francis Bacon: From Magic modem figure is distorted and anachronis- to Science, London: Routledge, 1968. tic; Bacon's interest in experiment is in fact rooted in magical, alchemical, and r esoteric traditions. Although the notion BAILEY,DERRICK that he wrote Shakespeare's plays is now SHERWIN(1910-1984) discounted, his aphoristic Essays British theologian and historian; (1597-1625) are a stylistic achievement in Canon Residentiary of Wells Cathedral their own right. from 1962. Afterworld War IIBailey joined Evidence for Bacon's erotic predi- a group of Anglican clergymen and lectionfor~oungmeninhisem~lo~comes physicians to study homosexu~ity;their from two 'eventeenth-century findings were published in a 1954 Report John Aubrey and Sir SimondsDIEwes.The entitled The of Homosexua~ity latter even states that there was some produced for the Church of England Moral question of bringing him to for bug- Welfare Council by the Church Infoma- gery. Aletter survives from Bacon's mother tion Board. As part of this task Bailey chastizing him for his fondness for Welsh completed a separate historical study, boys. His marriage, which was childless Homosexuality and the Western Chris- and probably loveless, took place at 'he tian Tradition (London:Longmans, 1955). mature age of 46. Sir Francis Bacon seems Although this monograph has been criti- to have moved entirely in a masculine cized for tending to exculpate the Chris- In accord with Greco-Roman and tian church from blame in the persecution Renaissance predecessors, his "Of and defamation of homosexuals, it was a Friendship" confines itself to relations landmark in the history of the subject, between men. "Of Beauty" discusses the combining scrutiny of the Biblical evi- l 03 ..:.:.+:;:;:::.... . O BAILEY, DERRICK SHERWIN dence with a survey of subsequent history. tiouswork yet, Another Country (19611, in Bailey's book drew attention to a number which the sexual and racial themes are of neglected subjects, including the in- inextricably interwoven. Only partially tertestamental literature, the legislation successful, this novel presents the lives of of the Christian emperors, the peniten- a number of New Yorkers of varying sex- tial~,and the link between heresy and ual persuasions, who are linked by their sodomy. The author's interpretation of friendship with a black musician. Genesis 19, where he treats the Sodom Having successfully withstood story as essentially nonsexual-an instance the homophobia of the immediate post- of violation of hospitality-has not been waryears, theemergenceof the CivilRights generally accepted. The work of Bailey and movement gave Baldwin the chance to his colleagues prepared the way for the play a role at the center of the stage. His progressive Wolfenden Report (1957), prose work me Fire Next Time (1963) which was followed a decade later by effectively captures the moral fervor of the Parliament's decriminalization of homo- Kennedy years, and Baldwin seemed the sexual conduct between consentingadults Jeremiah that the country needed. Al- in England and Wales. though he continued to publish after this point, the writer seemed unable to find a balanced viewpoint, and his later novels BALDWIN,JAMES (1924-1987) and plays are sometimes diffuse and stri- dent. Some of his former admirers felt that American novelist, essayist, and he had become too much wrapped up in playwright. Born in New York City's Har- the rhetoric of black liberation, with its lem, his experiences as a child evangelist in the ghetto provided a rich store of mate- angry indictment of white injustice; con- rial, as well as contributing to his some- versely, some black critics found him times exhortatory style. His first novel, insufficiently militant. Try as he might, Go Tell It on the Mountain (19531, which he could not convince the younger black derives from this world, gave him immedi- radicals that he had not sold out to whitey. ate fame. Following the example of fellow Baldwin's estimate of the urgency of the black author Richard Wright, Baldwin had racial crisis led him to downplay the as moved to Paris at the age of 24; he was to homosexual theme. Yet a commentator live inFrance for most of therest of his life, on the continuing "American dilemma" though most of his concerns and work of race, Baldwin failed to deliver a message continued to center on the United States. that could carry full conviction for any The acclaim that he had garnered group. Despite his best efforts, in the view in the 1950s emboldened him to publish of many readers he never recaptured the Giovanni's Room [1961],an honest novel crystalline precision of his earlier works. about homosexuality sent out into a liter- These suffice, however, to assure his repu- ary world that was scarcely welcoming. tation as a writer of compelling power, a This book recounts the story of David, an sensitive observer not merely of blackness athletic, white American expatriate who and gayness, not merely of America and discovers his homosexuality in a relation- Europe, but of the inherent complexities ship with a working-class Italian in Paris; of the human condition. although it ends tragically with the death BIBLIOGRAPHY. Fred L. Standley, of Giovanni, the lean, yet intense style of lames Baldwin: A Reference Guide, this book, and its candor, left a lasting Boston: G.K. Hall, 1980; Carolyn Wedin impression. At the time, to be sure, critics Sylvander, lames Baldwin, New York: urged Baldwin to abandon such "exotic" Frederick Ungar, 1980; W. J. Weatherby, lames Baldwin: Artist on Pire, New subject matter and return to native themes. York: Donald I. Fine, 1989. Baldwin responded with his most ambi- Wayne R. Dynes BALZAC, HONOR^ DE 9

BALLET where the prisoners, of the same sex but of See Dance. different ages, are crowded together under conditions that favor homosexuality. BALZAC,HONORJ? DE Vautrin is the symbol of imprisoned sexu- (1799-1850) ality, incarcerated because he took the French novelist. Balzac is best blame for the crime of another, "a very known as the creator of the Combdie hu- handsome young man whom he greatly loved." The novelist's depiction of prison maine, a vast collection of interlocking novels and stories of which about ninety homosexuality goes beyond any mere were written in less than twenty years. documentary treatment; it does not hide the sexual dimension of prison friendships, The Comt?diehumainedisplays bothunity and diversity: if a number of narratives are but shows them as a form of love with set in Paris in the 18209, the bold strate- values all their own. The homosexual gem of letting characters from one book element is present everywhere in the know characters from another fosters the prison, yet unutterable and unmention- reader's growing conviction of the reality able. Vautrin's secret is that he does not of the world evoked by the novelist. The love women, but when and how does he literary complex also carries conviction love men? He does so only in the rents of the fabric of the narrative, because the because of the interplay of critical atti- technique of the novelist lies exactly in tudes that expressBalzaclsintuitive analy- sis of modern society: even the more ob- not speaking openly, but letting the reader scure private dramas are linked with the know indirectly the erotic background of life of France at a particular moment in its the events of his story. The physical union history-the Restoration and the July of Vautrin with Lucien he presents with Monarchy. The stresses and conflicts be- stylistic subtlety as apredestined coupling tween thought and instinct, between Paris of two halves of one being, as submission and the provinces, between those who to a law of nature. The homosexual aspect cling to the past and those who move with of the discourse must always be masked, the times-all these mirror Balzacfs need must hide behind a euphemism, a taunt- to compensate for what life had failed to ing ambiguity that nevertheless tells all to give him and the truth of his own experi- the knowing reader. ence. Balzac transformed the novel into a The pact struck between Vautrin vehicle for reflective commentary on and Lucien is a Faustian one. Vautrin modem society and so to an incalculable dreams of owning a plantation in the degree influenced succeeding generations American South where on a hundred thou- of writers in many tongues. sand acres he can have absolute power While there is no evidence that over his slaves-including their bodies. Balzac was overtly homosexual, he has Balzac refers explicitly to examples of the been suspected of a latent and sublimated pederasty of antiquity as a creative, civili- bisexuality in the paternal "friendships" zation-building force by analogy with the which he cultivated with the handsome Promethean influence of Vautrin upon his young men with whom he surrounded beloved Lucien. Vautrin is almost diaboli- himself. At the same time, the homosex- cal as a figure of exuberant masculinity, ual theme flourishes in his work, in either whileLucien embodies the gentleness and an open or a veiled fashion, even if Balzac meekness of the feminine. The uncon- was always considered the author who scious dimension of their relationship specialized in woman and marriage. Balzac underlines with magnificent sym- In Splendeurs et miskres des cour- bolism. He characterizes Vautrin as a tisanes (1844-46) Balzac describes the monster, "but attached by love to human- world of the tantes ("queensf') in prison, ity." Homosexual love is not relegated to 105 4 4 BALZAC, HONOR^ DE the margin of society, as in the darkunder- to this celestial dignity. The personage world of the prison, but expresses the full- after whom the story is named appears to ness of affection with all its physical the main characters, Wilfrid and Minna, as demands and its spiritual powers. Homo- SQaphita and SCraphitus respectively. But sexuality is not the whole of Vautrin's while Minna is an insignificant and dreamy existence, but he is incomprehensible romantic heroine, Wilfrid is a mature hero without it, it stylizes his will to power and with a stormy past and aspirations for a invests it with its driving force. glorious future, who nevertheless is ready There is also a political aspect to to sacrifice all his ambitions to obtain homosexuality in Balzac: in it he saw a SCraphita "who should be a.divine woman defiance of the society that proscribed and to possess." Balzac represents both as in marginalized it and a challenge to prevail- love with one and the same person, a ing moral values. By virtue of living out- chosen being endowed with a mysterious side the French bourgeois society of his power. The androgyne does not symbolize day, Vautrin gains insight into its hypoc- bisexuality, but nature in its wholeness, in risy and expresses his contempt for its its original purity, "the diverse parts of the sham values. He declares that in reality Infinite forming a living melody." Having honesty is useless, money is everything, revealed to the hero and heroine an ideal the sole moral principle is to maintain a love, SCraphitus-SQaphita departs for a fa~adeof propriety, justice is corrupt. The heaven free of the earthly misery that poor are no better than the rich, and it has human beings must endure. always been this way. In such an ethical Recently, the story "Sarrasine" context homosexuality is the practice of (1830)has attracted scholarly attention, those who have gauged society and per- notably from the homosexual critic Roland ceived its hollowness, liberating them- Barthes. This short, but resonant narrative selves from the social contract, while the concerns theambiguities of afamily whose world of heterosexuality is a world of false fortunes are founded on the achievements anti-values maintained by shameful and of a castrato. covert means. The affirmation of the erotic Balzac confronted the mysteries is the negation of the legitimacy of the of homosexuality and intersexuality in respectable and so-called honorable. their forms both real and ideal, not just as In 1835 Balzac published his ex- a chronicler of the France of his time, but travagantly plotted La fille aux yeux d'oq also as a visionary whose imagination which concerns a beautiful young wo- relived myths of pagan antiquity. man kept in seclusion by a lesbian who, after an absence, discovers her ward's infi- BIBLIOGRAPHY. Philippe Berthier, "Balzac du wtt de Sodome," L'Annde delity with a man and kills her. Again, the balzacienne (19791, 147-77; Marie writer sought to use the theme to illus- Delcourt, "Deux interprttations trate the corruption of contemporary soci- romanesques du mythe de l'androgyne: ety, but was less successful in empathiz- Mignon et Straphita," Revue des ing with his characters. langues vivantes, 38 (19721, 228-40, 340-47. Elsewhere in his work, in Sba- Warren Iohansson phita (18341,Balzac took up the theme of the androgyne under the influence of Emanuel Swedenborg. He asserted that he BANG, HERMAN had begun to write the story at the age of (1857-1712) nineteen and that he had long "dreamed of Danish novelist and short story the beingwith two natures." The underly- writer. Associated with the theatre for ing myth is that all the angels were once much of his life, Bang was also active as a human beings who earned their elevation journalist and critic in opposition to Georg BANNEKER, BENJAMIN 4

Brandes. He died duringa tour of theunited education at a one-room country school States. that ended when he was old enough to Bang internalized a negative view work full-timewith his father on the farm, of homosexuality from the pathological but like most intellectuals of the colonial theories current in his youth. Fearful of period he continued to learn through pri- blackmail and ridicule, he guarded his vate reading for the rest of his life. By his expressions of what meant most to him, method of self-instruction he emerged a even in letters, so that his inner life must competent mathematician and amateur be read between the lines. Declaring that astronomer. Proficient enough to calcu- people were not ready for the truth about late an almanac, he devised one for the homosexuality, he withheld his essay on year 1791 but was unable to see it through the subject. This study, "Gedanken zum to press. However, Banneker's Almanack Sexualitatsproblem," deliberately written for the years 1792 through 1797 was pub- in a neutral and objective tone, was pub- lished in a number of editions. It reflected lished posthumously_in Germany in 1922. a new trend in that its contents were de- Nonetheless, Bang believed that his homo- voted to national events and local causes; sexuality was a gift, linked to his creativ- also by popularizing the theme of anti- ity as a writer and permitting him to see slavery, it contributed substantially to the both the masculine and the feminine side abolitionist cause. Banneker assistedMajor of human nature. Andrew Ellicott during the preliminary His first novel, Haablose Slaegter survey of the ten-mile square and in estab- (1880;Generationswithout HopeJ focuses lishing lines for some of the major points on the decadent scion of an ancient family, in the future capital of Washington. In his who is evidently homosexual. His novella time hewas the emblematic figure of black Mikael(1904)presents a much more joy- achievement in the sciences, and as such ous picture of life and love, including received considerable attention from the special friendships in artistic circles. In abolitionist societies. 1916 the Swedish director Mauritz Stiller Banneker remained a bachelor all made Mikael into a film under the title his life, and no evidence can be found for The Wings; this work is regarded by some any romantic attachment or for illegiti- as the first gay motion picture. Although mate offspring. He led a casual, rather Bang today enjoys the status of a major solitary existence, and since his father writer in his own country, understanding died when Benjamin was twenty-eight, he of his work has until recently been ham- had to assume full responsibility for his pered by imposition of Freudian schemas, mother and the farm. His leisure time was which ignore the complexities of his self- given by preference to his studies. A trace understanding. of self-revelation may have escaped in a short essay in his firs; published almanac BIBLIOGRAPHY. Pal Bjerby, "The which declared that poverty, disease, and Prison House of Sexuality: Homosexual- ity in Herman Bang Scholarship," violence inflict less suffering than the Scandinavian Studies, 58 (1986), "pungent stings . . . which guilty passions 223-55. dart into the heart." Benjamin Banneker deserves to be remembered as a homosex- ual who played a significant role in the intellectual life of the young American B ANNEKER, BENJAMIN (1731-1 806) Republic. American mathematician and BIBLIOGRAPHY. Silvio A. Bedini, The astronomer. The son of free blacks who Life of Benjamin Banneker, New York: were landowners in Baltimore County in Charles Scribner's Sons, 1972. tidewater Maryland, he received a brief Warren lohansson + BANQUETS

BANQUETS finally found under Guggenheim's protec- See Symposia. tion enabled Barnes to complete her masterpiece, Nightwood, which was pub- lished with an introduction by T.S. Eliot in BARNES,D JUNA (1892-1981) Londonin 1936.This novel, which focuses around the bizarre figure of the homosex- American novelist, playwright, ual Dr. OIConnor, stands in a class of its and journalist. She was born in Cornwall- own: an incomparable evocation of one on-Hudson, NY, the daughter of a culti- writer's view of Paris and Berlin during the vated Englishwoman and an unsuccessful interwar years. artist. In her twenties she worked in New Barely escaping from Paris at the York City as a journalist and illustrator. start of World War II, Barnes returned to With her tall, dashing figure, she was able New York, where she found a tiny apart- to obtain colorful interviews that sold to major papers, her earnings contributing to ment in Patchin Place in Greenwich Vil- lage. Here she was to live in increasing the support of her impecunious family. The bohemian life of Greenwich Village seclusion for forty years, supported mainly was then at its height, and Barnes had by a tiny allowance from Guggenheim. Although she wrote less and less, Barnes entree into the salon of Mabel Dodge, the "den mother" of the avant-garde. She also did manage to publish a second major became friends with the homosexual art- work, the bitter play Antiphon, in 1958.In her last years a few determined lesbian ist Marsden Hartley; throughout her life, Barnes was to have important gay-male activists and scholars managed to pene- friends. trate her isolation, while the sale of her In New York's milieu of feminist papers to the University of Maryland gave assertion her literary horizons widened, her a financial security that had long eluded and at the end of World War I she went to her. Paris, where shebecame friends with James A link between the avant-garde of Joyce. Supporting herself with her journal- Paris and New York, as well as the worlds ism, she blended with the lesbian and of male and female homosexuality, Barnes homosexual life of what later came to be had a literary voice all her own that will calledthe "Lost Generation,, in the French guarantee her a place in the capital. With Thelma Wood, a sculptress twentieth-century sensibility. from Missouri, Barnes began a stormy af- BIBLIOGRAPHY. Andrew Field, Djuna: fair that lasted until 1931. She also pub- The Life and Times of Djuna Barnes, lished her first serious work, a collection New York: Putnam, 1983. of poems, stories, plays, and drawings, Evelyn Gettone entitledsimply A Book,in 1923. Five years later her Ryder, a bawdy retelling of the history of the Barnes family, appeared BARNEY,NATALIE briefly on the bestseller lists, the only CLIFFORD(1876-1972) approach to popularity she was to enjoy in American writer and patron of her lifetime. Published anonymously, her the arts. Born into a wealthy family of lesbian Ladies Almanack (1928) was Dayton, Ohio, Barney had been to Europe hawked on the streets of Paris by Barnes several times, before she settled in Paris in and others. 1902 at the height of the belle kpoque. By the early thirties her drinking Living a public life, she made her home in and nervous breakdowns had become seri- the Rue Jacob a prominent literary salon ous, and she sought refuge first inTangiers for over a half a century. While this salon and then at the home of Peggy Guggen- attracted many famous men of letters, it heim in England. The security that she was also outstanding as a focus for the 108 .>.+ .:...... BARNFIELD, RICHARD Q international lesbian colony inParis. With Shakespeare. He published his first vol- her affluence, self-assurance, and accom- ume of poetry in 1594, The Affectionate plishments as a writer, Barney provided a Shepherd, a sonnet sequence based on role model for many women, then and Virgil's second eclogue and using as main now. Always candid about her lesbianism, characters an older man in love with a she nonetheless elicited the devotion of younger. The volume was dedicated to such figures as Remy de Gourmont, Gab- Penelope Rich who was Sir Philip Sidney's riele DIAnnunzio, Bernard Berenson, and "Stella" and eventually the mistress of Ezra Pound. Charles Blount, a minor court figure. Her first book, Quelques por- Hudson reads the Ganimede character in traits-sonnets de femmes, was published Barnfield's poems as Blount, but Morris in Paris in 1900. Like most of her works it attacks the suggestion.No further attempts was written in classic French. Influenced have been made to identify historical fig- by Greek literature, Barney was not stylis- ures behind The Affectionate Shepherd. tically an experimental writer. After her The unmistakably homosexual affair with the celebrated courtesan Liane theme in The Affectionate Shepherd poems de Pougy, Barney established a literary may have prompted Barnfield to claim in liaison with the doomed Anglo-French the preface to his next volume (Cynthia, writer of decadent themes, RenCe Vivien 1595) that readers had misinterpreted his (Pauline Tarn), who died in 1909, despite first poems, but the disclaimer is ambigu- Barney's ministrations. Her most long- ous and suggests that Barnfield was in lasting relationship, amounting to a mar- trouble for political reasons, not for the riage, was with the American painter, sexual love portrayed in his poems. Barn- Romaine Brooks. field's sonnets are not graphically sexual Influenced by her friend Pound, and may best be described as "homoerotic," Barney's political opinions became more but they treat more obviously of an emo- conservative in the 1930s. Although she tional infatuation between an older man was partly of Jewish descent, she chose to and a younger than do the sonnets of Barn- spend World War I1 in Italy, where she field's contemporary William Shakespeare. expressed her admiration for Mussolini. Of his "Poems in divers Humours" (1598)) Her outspoken memoir of this period has two were reprinted in the 1599 Passionate not been published. Her luck held up, Pilgrim and wereattributed to Shakespeare however, and she was able to resettle in until the twentieth century. Barnfield her home in Paris without incident. retired from public notice soon after his last book and possibly lived as agentleman BIBLIOGRAPHY. Karla Jay, The farmer. Amazon and the Pare:- Natalie Clifford Barney and Renbe Vivien, Bloomington: BIBLIOGRAPHY. Scott Giantvalley, Indiana University Press, 1988; George "Barnfield, Dray ton, and Marlowe: Wickes, The Amazon of Letters; The Homoeroticism and Homosexuality in Life and Loves of Natalie Barney, Elizabethan Literature," Pacific Coast London: Allen, 1977. Philolow-. 16:2 119811. 9-24; H. H. Hudson, "penelope ~evere'uas Sidney's Stella," Huntington Library I Bulletin (April, 1935), 89-129; Henry BARNFIELD,RICHARD Morris, Richard Barnfield, Colin's (1574-1627) Child, Tallahassee: Florida State English poet. Born in Norbury, University Press, 1963. England, Barnfield graduated from Oxford George Klawitter in 1592. Among his friends were the Eliza- bethan poets Thomas Watson, Michael Drayton, Francis Meres, and possibly 4 BARS

BARS ises and only invited guests were present. In contemporary American Eng- The origins of the word tavern lead back to lish, a bar is a premises licensed to sell Roman shops, including wine shops, with liquor by the glass to the public. In addi- open counters on the street. A more tion food may be served and entertain- immediate source is the taphouse of late ment offered. From ca. 1935 to 1970 the medieval Europe, where one could not "gay bar" was the premier institution of only purchase drink but linger in the the male homosexual community. There company of others. That patrons often were no homosexual enclaves without at became rowdy and licentious is shown by least one. Unlike other commercial the common charge that such places were establishments, crossing the threshold of the "Devil's school." At the beginning of a gay bar brought the patron immediately the sixteenth century Niccolb Machia- from neutral or hostile territory into "gay velli seems to have frequented a homosex- space," where only the rules of one's own ual (or mixed) tavern in Florence. At the community applied. The pivotal role of end of the century the English dramatist the bars was affirmed by the dubious acco- Christopher Marlowe presented his sub- lade of police raids and shakedowns. Their versive views in a place which must have positive functions notwithstanding, the tolerated homosexual custom, if not actu- popularity of the bars is linked to the high ally soliciting it. In these two cases it is rates of alcoholism among gay men and difficult to be certain about the actual lesbians. character of the places; they belong to the Several reasons for the pivotal general realm of the criminal underworld. role of the bars in the male homosexual In the early eighteenth century the nature community may be noted. There is the of the London molly houses becomes very well-known effect of alcohol in reducing clear: they were private places of homo- inhibitions, which tend to rise to a higher sexual entertainment and assignation. threshold in those of deviant sexuality After their unmasking, however, the vari- than in others. Also, in the Anglo-Saxon ous vigilance societies seem to have pre- world drinking itself carries overtones of vented a recurrence. In the middle of the taboo, reinforced by recurrent temperance nineteenth century the curtain lifts again, campaigns, which achieved a complete with the continentalBohemian cafks, with though ephemeral victory in the United their mixed clientele of artists, would-be States Prohibition (192033).Finally, bars artists, prostitutes, and sexual noncon- have traditionally played a role in male formists. culture as a whole. Toward the Present. Scholars can It has been said that the bar itself first monitor an ecology of gay bars as such is an institution limited to the English- inBerlin after 1900, where a host of them, speakingworld. But if we alter the terms of operating more or less openly, was sur- the inquiry slightly to include taverns and veyed by Magnus Hirschfeld. In the 1920s cabarets, we can see that this is not so. Of lesbian bars and cabarets flourished in course, public houses where liquor is served Germany, alongside the male ones. At this will vary in atmosphere and amenities time American gay bars appeared, but as according to national traditions, regula- part of the speakeasy underworld, because tions, and customs. of Prohibition. Their atmosphere has been Historical Perspectives. The first recorded in such period novels as Lew memorable association of male group Levinson's Butterfly Man (19341, Blair drinkingwith homosexuality takesus back Niles's Strange Brother (1931 j, and Robert to Plato's dialogue, The Symposium, Scully's A Scarlet Pansy ( 1933). though this event, like other symposia, Once Prohibition was ended, the took place (presumably) in rented prem- states established boards to control li- BARS O cencing, and these could be used to harass drag queens. The chief functions re- operators of gay bars. Places that succeeded mained socialization and cruising, both of in staying open had to maintain a low which were promoted by millingpatterns. profile, being located oftentimes in un- While it was the aim of patrons in search freqented warehouse areas and with little of a quick pickup to have one drink, find a in the way of a sign. More elegant estab- partner, and go home, the bar owner's lishments were sometimes found in the interest dictated causing him to linger, interior of hotels. Thus it was necessary to drinking more and more. Some of this know someone to discover the "special" "stay awhile" effectwas achieved through bars. Many patrons were regulars, attend- positive attractions, such as a pool table, ing night after night, and an informal but often loud music inhibited conversa- peckingorder grew up among them. Need- tion, while floor layout, dim lighting, and less to say, the loyalty of the regulars was decor discouraged speed. In this respect assiduously cultivated by the owners.Some the gay bar stood at the opposite pole from patrons would seek advice from bartend- the fast-food outlet, where lights were ers, though this habit was less common bright and everything was done to encour- than in straight bars because the gay bar- age quick eating and departure. Some bar tenders, chosen for their looks, tended to owners maximized patronage by having function as sex objects enveloped in an one clientele, usually heterosexual, dur- atmosphere of narcissistic aloofness. Partly ing the day, and another, the gay crowd, at for protective camouflage, straight couples night. out for a "different" evening were wel- Gay Liberation. Much of this comed. Some male bars had one or more atmosphere disappeared in the 1970s, when regular heterosexual women patrons, much bars became more open and friendly. These treasured counselors who served as unoffi- changes were made possible by the height- cial "den mothers." In small localities bars ened activity of the gay liberation move- would cater to both men and women, but ment in the phase which began, signifi- in large places they could be quite special- cantly enough, with the 1969 raid on New ized, some for a younger, others (the York City's Stonewall Inn and the ensuing "wrinkle bars") for an older crowd, some riot. Bar owners were quick to take advan- admitting only an elegant clientele, others tage of the increased commercial possi- hosting "rough trade." As a general rule, bilities, and a few created huge discos the bigger the city, the more specialized noted for their elaborate sound systems. In were the types of bars found there. Large addition to their legal sales of liquor, these cities also displayed a contrast between places saw considerable consumption and cozy neighborhood bars, with a social trading of drugs by patrons. Some of the emphasis, and high-intensity places at- more ordinary bars took on a greater civic tracting a crowd from a broad radius. responsibility helping to distribute move- Prices were high to take care of ment literature and newspapers, and per- bribes and payoffs that were regularly mitting their premises to be used for char- required. Hitches in this system led to ity dances in support of AIDS victims and raids, as a result of which the patrons other causes. Unlike the pre-1970s bars would be carted off to the police station where sexual activity was strictly forbid- and their identities taken-which could den, some bars had "back rooms" where a be disastrous for some. Hence an atmos- fullrange of sexual acts was consummated phere of clandestinity and danger was in the dark. In the era of AIDS, however, always present, heightening the attraction most of this orgiastic gratification ceased. for some patrons. The more ambitious Comparative Perspectives. In places provided live entertainment, includ- Europe the gay bar was a characteristic of ing semiprofessional performances by northern countries, especially Germany 4 BARS

and Scandinavia. Somewhat different was turning point in his criticism is probably the homosexual pub in Britain, which the tourde force S/Z(Paris, 1970),analyzing tended toretain the homey comforts of the Balzac's novella about an aging castrato, national tradition. The tourist trade of the Sarrasine. Here Barthes turns away from 1960s helped to promote the spread of the the linear, goal-oriented procedures of gay bar to southern Europe, while Japan traditional criticism in favor of a new mode continued to evolve its own distinctive that is dispersed, deliberately marginal, variation, which had existed for a number and "masturbatory." In literature, he of decades. emphasized the factor of jouissance, a word Lesbian bars have always been which means both "bliss" and "sexual relatively few. This paucity is only partly ejaculation." Whether these procedures attributable to the fact that lesbians have constitute models for a new feministlgay less spending money. Historically, the critical practice that will erode the power virtual monopoly of homosexual bar cul- of patriarchy, as some of his admirers have ture by men reflects the fact that women asserted, remains unclear. were at one time not welcome in most bars Using the concept of dominant in general, or had to be accommodated in ideology of Marxist provenience, Barthes special rooms adjacent to the rough-and- also wrote perceptive analyses of advertis- tumble of the bar itself. Although feminist ing and fashion. Apart from a study of pressure has removed the rules that ex- contemporary Japan (L'Empire des signes, cludedwomen, the custom of social drink- Paris, 1970), he addressed French litera- ing retains vestiges of male culture in our ture and culture almost exclusively. society. Nonetheless, he won many adherents in the English-speakingworld, in large meas- BIBLIOGRAPHY. Sherri Cavan, Liquor ure because his works convey an indomi- License: An Ethnography of Bar Behavior, Chicago: Aldine, 1%6; John table verve and infectious relish of the Alan Lee, Getting Sex, Don Mills, Ont.: subjects he discussed. These qualities, Musson, 1978; Kenneth E. Read, Other rather than any finished system, account Voices: The Style of a Male Homosexual for his continuing influence. CA. Chandler Tavern, Novato, and Barthes, who never married, was Sharp, 1980. Wayne R. Dynes actively homosexual during most of his life. Although his books are often per- sonal, in his writing he excluded this major BARTHES,ROLAND aspect of his experience, even when writ- (1915-1980) ing about love. Because of the attacks French literary critic and social launched against him for his critical inno- commentator. Barthes introduced intothe vations, he was apparently reluctant to discussion of literature an original inter- give his enemies an additional stick with pretation of semiotics based on the work which to beat him. Barthes' postumously of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. published Incidents (Paris, 1987) does His workwas associated with the Structu- 1 contain some revealing diary entries. The ralist trend as represented by Claude Lkvi- first group stems from visits he made, Strauss, Julia Kristeva, Tzvetan Todorov, evidently in part for sexual purposes, to and others. Attacked by the academic North Africa in 196849. The secondgroup establishment for subjectivism, he formu- of entries records restlela evenings in Paris lated a concept of criticism as a creative in the autumn of 1979 just before his process on an equal plane with fiction and 1 death. These jottings reveal that, despite poetry. Even those favorable to his work his great fame, he frequently experienced conceded that this could amount to a rejection and loneliness. Whatever his "sensuous manhandling" of the text. The personal sorrows, Barthes' books remain BATHHOUSES 9 to attest aremarkable human beingwhose Roman republic, the bath as an institution activity coincided with an ebullient phase reached its height when Rome had ex- of Western culture. tended its dominion throughout the Medi- terranean. Amounting almost to secular BIBLIOGRAPHY. Sanford Freedman, cathedrals, the baths served a variety of Roland Barthes: A Bibliographical , Reader's Guide, New York: Garland, individual and social requirements. Ther- 1983. mae fulfilled a need for personal cleanli- Wayne R. Dynes ness in an era when private baths were all but unknown. In addition to care of the skin, they fostered physical culture in the broader sense through exercise and mas- As a result of the general expan- sage facilities. Baths whose waters had a sion and commercialization of male high sulfur content served medicinal pur- homosexual life after World War 11, the poses, anticipating modem spas. Then the institution of the gay bathhouse became a baths were indoor arcades, permitting fixture of major cities of Europe and North strolling patrons to meet friends and busi- America. In these establishments only a ness associates, exchanging pleasantries small area of the premises is devoted to and information. Some of the more irnpos- immersion tubs and sauna rooms; the bulk ing Roman baths embraced cultural and of the floor space consists of cubicleswhich educational functions by offering public are used for resting and for consensual lectures and making libraries available to sexual encounters. Other rooms are given clients. Finally, Roman baths offered a over to nonsexual entertainment (televi- convenient gathering place for those in sion, billiards, music). quest of sexual release. Initially, such Historical Perspectives. Today's contacts were necessarily homosexual, gay bathhouses stem ultimately from a sinceonly men were admitted to the baths. cultural tradition that can be traced back Later, under theRomanEmpire, some baths over two millennia. In every society in were open to women, for the most part which public baths flourished, the institu- female attendants who also served as pros- tion was shaped not only by its specific titutes. Thus the Roman baths offered a characteristics, but also by the values and kaleidoscopic variety of disparate, yet re- norms of the larger community. lated functions. In ancient Greece the baths As part of its inheritance from the formed part of the highly developed prac- Roman empire, the civilization of Islam tice of physical culture and athletics. continued the custom of offering bath Archeologists have uncovered bath build- facilities for health and pleasure, along- ings adjoining the palaestras or training side the ritual baths required by Koranic grounds of athletes. By attaching the bath law. MedievalIslamic sources indicate that to the athletic (and to some extent mili- baths of the former class were used not tary) function of physical fitness, the only for health reasons, but for socializa- Greeks broke with the sacral and ritual tion and homosexual contacts. Signifi- tradition of Near Eastern lustration-the cantly, modern bathhouses of Europe and religious bath-which nonetheless has a America have been termed "Turkish successor in the continuing Jewish cus- Baths," and sometimes boast tiled decor tom of the mikva or ritual bath. recalling this Muslim institution. The Romans attached far more Strongly discouraged by Chris- importance to public baths than did the tian moralism in the early Middle Ages, Greeks, creating imposing structures public baths nonetheless reappeared in knownas thermaefor the purpose through- medieval cities as an essential aspect of out their empire. Originating under the sanitation, beginning in the twelfth cen- 4 BATHHOUSES tury. These locales were notoriously places office buildings--or by being situated in of sexual dalliance. In the fourteenth cen- warehouse districts with little traffic at tury the English poets Chaucer and Lang- night. Admission was controled by a booth land attest the use of the word "stews" as where, after payment the client could meaning both a bathhouse and a place of deposit valuables in a small lockbox. He prostitution, a notion that recurs some- would then proceed to a cubicle or locker, what later in the term "bagnio" derived exchanging his clothing for a towel, the from Italian bagno. It was in fact the out- only garment usually worn. The layout of break of syphilis in Europe after 1493 that a successful bathhouse would facilitate caused the decline of the medieval baths as encounters so that the desirable sexual loci of heterosexual intimacy. contacts could be made through the char- In early modern Europe baths acteristic milling activity in the often became less general in character and more labyrinthine halls. Some patrons preferred institutions appealing to special interests. to remain mostly in their rooms with the There is information on baths frequented door open, indicating by body position the by a homosexual clientele during the type of activity required. Should a poten- French Second Empire (1852-70) and the tial partner regarded as undesirable enter, German Empire (1871-1918). While the he would usually be gently rebuffed, as details of the development require further with the words "I'm just resting." One of elucidation, it was this specialized Euro- the more attractive features of the baths pean homosexual bathhouse that was was the mildness of turndowns; the re- transferred in the late nineteenth century jected person, for his part, knew that other to North American cities. An informant potential partners were available. describing the United States in the early Many bathhouses possessed "orgy years of the present century mentions baths rooms" for group activity, though these patronized by homosexuals in New York are now mainly a thing of the past. Physi- City, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and cally, the bathhouse should assure a cer- "a small city in Ohio." Contemporane- tain level of comfort and cleanliness, pos- ously, they are also documented in San sibly boasting a snack bar, gymnasium, Francisco, while in southern California and television room. However, older, dete- outdoor bathing facilities frequented by riorating establishments were able to homosexuals gained favor. During this conceal their dilapidation by dim lighting. period security was uncertain and police In a very few cases, as in the old Continen- raids were always a possibility. Small 1 tal Baths of New York City, live entertain- wonder then that many patrons preferred ment was provided. In any event, recorded to take their tricks home rather than risk music relaying the latest hits-and some- detection-and possible blackmail-in the ' times pieces meant solely for a gay audi- bathhouse. ence--enhanced the sexual atmosphere Toward the Present. With the 1 throughout the premises. Many patrons more open American society after World were repeat visitors, basking in a known, War 11 these conditions began to change. shared reality. In an era of soaring hotel Ethnographic studies of the bathhouses in prices, some touristswould use bathhouses the 1970s revealed a number of salient for cheap overnight accommodation. features. Mindful of the older history of Usually, however, an extra fee was charged raids and continuing general social disap- for a stay of over eight hours. It was not proval, patrons continued to rate security common to find male prostitutes (hus- and protection as important. The estab- tlers) there plying their trade-few would lishments kept a low profile by having ' be willing to pay for what they could get obscure entrances, sometimes being lo- for free-but hustlers would sometimes be cated on the upper floors of nondescript brought in by aclient they hadmet outside BEACHES 4 in order to use a room. Despite strong BEACH,S~VIA (NANCY) disapproval on the part of the manage- (1887-1962) ment, some surreptitious drug dealingtook American expatriate bookseller, place among patrons; consumption of publisher, and intellectual. The daughter mind-altering drugs, often taken just be- of a Presbyterian minister in Princeton, fore arriving, was certainly common. As a NJ, Beach settled in France during World rule, alcohol was not served, but could be War I. In 1919 she established Shakespeare brought in. Stereotypically,sexual encoun- and Company, an English-languagebook- ters in the baths were completely anony- store and lending library in Paris that was mous; however, a few clients report hav- to become one of thechief gathering places ing begun love affairs or friendships as a of the international avant-garde. Beach's result of meetings there. A curious dy- companion, AdrienneMonnier,whose own namic is that during off-hours, when few bookshop was located only a short dis- people were present, contacts could gener- tance away, played a similar role in French ally be made quickly, while when the letters. A kind of arbiter and confidant of building was crowded patrons could be- the whole "Lost Generation," Beach was come quite choosy, in hopes that the associated with such figures as Djuna Bar- continuing intake would produce more nes, Natalie Barney, B~yher(Winifred Ell- desirable individuals. Some patrons would erman),Ernest Hemingway, Robert McAl- have ten or more contacts, but the major- mon, Ezra Pound, and Gertrude Stein. Her ity seem to have restricted themselves to greatest accomplishment was her two two or three, or even one. decades as publisher for her close friend, In the 1980s, with the unfolding the mercurial James Joyce. of the AIDS crisis in theunited States, the A member of the influential les- bathhouses came under attack because bian colony in Paris in the years between the promiscuous sexual encounters that the wars, Beach nonetheless led a discrete, took place there were held to promote the almost closeted life, supported by her spread of the disease. Although this charge "marriage" with Monnier. Electing to stay was denied, and many bathhouses began on during the German occupation of Paris, to distribute safe sex information and where she saved her books from confisca- condoms as a positive contribution, it was tion, she emerged trimphantly after the clear that their days of glory were over. war as a senior figure in the world of Many bathhouses in smallerlocalitieswere letters. forced to close for lack of business. The owners of some establishments tried to BIBLIOGRAPHY. Noel Riley Fitch, Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation, change them into health clubs, but with New York: Norton, 1983. mixed success. In San Francisco, as aresult of pressure from public officials, the last bathhouse closed its doors in 1987. In BEACHES Europe, however, bathhouses-usually Most North American (andmany termed saunas there--continue to flour- European) cities located nea water have a ish, and new ones even open from time to gay (maleJbeach. If geography permits, it is time. typically more remote or difficult to reach BIBLIOGRAPHY. Joseph Styles, than the beach servingheterosexuals. Only "Outsider/Insider: Researching Gay those "in the know" will go the extra Baths," Urban Life, 8:2 (July1979), distance, or negotiate the natural barriers, 139-52; Martin S. Weinberg and Colin J. to waet there. Williams, "Gay Baths and the Social Where there are no natural barri- Organization of Impersonal Sex," Social ers, one portion of a large public beach may Problems, 232 (1975), 124-36. Wayne R. Dynes become known among homosexuals as O BEACHES gay territory. Original proximity to a tea- bartenders, Wednesday for hair stylists) room (public toilet frequented for sexual may find the gay beach more occupied purposes) may generate a traditiori that a than other beaches. Cruising is not neces- section of beach is gay, and the tradition sarily limited to the beach; if access is by can survive long after the tearoom is gone. public transport or ferry, this may also In any event, the sight of hundreds of men, offer numerous opportunities. Offshore, and no women or children, across a stretch gay men with sailboats or yachts may of beach, readily leads most heterosexuals, anchor, rowing to shore to offer attractive especially with families, to stay clear. strangers a tour in their craft. Those who unwittingly or stubbornly Social skills are as important as invade may be offended or subjected to an attractive body in cruising a beach. "grossing out." This behavior (one form of Some men set up alone on a blanket, sig- camp among gays) is a deliberate enact- nalling their possible availability, while ment of a stereotype attributed to homo- others prefer to gather in groups, hoping sexuals that embarasses the heterosexuals that mutual friends will facilitate intro- into moving. ductions. In either case, it is common to A gay beach may be more capable periodically go for a stroll along the beach, of defense against intruding or threatening winding one's way through the complex of heterosexuals than other territories such towels and blankets, exchanging smiles or as a park or main cruising street. Teen- glances. The slimmest acquaintance or agers intent on harassment at a crowded familiarity of faces may be used to strike gay beach are likely to find themselves up conversation (which may actually be surrounded by a silent but menacing group directed not to the person conversed with, of gay men. This added element of safety, but to a total stranger on thenext blanket). even if only tacitly understood, often Social visiting between blanket- encourages gay men and lesbians to more basedgroups, whether by couplesor singles, outrageous behavior for their own enter- is easy and common. A picnic lunch in- tainment on a gay beach than in other creases socializing and lowers inhibitions public spaces. This in turn helps establish against introducing oneself to strangers the beach in heterosexual minds as a gay ("Are you hungry? There's lots here."). place. Ironically, the greater exposure of flesh in Gay beaches are favorite places a public place often makes encounters for cruising for several reasons: a large more conversational, and less limited to number of potential partners is concen- an agenda of impersonal sex, than a dark trated in a small area, and they are likely to park or gay baths. be above average in attractiveness, since Lesbians appear less likely to the tanned and well-built are readier to establish a beach and very few cities have show the body; there are readily manufac- a lesbian beach. The reasons undoubtedly tured excuses for introducing oneself to include less cruising behavior in general strangers (just let the frisbee fly too far); among lesbians, less traditional social what you see is almost what you get, since power (as women] to establish and hold modem beach costumes leave little for the territories, and lesbian preference for a imagination; and in many cases, the gay proper social introduction and some prior beach is isolated by bush or rock outcrop- acquaintanceship before intimate encoun- pings which serve as cover for impersonal ter. When a lesbian community develops sex. beach-going social life, lesbians may es- Holiday weekends are obviously tablish some section of the existing gay prime time, but depending on the prevail- male beach as their own. Covert gay men, ing gay occupations in the city, certain or lesbians, may use anearby heterosexual weekdays (e.g., Mondays for waiters and section of beach, but wander through the BEAT GENERATION 4 gay beach on apparent errands (trips to the child" era in the mid- 1960s. This reputa- washroom, water fountain, and so on/. tion is not without relation to the Bay Police-mounted on horse, or City's emerging status as a gay capital. To more recently in all-terrain vehicles--of- be sure the beat writers placed little stress ten attempt to discourage or harass gay on developing a fixed abode-their pads beachers, or to surprise or entrap those were never photographed for House Beau- using "the bushes." Heterosexual resent- tiful. Seminomadic, they traveled exten- ment of gay male impersonal sex oppor- sively not only in the United States, but in tunties may lead to political decisions to Latin America, Europe, North Africa, and eliminate gay beaches (e.g., by construct- Asia. Significantly, one of the most widely ing a promenade, or supervised swimming read beat texts was Jack Kerouac's novel pool). But an experienced gay man who On the Road (1957). knows how to search is likely to discover The word beat was sometimes some portion of beach frequented by gays, traced to "beatific," and sometimes to even in foreign lands. "beat out" and similar expressions, sug- See also Geography, Social; gesting a pleasant exhaustion that derives Resorts; Tourism. from intensity of experience. Its appeal also reflects the beat and improvisation of BIBLIOGRAPHY. J. A. Lee, Getting Sex, jazz music, one of the principal influences Toronto: General, 1978, chapter 4. lohn Alan Lee on the trend. Some beat poets tried to match their writings with jazz in barroom recitals, prefiguring the more effective melding of words and music in folk and BEAT GENERATION rock. The ideal of spontaneity was one of The origins of this trend in Arneri- the essential elements of the beat aes- can culture can be traced to the friendship thetic. These writers sought to capture the of three key figures in New York City at immediacy of speech and lived experi- the beginning of the 1940s. Allen Ginsberg ence, which were, if possible, to be tran- (1926- ) and JackKerouac (1922-1969) met scribed directly as they occurred. This and as students at ColumbiaUniversity, where related ideals reflect a new version of both wereworking at becomingwriters. In American folk pragmatism, preferring life 1944Ginsberg encountered the somewhat to theory, immediacy to reflection, and older William Burroughs (1914- 1, who feeling to reason. Contrary to what one was not connected with the University, might expect, however, the beat genera- but whose acquaintance with avant-garde tion was not anti-intellectual, but chose to literature supplied an essential intellec- seek new sources of inspiration in ne- tual complement to college study. Both glected aspects of the European avant- Ginsberg and Burroughs were homosex- garde and in Eastern thought and religion. ual; Kerouac bisexual. At first the ideas In the view of many, the arche- and accomplishments of the three were typal figure of the group is William Bur- known only to a small circle. But toward roughs. Born into awealthy business family the end of the 195Qs,as their works began in St. Louis, Burroughs drifted from one to be published and widely read, large situation to another during his twenties numbers of young people, "beatniks" and and thirties; only after meeting the younger "hippies," took up elements of their life- writers did he find his own voice. First style. publishedinparis in 1959, his novel Naked The beat writers and their friends Lunch became available in the United were only sporadicallyresident in SanFran- States only after a series of landmark ob- cisco, but the media played up this con- scenity decisions. With its phantasmago- nection, especially during the "flower- ric and sometimes sexually explicit sub- 4 BEAT GENERATION

ject matter, together with its quasi-surre- adults, recognizable by their countercul- alist techniques of narrative and syntactic ture enthusiasms and defiance of then disjunction, this novel presented a strik- accepted norms of dress, deportment, and ing new vision. This novel was followed relation to the work ethic. Beat is the older by The Sojt Machine and The Ticket That term and it came into use to designate a Exploded to form a trilogy. Nova Express self-marginalized social group of the late (1964) makes extensive use of the "cut- 1950s and early 60s that was influenced by up" techniques, which Burroughs had de- existentialism and especially by the writ- veloped with his friend Brion Gysin. ers of the Beat Generation. The journalis- A keen observer of contemporary tic word "beatnik" is a pseudo-Slaviccoin- reality in several countries, Burroughs has age of a type popular in the 1960s, the core sought to present a kind of "world upside element derivingfrom "beat" (generation), down" in order to sharpen the reader's the suffix -nik being the formative of the consciousness. One of his major themes noun of agent in Slavic languages. The has been his anarchist-basedprotest against term "hippie" was originally a slightly what he sees as increasingly repressive pejorative diminutive of the beat "hip- social control through such institutions as ster," which in turn seems to derive from medicine and the police. Involved with 1940s jivetalk adjective "hep," meaning drugs for some years, he managed to kick "with it, in step with current fashions." the habit, but there is no doubt that such The original hippies were a younger group experiences shaped his viewpoint. His with more spendingmoney and more flam- works have been compared to pop art in boyant dress. Their music was rock in- painting and science fiction in literature. stead of the jazz of the beats. Despite Sometimes taxed for misogyny, his world differences that seemed important at the tends to be a masculine one, sometimes time, beats and hippies are probably best exploiting fantasies of regression to a regarded as successive phases of a single hedonistic world of juvenile freedom. phenomenon. Burroughs's hedonism is acerbic and ironic, Although the media, which in- and his mixture of qualities yields a dis- cessantly sensationalized the beats and torting mirror of reality which some have hippies, did a great deal to foster recruit- found, because perhaps of the many contra- ment, the phenomenon has older roots, dictions of later twentieth-century civili- stemming not only from its immediate zation itself, to be a compelling represen- prefiguration in the small circle of beat tation. writers and their friends, but also from the established Bohemian lifestyle of Western Ann ed., BIBLIOGRAPHY. Charters, The Europe and North America. Bohemianism Buts: Literary Bohemians in Postwar America, Detroit: Gale Research, 1983 is typically the product of the confluence (Dictionary of Literary Biography, 16); of outcast groups in inner cities. Yet beats Ted Morgan, Literary Outlaw: The Life and hippies, as part of the whole Counter- and Times of William Burroughs, New culture trend, had also a rural contingent, York: Henry Holt, 1988; John Tytell, manifested in the establishment of farms Naked Angels: The Lives and Literature of the Beat Generation, New York: run communally. Here a striking forerun- McGraw-Hill, 1976. ner is the English utopian socialist Edward Wayne R. Dynes Carpenter (1844-1 9291, a bearded, sandal- wearing man who lived with his male lover and other associates working a mar- BEATSAND HIPPIES ket garden and practicing various arts and This social trend in mid-twenti- crafts. Significantly, Carpenter, who had eth-century American lifewas constituted been almost forgotten, was revived during by groups of alienated youths and younger this period by homosexuals attracted to BEATS AND HIPPIES 9 hippie ideals. These roots notwithstand- to non-drug users or heterosexuals. In the ing, there was much that was distinctively 1960spsychedelic substances generatedin American about the phenomenon, and to the chemical laboratory, notably LSD, the degree that it spread to Western Europe enjoyed considerablepopularity. LSD trips and Japan it was identifiable as part of the were said to aid creativity, and a type of general wave of Americanized popular visual art, characterized by swirling lines culture. and lurid colors and used mainly in under- Attracted by the prestige of the ground newspapers and posters, was some- beat writers, many beatsthippies cultivated times termed LSD art. Experimentation claims to be poets and philosophers. In with drugs was also popular among the reality, once the tendency became modish political radicals of the New Left, though only a few of the beat recruits were certi- they were inclined to criticize hippies for fiably creative in literature and the arts; their apathy and lack of social conscience. these individuals were surrounded by Mysticism exerted a potent influ- masses of people attracted by the atmos- ence among beats and hippies, and some phere of revolt and experiment, or just steeped themselves in Asian religions, seeking temporary separation-a morato- especially Buddhism, Taoism, and Sufism. rium as it was then called-from the ba- This fascination was not new, inasmuch nalities of ordinary American life. At its as ever since the foundation of Theosophy height the phenomenon supported scores as an official movement in 1875, Ameri- of underground newspapers, which were can and other western societies had been read avidly by curious outsiders as well. As permeated by Eastern religious elements. part of their general defiance of conven- Impelled by a search for wisdom and cheap tion these papers published explicit living conditions, many hippies and beat- personal advertisements, including those niks set out for prolonged sojourns in In- of homosexuals. Many journalists got their dia, Nepal, and North Africa. Stay-at- start in these now defunct publications, homes professed their deep respect for carrying with them into the mainstream American Indian culture. media significant traces of the values they Ignoring the deeper aspects of had upheld in their former careers. these exotic trends, Middle America con- Seekers after "cosmic conscious- tinued to fix its disapproving gaze on the ness," beats and hippies became known more superficial aspects of the beat-hippie for their efforts at mind expansion through lifestyle. Abundant facial hair and aprefer- the use of drugs, alcohol, and sex. Group ence for casual, "funky" clothingset these smoking of marijuana ("grass," "pot"] deviants off from the squeaky-clean look became universal, a kind of secular sacra- of mainstream America, which professed ment which served as a collective bond. its disgust at "dirty hippies." Most hippies Grass was not only a bond of pleasure but were heterosexual, but their long hair one of danger, since stiff criminal penal- exposed them to jibes of effeminacy. In ties imposed by often-overzealouslawmen, this way they could experience something led to numerous busts. Part of the appeal of of the rejection that had always been the rural communes lay in their suitability as lot of homosexuals. sites for growing the plant. The clandes- The lure of unconventional be- tine comradeship engendered by the ever- havior and experience exercised a siren present custom of smoking grass-the call on American youth, which was chaf- legally proscribed marijuana-created an ing restlessly under the reign of the "up- outcast's tie with homosexuals, them- tightness" of the Eisenhower years. Para- selves subject to legal sanctions for their doxically, it was the new prosperity of deviation. Significantly, the street term postwar America that allowed young for theother, "straight," could refer either people to drop out and "do their own 4 BEATS AND HIPPIES thing" for a time, secure in the knowledge of rejection of worldly goods and the more that-unlike members of racial minori- materialistic aspects of the American ties--they could safely rejoin the main- dream seemed to be reversed by the yuppy stream when the time came. For much trend. Yet insofar as hippiedom was only smaller numbers of people, of course, his- the latest manifestation of a recurring toric Bohemias had offered similar attrac- strand in Western civilization, celebration tions. Here, as in the decaying inner cities of its obsequies is unwarranted. of America, a small core of creative indi- viduals was surrounded by a large mass of BIBLIOGRAPHY. Charles Peny, The Haight-Ashbury:A History, San outcasts and the urban poor. Even though Francisco: Rolling Stone Press, 1984; their travels in beatdom might only be Marco Vassi, The Stoned Apocalypsel temporary, graduates of the experience New York: Trident, 1972. developed a degree of lasting estrange- Wayne R. Dynes ment from, or at least scepticism toward, the conventional pieties of the American Establishment. Among theviews that were BEAUTY COMPETITIONS now brought into question was the auto- As a rule the heterosexual norms matic pigeonholing of sexual minorities as of the modern world have affirmed a di- "~ick.~' chotomy of physical contests: women may In a larger sense, beat attitudes, compete on the basis of beauty and charm, with their stress on feeling instead of rea- while men match their brawn and muscle son, are a manifestation of the perennial development. The reason for this separa- appeal of the Romantic reaction against tion seems to be a fear of the consequences Classical norms. The vagabond ideal of that could ensue if men were publicly traveling lightly, with few possessions, adulated as sex objects. Ordinary language, has affinities with hobo life, with the for example, permits women to be called gypsies, and ultimately with the "wander- "beautiful," while men must be styled ing scholars" of the Middle Ages. With its "handsome." Recently these distinctions adoption of a variant of jive talk, largely have broken down, but only partially. derived from black urban speech, the Ancient Greece. Greek mythol- movement has left a lasting impression on ogy shows anumber of competitions among the English vernacular, as seen in such women, notably the Judgment of Paris, expressions as "co01,~' "spaced out," and which was won by Aphrodite, the goddess "rip off." As has been noted, the stress on of love. In the daily life of ancient Greece, experiment and social unconventionality however, competitions among males were created a natural affinity with homosexu- more important. There were three catego- ality, which had been marginalized by ries of these. The first, the kallisteia, were Anglo-Saxon culture. Because of this per- connected with cults and the winner had ceived link-and the vogue of such seduc- to perform a ritual for a deity. While char- tive slogans of the polymorphous perverse acter and deportment were significant, as "If it feels good, do it" and "Copulate, these contests seem to have been decided don't populateu-it is likely that many on the basis of physical beauty. The euan- apprentice beatniks permitted themselves dria focused on athletic prowess where to delve into aspects of sexual variation strength was important. Finally, the euexia that would otherwise have remained a stood somewhat between the two, empha- sealed book to them. sizing balance of form rather than physical In the 1970s hostile critics, and strength as such. These events must be some who had outgrown their earlier en- understood against the backdrop of several thusiasm, proclaimed with relief the lasting features of Greek civilization: its demise of the hippiemovement. Its themes agonic (competitive) character, the famil- BECCARIA, CESARE BONESANA, MARQUIS + iar display of the nude male body in the event "turn queer." At the same time the gymnasia, and the positive evaluation all-male domain of the muscle contest has placed on the institution of pederasty in been invaded by women body builders; which the beauty of the beloved youth is a how many of them are lesbians is un- key component. The Romans seem to have known. The ambiguity that continues to had no equivalent, and the rise of Christi- envelop all these social phenomena seems anity, which prized modesty and prudery, to be rooted in the late-modem utopian put a stop to any public admiration of the longing for egalitarianism, with its charac- body, whether male or female. teristic difficulty in accepting the fact that Modem Times. The Renaissance human beings recognize a hierarchy of version of the medieval tournament seems brain and beauty among their fellows, and to have sometimes given handsome young in fact enjoy doing so. men a chance to impress powerful patrons, Wayne R. Dynes and even to gain the favor of such an exalted monarch as James I of England. However, these events were exceptional. J' BECCARIA,CESARE In the nineteenth century the rise of ath- BONESANA,MARQUIS letics and thedesire to escape the constric- (1738-1 794) tions of Victorianism led to the physical Italian criminologist, economist, culture movement. Among the first super- and jurist. Though of retiring disposition, stars of body buildingwas Eugene Sandow, he held several public offices in the Aus- who seems to have been as notable for trian government in Milan, the highest good looks as for muscles. As the rituals of being counselor of state. Through the of- this subculture developed, however, a fices which he occupied and the books simultaneous parallel and contrast which he wrote he stimulated reforms emerged between physical culture events throughout Europe, but especially in the for men and beauty contests for women. A sphere of penal law. His classic work on woman became, say, "Miss Norway" for this subject was a small treatise entitled comeliness and charm, while "Mr. Nor- Dei defitti e delle pene (1764).This book way" was selected (or so it was main- aroused such interest that further editions, tained) exclusively on the basis of his translations, and commentaries appeared hypertrophied muscles. within a short time throughout Europe, In due course several cracks in and by the end of the eighteenth century this edifice appeared. In the 1940s publish- the number of editions had climbed to ers of muscle magazines discovered that sixty. Beccaria's critique of the criminal they could attract a homosexual clientele law and criminal procedure of the Old by emphasizingmore sexy, somewhat less Regime was inspired by opposition to muscular models. In its own sphere the arbitrary rule, to cruelty and intolerance, homosexual subculture had drag contests and by the belief that no man had the right in which success in simulating the female to take away the life of another human was the criterion. With the coming of open being. gay liberation in the 1970~~"groovy guy" His treatment of the sodomy laws contests were sponsored by bars and gay is limited to a single paragraph in the organizations, but somehow the custom chapter entitled 'Delittidi prova difficile" never went beyond the bar milieu. Male (Crimes Difficult to Prove); in some edi- stripping ("burlesque"] became common tions it is Chapter XXXI, in others XXXVI. both for gay men and straight women He introduces the subject as "Attic love, patrons--though the purveyors of the lat- so severely punished by the laws, and so ter entertainment have tried to keep men easily subjected to the tortures that over- out, at least during certain hours, lest the come innocence," which implies that 9 BECCARIA, CESARE BONESANA, MARQUIS suspects were cruelly tortured to exact caria, since they guaranteetherightsof the confessions of guilt. He goes on to reject accused in a criminal proceeding, provide the notion that satiation with pleasure is that no person ',shall be compelled in any the cause of this passion, but ascribes it to criminal case to be a witness against the practice of educating the youth at the himself," and prohibit "excessive fines" moment when their sexual drive is mount- and "cruel and unusual punishments." In ing in seminaries that isolated them from adopting the Bill of Rights the founding the opposite sex. fathers accepted and ratified Beccaria's Beccaria thus had no notion of the thinking, and it is therefore a major error modem concept of homosexuality, nor to assume that homosexual law reform was he greatly interested in the crime of has no history in the United States before sodomy. The importance of the work lies the State of Illinois repealed its sodomy in the tremendous impetus that it gave to statute. the campaign for reform of the archaic and Had the principles of the treatise barbarous criminal laws. Of all the leading On Crimes and Punishments been fol- intellectuals of that day, the one who took lowed, all the laws prohibiting consensual the greatest interest in Beccaria's work homosexual behavior in privatewould have was Voltaire, who in 1766 published an been stricken from the books in the first anonymous Commentary on the book. In decade after the adoption of the Bill of it he endorsed almost all of Beccaria's Rights-as they were in France in 1791. principles, adding to many of the book's The Enlightenment thinkers held that the chapters anecdotes exemplifyingthe faults basic principles of justice are the same and contradictions in the existing penal everywhere, as all human beings respond system. Other translators and commenta- to the same fundamental drives and aspi- tors expanded Beccaria's concise arguments rations. If a society that is tolerant of by appending their own notes and com- homosexual expression remains a distant ments, so that a full collection of these goal, Beccaria was one of those pioneers would illustrate the reception of the book. who started the movement in its direc- England revealed the faults of its own tion. system during the very period that reform was on the march in Europe: it was not BIBLIOGRAPHY. Mitchell Franklin, "Roman Law and the Constitution of until 1816 that exposure in the pillory to the United States," Synteleia Vincenzo the hatred and violence of the mob was Arangio-Ruiz, Naples: Jovene, 1%4, pp. abolished as a penalty for buggery, and 315-23; Marcello Maestro, Cesare when Sir Robert Peel undertook a major Beccaria and the Origins of Penal revamping of the criminal laws in 1828 he Reform, Philadelphia: Temple Univer- sity Press, 1973. not only let the death penalty stand but Warren Iohansson even made it easier to obtain a conviction. In the United States Beccaria was popular at an early date: John Adarns al- luded to him in his speech in defense of the BECKFORD,WILLIAM British soldiers on trial forwhat came to be (1760-1844) known as the "Boston Massacre." But the English author, art collector, and greatest influence of Beccaria by far was on patron. The only legitimate child of one of the Bill of Rights, as the part of it which the richest men in England, Beckford had refers to criminal law and procedure can- a spoiled, cosseted childhood. At school in not be understood apart from Beccaria's Switzerland he already gave signs of a demands for reform. The Fifth, Sixth, and special sensitivity to male beauty. On his Eighth Amendments to the American return to England he met and fell in love Constitution may be called the Lex Bec- with anobleman, William Courtenay, then BELGIUM 4 eleven years old. Powerful residues of this Ages. As yet insufficiently explored, the infatuation accompanied him on his grand history of homosexuality in Belgium prom- tour of the European continent (1780-82), ises to offer important insights. In our and they were transmuted into the manu- present state of knowledge, however, the script of his Gothic novel Vathek, which beginnings are melancholy, since the first was published in French only in 1787. On execution for sodomy documented any- his return to England he resumed seeing where in Europe took place in Ghent in Courtenay, and the simmeringscandalwas 1292. only partly effaced by his marriage in 1783. Late Medieval and Early Modern Beckford judged it advisable to spend a Periods. The fourteenth and fifteenth number of years in exile abroad, in Portu- centuries show a considerable increase of gal, Spain, and Paris, where he witnessed prosecutions of the criminal act of wyle the French Revolution. faicten (buggery). In 1373, Willem Case After his return to England he and Jan van Aersdone were executed in commenced construction, in 1796, of a Antwerp. In Mechelen, one person was remarkable architectural folly, his Gothic burned at the stake, and in 1391 the same revival country seat of Fonthill Abbey, city witnessed a mass trial of seventeen which he embellished with frescoes, people, among them two women. Yet only stained glass and objets d'art. Financial one confessed and was executed. In Ypres, reverses forcedhim to sellFonthillin 1821, the death penalty was imposed on two which was fortunate as it fell into ruin menin 1375. Twenty-two executions were shortly thereafter. Beckford lived the rest recorded in Antwerp, Brussels, and Louvain of his life in Bath and London, taking a during the fifteenth century. lively interest in homosexual gossip. The occurrence of these trials, Having survived several scandals and the though only a few led to executions in repressive atmosphere of the era of the Na- medieval Flanders, raises the question of poleonic wars, his homosexual interests whether there is a link between urbaniza- were prudently reduced to those of an tion and the regulation of sexuality from epistolary voyeur. Despite his irregular above, especially since homosexual be- life and his dilettantism, Beckford made havior continued to go largely unnoticed contributions in two areas. His novel between farmers and male servants in the Vathek, with its exotic oriental setting countryside. In theview of Geert Debeuck- and androgynous characters, formed part elaere, the cities witnessed more homo-- of the pre-Romantic literary movement. sexual acts because of the anonymity of Fonthill Abbey, though only a portion of it the urban environment. Yet medieval cit- survives, was one of the first major secular ies were relatively small and anonymity constructions of the Gothic Revival trend could only be assured from the eighteenth in British architecture. century onward, when urbanization had increased. Probably-but more research BIBLIOGRAPHY. Brian Fothergill, remains to be done and generalization is Beckford of Fonthill, London: Faber, veryrisky-the persecution of sodomy was 1979. also inspired by a general policy of social control, launched by the small urban eco- BELGIUM nomic and political elite, and thus a fore- The kingdom of Belgium, though runner of the "civilizing process" in arelatively small country, enjoys a pivotal modem Europe. geographical position in Europe. The lands In the sixteenth and seventeenth that arenow Belgium, together with north- centuries the persecution of sodomy was em Italy, saw the emergence of European intertwined with a radical and intolerant urban society at the end of the Middle campaign of Protestants against Catholics O BELGIUM and, more precisely, their religious orders. strategy against the gradually growing gay In Ghent, the Church hierarchy yielded to subcultures in Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, a new political Committee of Eighteen, and Likge. which favored Protestantism. After the Legalization. In 1795 the French execution of some Franciscan friars in invaded and introduced the Code Pbnal of Bruges in 1578, eight Franciscans and six 1791 on Belgian territory: sexual activity Augustinians were burned at the stake in between people of the same sex was no Ghent. But only a few trials occurred after longer a crime as long as it was pursued 1579, when the Low Countries, until then among adults and in private. The tempo- part of the Spanish Empire, were divided rary reunion of the Northern and Southern into the largely Calvinist Northern Prov- Provinces in the United Kingdom of Hol- inces, now the Netherlands, and the al- land from 1815 until Belgium became most exclusively Catholic Southern Prov- independent in 1830 did not bring about inces, now Belgium. In 1601 a Jesuit was any change. burned in Antwerp; in 1618 two women The control and regulation of were tried for sodomy in Bruges; in 1654 sexuality was gradually shifted to a medi- the sculptor Jerbme Duquesnoy was cal model of homosexuality and confined strangled and burned at the stake after to personal communication within the having seduced two boys aged 8 and 11; walls of the physician's office. Still, Bel- finally, in 1688, two men who had "raped" gian experts assumed different positions a 17-year-old boy fled the country before during the International Conference on the actual trial could take place. Criminal Anthropology inBrusselsin 1892. In 1713 the Southern Provinces Leon de Rode distinguished congenitaland became part of the Austrian Empire. In acquired inversion, but the Catholic 178 1, the Antwerp trial of Jan Stockaert, Lefebvre warned against the "corrupting" who admitted having had sex with more activities of pederasts and advocated pun- than a hundred boys, indicates that an ishment. A preliminary survey reveals that important change was taking place. Con- prison sentences remained very common trary to practice in the previous centuries, until the early twentieth century, but an the authorities were very careful in judg- enlightened elite did not share Lefebvrels ing the nature of the crime and even more plea for police repression. The trialin 1900, in determining the appropriate punish- for example, against Georges Eekhoudls ment. The court of Antwerp did not sen- gay novel Escal-Vigor (1899),provoked by tence Stockaert to death, but asked the a conservative, was considered a ridicu- Secret Council in Brussels for advice. As a lous matter and the author was acquitted. result the court decided to execute Gay Activism. In the absence of Stockaert secretly within the prison walls. systematic research, it is impossible even In the future, similar cases were' to be to sketch the evolution between 1900 and punished by banishment or, sometimes, the emergence of a gay liberation move- by execution in prison-punishment ment in thelate 1960sin Brussels, Antwerp, enough even without the theatrical show Ghent, andLouvain.In 1968, theGespreks- of public burning. This veil of secrecy en Ontmoetingscentra (G.O.C.) were es- contrasts with the mass sodomy trials tablished after the model of the Dutch occurring at about the same time in Hol- C.O.C. Meanwhile, gay student groups land, but it is hard to explain why. Perhaps were organized at universities. In 1975 the the Church did not want to be compro- Federatie Werkgroepen Homofilie [FWHJ mised by witnesses saying that Stockaert was to coordinate gay activism and started also had sex with clergymen, but it is more publishing Infoma, later the Homokrant. probable that repression through the spread But soon more radicalgroups were founded, of fear and guilt was considered a better such as the Rooie Vlinder (Red Butterfly; BELOVED DISCIPLE 4 leftist)and theRoze AktieFront, whilegay John the Evangelist, has attracted the at- subculture organized itself, setting up gay tention of some homosexuals as an "affec- periodicals (De Janet van Antwerpen, tional ancestor." According to Christian Zonder Pardon, Link, Antenne Rose-Info, tradition, the Apostle John is the author of Tels Quels, Anderzijds), radio programs, the Fourth Gospel, the Book of Revelation film festivals, and other gay-defined ac- (alsoknown as the Apocalypseof St. John), tivities, alongside the commercial circuit and three of the Catholic Epistles. All of gay bars, discos, coffeeshops, andrestau- these ascriptions have been questioned by rants. modem Biblical criticism, and the consen- A success of gay activism in Bel- sus is that this goup of writings, so differ- gium was the repeal in 1986 of the article ent from one another, cannot be by one 372bis of the penal code, which had been author. It is traditional to identify as John introduced in 1965 stipulating eighteen the unnamed disciple "whom Jesusloved" instead of sixteen as the age of consent for and who reclined on his bosom at the Last homosexual contact. Supper (John 1393).Again this identifica- The relative decline of gay activ- tion has been denied by some modern ism in the 1980s showed its vulnerability scholars. in an age of health crisis and rising moral Depictions of the college of the judgment. Yet, an AIDS-prevention cam- Apostles in medieval art generally distin- paign sponsored by the Department of guishJohn as a youthful beardless man, in Health warned against the scapegoatingof contrast to his older bearded associates. A homosexuals and actually discussed the special theme of late medieval German campaignwith FWH and the RozeDinsdag sculpture is the Christ-John pair, in which Beweging, arecent gay activist group. Also, these two figures are excerpted from the the acquittal of Professor Michel Vincin- Last Supper context with John, identified eau, the owner of two gay bathhouses who as the Beloved Disciple, asleep with his was prosecuted for "organizing male pros- head in Christ's lap. These sculptural titution,"reveals afairly enhghtenedpublic groups belong to a broad category of devo- opinion toward the gay community. tional imagery, intended for meditation; Pedophile organization is rather the groups are probably not homoerotic in limited; an Antwerp workshop on pedo- any primary sense. It has been shown, philia is still active, but a police crusade however, that they generated a group of was launched in February 1987 against mystical texts in which John is spoken of CRIES, the Centre de Recherche et dlInfor- as enjoying the milk of the Lord. This mation sur llEnfance et la Sexualit6 in motif may relate to the imagery of Christ Brussels. as mother. However this may be, explicit BIBLIOGRAPHY. Bob Carlier, et al., mentions of a physical erotic relationship Homostudies in Vloonderen, Antwerp: Federatie Werkgroepen Homofilie, 1985; between the two New Testament figures Ceert Debeuckelsere, "Verkeerd zijn in appear in our documents only in the six- beroerde ti jden," Homokran t, 7:3 teenth century. According to the play- (March 1981);ibid., "Omme dies wille wright Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), dat gij, Hieronymus Duquesnoy . . . ," as reported by the informer Richard Ba- Tijdschrift voor Homogeschiedenis, 1 (1984),5-22. ines, "St. John the Evangelist was bedfel- Rudi Bleys low to Christ and leaned always in his bosom, that he used him as the sinners of Sodoma." This blasphemous assertion has BELOVEDDISCIPLE a precedent in the confession of a libertine This mysterious figure of theNew of Venice who was tried about 1550 for Testament, sometimes identified with believing, among other heresies, that St. 4 BELOVED DISCIPLE

John was Christ's catamite ("cinedo di and was influenced by students of Franz Cristo"). Thus present research suggests Boas (1858-1943) to study with themaster that the idea was diffused from Italian himself at Columbia University. She heterodox currents, which are still, earned her Ph.D. in 1923 with a disserta- however, insufficiently known. In the tion on the distribution of the concept of post-Stonewall years in New York-in the "guardian spirit" in native North the 1970s-the most successful gay America. In subsequent years as Boas's religious organization was the Church of "right-hand" administrative subordinate the Beloved Disciple. Although the and chosen successor she did fieldwork ascription of the orientation is doubtful among the Zuiii and Cochiti in the Ameri- and unproven, some would place St. John can Southwest. at the head of a host of "gay saints," in- Although her collections of folk- cluding St. Sebastian, Sts. Sergius and lore are known to specialists, Patterns of Bacchus, and St. Aelred of Rievaulx. But Culture (Boston, 19341, her book applying the erotic activitiesandsentimentsof these the "Apollonian" character to the Zufii figures are also shadowy, and as yet the and contrasting them to the "Dionysian" ranks of the beatified, as determined by Kwakiutl studied by Boas, and the "treach- the Roman Catholic church, contain erous" Dobu studied by Reo Fortune, made no absolutely bona fide, certified homo- her famous. This book introduced simplis- sexual individual. tic characterizations of primitive cultures Historical research reveals a to a wide audience as a means of demon- complex dialectical trajectory of the par- strating the variability (and thus mallea- ticular matter in question: first, the iden- bility) of "human natureu-with passing tification of John with the anonymous mention of different conceptions of homo- Beloved Disciple; followed by tentative, sexuality (pp. 262-65). Benedict was noted perhaps largely unconscious medieval for a lack of sympathy for male students. hints of a kind of mystical marriage be- She had a coterieof youngerwomen around tween Christ and his favorite. The carnal her, including her most famous student, element comes into the open in the six- Margaret Mead (1901-1978)) with whom teenth century, but in a scoffing, heretical she was sexually, intellectually, and po- context. Finally, some modem homosexu- litically involved during the last two dec- als have sought to give a positive interpre- ades of her life (both had relationships tation of the presumed relationship as a with otherwomen as well, and Mead with religious. warrant for the dignity of gay severalmen, includingherthree husbands). love. All these developments reflect a Aiming to contribute to psychological war legendary embellishment of laconic scrip- efforts, the two pioneered "the study of tural texts. The true relationship of Jesus culture at a distance" during the Second Christ and his mysterious Beloved Dis- World War, working with persons in New ciple will probably never be known. York who had been raised in cultures of strategic interest. Benedict wrote about Romanian and Thai culture, as well as her famous discussion of militarism and aes- BENEDICT,RUTH F. theticism in Japanese"national character," (1887-1948) The Chrysanthemum and the Sword American anthropologist. (Boston, 1946). As with her characteriza- Benedict became known to a large public tion of Zufii as free of conflict, her inter- through her popularized characterizations pretation of Japan has had numerous spe- of whole cultures as having particular cialist critics-and many readers. personalities. Unsatisfied with a marriage contracted in 1914, she enrolled in the BIBLIOGRAPHY. Mary Catherine New School for Social Research in 1919 Bateson, Through a Daughter's Eyes, BERDACHE 9

New York: Morrow, 1984; Margaret M. intolerance." In 18 17-18 he wrote over Caffrey, Ruth Benedict: Stranger in This 300 pages of notes on homosexuality and Lnnd, Austin: University of Texas Press, the Bible. Homophobic sentiment was, 1988; Margaret Mead, An Anthropolo- gist at Work, Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, however, so intense in England, both in 1959; Judith Schachter Modell, Ruth the popular press and in learned circles, Benedict, Philadelphia: University of that Bentham did not dare to publish any Pennsylvania Press, 1983. of his writings on this subject. They re- Stephen 0. Murray mained in manuscript until 1931 when C. K. Ogden included brief excerpts in an appendix to his edition of Bentham's JEREMY BENTHAM, Theory of Legislation. Bentham's manu- (1748-1 832) scriptwritings on this subject areexcerpted English philosopher and law re- and described in detail in Louis Cromp- former. Bentham was the founder of the ton's 1985monograph onByron. Bentham's Utilitarian school of social philosophy, views on homosexuality are sufficiently which held that legislation should pro- positive that he might be described as a mote the greatest happiness of thegreatest precursor of the modern gay liberation number. As a law reformer, he attacked movement. Bentham not only treats legal, statutes based on what he perceived as literary, and religious aspects of the sub- ancient prejudices and asked instead that ject in his notes, but also finds support for laws justify themselves by their social his opinions in ancient history and com- consequences, that is, the promotion of parative anthropology. happiness and diminution of misery. His Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789) BIBLIOGRAPHY. Louis Crompton, was eventually extremely influential in Byron and Greek Love: Homophobia in England, France, Spain, and Latin America 19th-CenturyEngland, Berkeley: where several new republics adopted con- University of California Press, 1985. Louis Crompton stitutions and penal codes drawn up by him or inspired by his writings. Bentham's utilitarian ethics led him to favor abolition of laws prohibiting BERDACHE homosexual behavior. English law in his Though mostly applied to the day (and until 1861) prescribed hanging for Indians of Noah America, this word was sodomy and during the early nineteenth originally a Persian term, bardag, that century was enforced with, on the average, spread to Europe by the sixteenth century two or three hangings a year. Bentham (Spanish bardaxa or bardaje; French held that relations between men were a bardache). It meant a boy or young man source of sexual pleasure that did not lead who was kept by a man as his male cour- to unwanted pregnancies and hence asocial tesan. This term clearly referred to thepas- good rather than a social evil. He wrote sive partner in male/male anal intercourse, extensive notes favoring law reform about while the name applied to the active part- 1774 and a fifty-pagemanuscript essay in ner was bougre (French) or bugger (Eng- 1785.In 1791, the French National Assem- lish).WhenFrenchexplorerscame to North bly repealed France's sodomy law but in America, they referred to individual Na- England the period of reaction that fol- tive Americans as "berdaches." lowed the outbreak of the French Revolu- While the emphasis of the Euro- tion maderefonns impossible. In 1814 and peans was clearly on the homosexual as- 1816 Bentham returned to the subject and pects, in their references to sodomy and wrote lengthy critiques of traditional the more neutral word berdache, Ameri- homophobia which he regarded as an irra- can Indian cultures focused on the gender tional prejudice leading to "cruelty and role of the androgynous male. Before the 4 BERDACHE coming of the Europeans, many aboriginal The berdache often remained societies, in almost all areas of the Ameri- single, but in some tribes his marriage to a cas, accepted the reality of sexual diversity person of the same sex was accepted just as and incorporated into their lifestyle more a heterosexual marriage was, and their than two gender possibilities. Theiraccep- homosexual behavior was not stigmatized. tance came as a result of their religion's Since the emphasis of marriage was to pair appreciation for people who are different up people in different genders, a berdache from the average. They believed that all would not many another berdache. The persons were the way they were because husband of the berdache, or the wife of the the spirits made them that way. In their Amazon, was not considered different in view, there were certain individuals who any way from a heterosexually married were created by the spirit world as differ- person. ent from either men or women. Such indi- Both the Spanish in Latin Amer- viduals belonged to an alternative gender, ica, and the English in North America, and their guiding spirit-what we would heavily suppressed berdaches, and the call a person's basic character-was seen tradition had to go underground. In many as more important than their biological tribes it has disappeared, but in others it sex in determining their social identity. has continued to be arecognized social and In contrast to many societies, sexual role among traditionalist American where such people have been derided, Indians today. American Indians often respected ber- While "berdache" is usually ap- daches as especially gifted. Since women plied strictly to American Indians, consid- had high status in most of these cultures, ering the history of the term, it is also and the spirit of women was regarded just proper to apply it to other areas of the as importantly as the spirit of men, a per- world. Similar traditions of an alternative son who combined the spirits of both the gender role, with a homosexual compo- masculine and the feminine was seen as nent as part of its acceptance, exist in having an extraordinary spirituality. Such many culture areas: Siberian Arctic, Poly- sacred poeple were often honored with nesia, India, Southeast Asia, and some special ceremonial roles in religious cere- areas of East Asia, Africa, and the Middle monies, and were often known as healers East. Some interpretations suggest close and shamans. They had the advantage of parallels with the "drag queen" concept in seeingthings from both the masculine and Europe and North America, although that the feminine perspective, and so were role is not institutionalized as a distinct respected as seers and prophets. gender as much as it is in these other With such a respected view, a cultures. family with a berdache in it was consid- The berdache role seems to be ered fortunate. Along with Amazons, one of the most common forms in which females who took on a more masculine homosexual relationships are socially role, berdaches were known as creative recognized. In contrast, there are other people who worked hard to help their cultures that are not accepting of androgy- family and their community. They often nous males, for example the super-mascu- served as teachers of the young, and as line warrior societies of Melanesia, medie- adoptive parents for orphaned children. In val Japan, and ancient Greece. In this type this way, their society did not have home- of society, homosexual relationships are less children, and there was no need for more likely to be institutionalized in the orphanages because of the common accep- form of intergenerational pairings between tance of adoption by both berdaches and other adults. I men and 1 BIBLIOGRAPHY.Walter L. Williams, The Spirit and the Plesh: Sexual !8 F': BERLIN 4

Diversity in American Indian Culture, Prussia. It became capital of Germany in Boston: Beacon Press, 1986. 1871, retaining this status through the Walter L. Williams Weimarrepublic and theThirdReich until its occupation by the victorious Allies in BERGLER,EDMUND May of 1945. Currently its three million (1899-1962) inhabitants are divided between East Ber- Americanpsychoanalyst. Periph- lin, capital of the Communist German erally associated for a time with Freud in Democratic Republic, and West Berlin, an Vienna, he emigrated in 1938 and thereaf- enclave of Western life surrounded by the ter practiced in New York City. Perhaps Berlin Wall. the most vocal of the homophobic "ex; No trace of homosexual life has perts" who courted the attention of the been found in the chronicles of the first American public in the years after World three hundred years of the city (foundedin War 11, Bergler promoted the notion of the thirteenth century), since the legal "injustice collecting" as a key feature of prosecution of homosexuality that was the allegedly inevitable unhappiness of usual elsewhere did not exist in Berlin homosexuals. In his bookHomosexuality: before the introduction of the Constitutio Disease or Way of Life! (1956)he asserted Criminalis Carolina in 1532. The Saxon that all homosexuals harbor an uncon- penal code, which Eike von Repgow had scious wish to suffer (psychic masochism] codified in 1225 in the Sachsenspiegel and but can be cured if willing to change, which was in force in Berlin with some tormented by l'conscious guilt" over their modifications, knew no penalty for "lewd homosexual activity. But at the same he and lascivious acts against nature." In the accused homosexuals of "trying to spread seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the their perversion" and of seducing adoles- Berlin Municipal Court pronounced cent boys who would then be "trapped in numerous death sentences for sodomy. a homosexual orientation." Bergler also Only with the rise of Prussia to maintained that women's fashions are a the status of one of the great powers of masculine invention secondarily foisted Europe under King Frederick I1 (theGreat; upon the female sex to alleviate man's 1712-1786) canany informationother than unconscious "masochistic fear of the legal sanctions be discovered on homo- female body," and that women's fashions sexuality in Berlin. In 1753 there appeared are designed by male homosexuals, "their the first of many anonymous pamphlets bitterest enemies." Although Bergler had accusingFrederickII and his brother, Prince entree into leading magazines and jour- Henry, of homosexuality. These allega- nals of opinion, he was dismayed by the tions are probably justified, and under the success of the Kinsey Reports and their regime of Frederick II an extensive homo- implicit tolerance of same-sex relations sexual subculture developed in the Prus- which he sought to combat. His major sian capital. In 1782, in his Letters on the theoretical positions rejected by his col- Gallantries of Berlin, Johann Friedel de- leagues even in his lifetime, his influence scribes homosexual street prostitution, a waned precipitously after his death, so brothel-like inn (Knabentabagie), secret that his writings are now of interest solely signs by which the homosexuals recog- as a classic document of psychoanalytic nized one another, and the name given the rationalization of moralizing prejudice. Berlin pederasts, warme Briider ("warm Warren Johansson brothers"). By this account persecution by the police seems not to have been espe- BERLIN cially intensive at that time, and in 1794 a Berlin rose to prominence first as new penal code which retained the inspi- the capital of Brandenburg and then of ration of Frederick 11 came into force that 4 BERLIN abolished the death penalty for sodomy gay history of Berlin, but the majority of and replaced it with imprisonment and Berlin's homosexuals never had any con- flogging. tact with either one. In 1750 Berlin had some 90,000 After World War I numerous gay inhabitants, by 1800 170,000, and by 1880 and lesbian periodicals appeared inBerlin, over 1 million. This vigorous population and even in films and in the theatre homo- growth was accompanied by a steady de- sexuality could no longer be fully taboo, as velopment and extension of the homosex- after the fallof the monarchy considerably ual subcultures. The most frequent and moreliberal censorship rules were in force. extensive accounts of homosexual life in In 1932 Berlin had some 300 homosexual the big city that figure in the writings of bars and cafts, of which a tenth were for Karl Heinrich Ulrichs pertain to Berlin. lesbians. During the Nazi era between Althoughhomosexual acts (since 1851 only 1933 and 1945 virtually all homosexual betweenmales, since 1853only anal inter- life was driven underground, and a perse- course)remained criminal, the police seem cution without parallel in history began. actually to have tolerated the floweringof Many gay Berliners suffered as inmates homosexual life: after approximately 1870 with the pink triangle in the concentra- public balls for homosexuals were held, tion camp established north of Berlin at and for the first time in the world an Oranienburg/Sachsenhausen,andnotafew organized gay movement emerged. In the of them were killed there. suburb of Charlottenburg (officiallyincor- After the liberation in 1945 Ber- porated into Berlin only in 1920),on May lin was divided and in the Western part of 15,1897, MagnusHirschfeld,togetherwith the city after approximately 1948 new gay E. Oberg, M. Spohr, R. Meienreis, H. von organizations developed, periodicals were Teschenberg and F. J. von Biilow, founded founded, bars opened, and gay balls toler- the Wissenschaftlich-Humanitlre ated, although thanks to the conservative Komitee (Scientific-Humanitarian Com- regime under Konrad Adenauer in Bonn mittee), whose main goal was to abolish the even more punitive version of Para- the antihomosexual Paragraph 175 of the graph 175 inserted in the Penal Code by Imperial Penal Code. But this goal, which the Nazis remained in force until 1969. In was to be achieved through influence on the eastern part of the city the regime public opinion and petitions to the Ger- applied Paragraph 175 in its pre-Nazi manReichstagmeetinginBerlin,wasdown wording(on1y"acts similar to coitus" were to the very end (the Commitee dissolved punishable, but not mutual masturbation itself on June 8, 1933 to forestall being and prostitution), but on the basis of the banned by the Nazis) unattained. Stalinist notions of morality gay men and In 1898 the anarchistic Berlin lesbians were forced underground and periodical Der Eigene (The Exceptional] threatened with prosecution. converted itself into the first long-lasting Only in the 1970s did an increas- gay publication (down to 1931).(Its prede- ingly liberal climate facilitate the emer- cessors, Ulrichs' Uranus of 1870 and gence of a gay movement in both halves of Raffalovich's Annales de l'unisexuafitd of Berlin on the Anglo-American model. 1897 appeared in only a single issue each.) There was no continuity with the tradi- Der Eigene was edited by theBerlin writer tion of the pre-1933 organizations, the Adolf Brand, who in 1903 founded the Scientific-Humanitarian Committee and Gemeinschaft der Eigenen (Community the Community of the Exceptional. In of the Exceptional.), after the Scientific- East Berlin, moreover, up until the 1980s Humanitarian Committee the second gay periodicals and organizations for gay men organization in Berlin. These two organi- were forbidden. Whereas West Berlin to- zations embody a significant part of the day exhibitsahornosexualsubculturethat BERNESQUE POETRY + with its numerous autonomous institu- heaping excessive praise on trivial things, tions (communications centers, journals, in reality he constructed a subtle net of publishing houses, sports and choral so- double meanings in order to exalt sexual cieties, religious, political and trade union relations. groups, a gay member of the city council, Unlike the burchiellesque poets, and so forth) is comparable to other West- however, who often delighted in cobbling em metropolitan areas, in East Berlin the together tangles of words that seemed to corresponding development has proceeded lack any coherent meaning, the Bernesque muchmoreslowly because of theobstacles poets always made compositions that were imposed by the Communist government fully meaningful, in a colloquial, humor- in that part of Germany. ous, and (at first sight) simple tone. This aspect permits the reader to enjoy their BIBLIOGRAPHY. Berlin Museum, ed., works as humor, even if he misses the Eldozado, homosexuelle Frauen und Manner in Berlin 1850-1 950, Berlin: double meanings. Frijlich & Kaufmann, 1984; Bruno In the Bemesque genre, homosex- Gmiinder, ed., Berlin von hinten, Berlin: ual themes (generally having to do with Gmiinder, 1988 (annual);Magnus anal contacts) often occur. The poets Hirschfeld, Berlins drittes Geschlecht, sometimes took great pains to compose 1904, reprint: Berlin: Rosa Winkel Verlag, 1989; Manfred Hener, "Schwule seemingly innocuous poems for boys (such Preussen, warme Berliner," Capri, 211 as Berni's directed to "young abbCs" of the (1988),3-25; James Steakley, "Sodomy Cornari family), which when decoded in Enlightenment Prussia: From reveal highly obscene senses. Execution to Suicide," Iournal of Berni also wrote serious love Homosexuality, 16: 112 (1988))163-75. Manfred Herzer poems in Latin, which were fairly explicit, in praise of boys. A priest, he was shut up for a year and a half in an Abbruzzi monas- tery for a homosexual scandal, the full BERNESQUEPOETRY details of which are not known (1523-24). This type of Italian poetry may be Moreover, some private letters have sur- regarded as an outgrowth of burchiellesque vived containing innocent requests to poetry; it also continues the tradition of friends, but which read with the code of obscene carnival songs (canti carnascia- burchiellesque language reveal requests leschi). The genre takes its name from for the sending of boys (examples are those Francesco Berni (149618-1535), the best to Vincilao Boiano of May-August 1530). known of the poets who were engaged in Many authors wrote Bernesque softening the original obscurity of the poetry with homosexual themes. Among burchiellesque trend so as to make it more them are Angelo Firenzuola (1493- accessible-while retaining the essentials 1543),Andrea Lori (sixteenth century) of its coded language. Matteo Franzesi (sixteenth century), Gio- Bemesque poetryrelies on double vanni Della Casa (1503-1556), Benedetto meanings-which are often deployed in a Varchi (1503-1 565), Lodovico Dolce masterful way-characteristically incar- (1508-1568; he also wrote a long work nated in food items (round ones such as "For aBoytl),and Antonio Grazzini, known apples symbolize buttocks, phalliform ones as "11 Lasca" (1503-1 584). such as eels stand for the penis) or objects With the Counterreformation, of daily use (the chamber pot represents and the more repressive climate that came the anus; theneedle symbolizes the penis). to prevail in Italy as a consequence, prac- While the Bemesque poet gave titioners of the Bernesque genre found it the appearance of choosing everyday ob- prudent to abandon erotic double en- jects so as to produce comic effects by tendres, and the mode gradually ebbed, 4 BERNESQUE POETRY coming down to a series of rhetorical exer- incorporated in the French Protestant lit- cises on harmless subjects, such as the urgy; his polemic and theological writings death of a cat, baldness, and the like. converged with those of Calvin. In 1558 he A final, unexpected offshoot of became a preacher and professor of theol- the genre appeared in the amusing satires ogy in Geneva, and thereafter was one of of Giuseppe Giusti (1809-1850), who re- theintellectualchampionsof FrenchProt- vived the spent Bernesque tradition, ne- estantism (his enemies called him "the glecting the erotic double meanings in Huguenot Pope") until his retirement at favor of a patriotic commitment to Italian the end of the century. unification. Althoughtwicemarried, Bbze was openly attacked and vilified for his sup- BIBLIOGRAPHY. Works: Opere di posed homosexual liaison with his friend Francesw Berni, Milan: Sonzogno, 1928; I1 primo (secondo) libro delle opere Audebert, the evidence for which was an burlesche di M. Prancesco Berni, di M. epigram in the collection of poems offi- Gio. Della Casa, del Varchi, del Mauro, cially entitled Poemata, unofficially lu- del Bino, del Molza, del Dolce e del venilia (firstedition: Paris, 1548).Admired Pirenzuola, 2 vols., "London:Pickard" by many when they were published, the (actually Milan), 1721; 11 primo (secondo, terzo) libro dell'opere poems were strongly influenced by the burlesche del Bern+ del Bino, del Casa, classical authors with their pederastic del Molzn, del Varchi, del Dolce, del interests and allusions, so that the evi- Mauro, del Pirenzuola e d'altri autori, 3 dence for Bezels homosexuality is uncer- vols, "Utrecht: Broedelet" (actually tain at best. What is certain is that the Milan), 1760. Giovanni Dall'Orto Catholic party joined in vilifying him after a writer named Fran~oisBaudouin, who had changed sides several times and been BEZE,THEODORE DE nicknamed Ecebolius by Beze himself, in (1519-1605) 1564 denounced him as a vice-ridden ci- Leading Calvinist Reformer. Born naedus. TWOyears later a Catholic theolo- in VCzelay in Burgundy he was the son of gian named Claude de Sainctes, embroiled the Royal Bailiff, a member of a wealthy in a polemic with Btze, gave vent to a and powerful noble family.From the age of personal attack in which Bbze's sodomiti- nine bnwrd he was educated at Orleans cal union with Audebert is likened to his and Bourges in the house of the German spiritual embrace of Calvin and Bbze philologist Melchior Weimar, who indoc- himself is branded as unworthy of a holy trinated the boy inthe principles of Prates- office. In 1582 JCrBme Bolsec, a Catholic tantism. In 1539 Bbze received a law de- physician and theologian, further re- gree from theuniversity of OrlCans, and at proached lEze in a pamphlet addressed to the same time fell in love with Marie de the magistrates of Geneva, saying that llEtoile, but she died after a year and a half. many .~~undrelsand h~breakershad Bbze settled in Paris, where he enjoyed the taken refuge there in the guise of adhering company of prominent and literary circles, to the Reform, including felons appre- while his literary talents unfolded at the hmded in the crime of sodomy; that in expense of the career in law for which his Paris and OrlCans Bkze had in his youth father had destined him. After violent inner freely pursued sensual pleasures and de- struggles he brokewith his past and moved bauchery of all kinds. The opponent added to Geneva, renouncingtheRoman Church that a Latin Poem had been composed in for Calvinism. For ten years he taught which Bze is t~~eda pathic and an Greek in Lausanne and completed the effeminateand lustful Poet who ba~mea metrical translation of the Psalms begun teacher of sacred eloquence at the instiga- by Clement ~ar~tthat afterwards was tion of Satan. Others joined in the chorus BIBLIOGRAPHY 9 of abuse even after Bezels death, while the is the devotion of countless individual gay Protestant party defended him as the vic- and lesbian scholars, who have not only tim of malicious misinterpretation on the amassed a vast amount of primary data, part of his foes. Even from the standpoint but sought to display them in works of of the twentieth century, the sources do reference. not sustain the allegation thatRzelsfriend- Origins. Greek literature rejoices ship for Audebert amounted to a homosex- in extensive discussions of homosexual- ual liaison. His life is more an emblem of ity, or to be more accurate of paiderasteia. the web of insult and countercharge that [For modern listings of this accumulated characterized the first century of the Ref- heritage, see FClix Buffikre, Eros adoles- ormation. cent: la pidirastie duns la Gr2ce antique (Paris, 19801, and Claude Courouve, Tab- BIBLIOGRAPHY. Ferdinand Karsch- leau synoptique de refirences ci l'amour Haack, "Quellenmaterial zur Beur- teilung angeblicher und wirklicher masculin: auteurs grecs et latins (Paris, Uranier. 1. Theodor Beza, der 19861.1 The Greeks themselves had no Reformator," Jahrbuchfrir sexuelle discipline of bibliography proper; however, Zwischenstufen, 4 (1902),291-349; for an anthology of passages on Alexandre Machard, "Recherches sur la homosexuality, see Athenaeus (fl. ca. A.D. querelle des 'Juvenilia,'" in Les luvenilia de Thhdore de Bbe, Paris: Isidore 200)) Deipnosophists, Book 13. Lisew, 1879; Anne Lake Prescott, The tradition of erudition that "English Writers and Beza's Latin emerged in early modem Europe after the Epigrams: The Uses and Abuses of invention of printing saw some hesitant Poetry," Studies in the Renaissance, 21 assemblage of references to homosexual (1974), 83-1 17. Warren Johansson behavior. Thesedata are found scattered in Latin tomes in the fields of theology, law, medicine, and classical studies. In the BIBLIOGRAPHY eighteenth and nineteenth centuries some Bibliographical control of pub- of this information was digested for more lished material on homosexuality encoun- popular consumption in admittedly mea- ters several problems. First, there is the ger encyclopedia articles in the vernacu- inherent vastness of the subject itself: to lar. It was these sources that had to be paraphrase Goethe, the history of homo- patiently combed by such pioneers of sexual behavior is virtually coterminous homosexual scholarship as Heinrich with that of the human race. Accordingly, Hoessli and Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, John serious study must be cross-cultural, inter- Addington Symonds. and Havelock Ellis. disciplinary, and transhistorical. Secondly, The emergence of systematic the taboo in which the theme has been bibliographical control had to await the enveloped means that until recently sub- birth of the first homosexual emancipation ject bibliographies often had no entry for movement in Berlin in 1897. This move- it, or when they did would relegate it to ment firmly held that progress toward some negative umbrella category, such as homosexual rights must go hand in hand "perversion" or "sexual deviation." Even with intellectual enlightenment. Accord- today the indexes and tables of contents of ingly, each year's production was noted in books often fail to mention the topic. the annual volumes of the Iahrbuch ful Finally, the difficulty of establishing gay sexuelle Zwischenstufen (1899-1923); by studies courses and programs in universi- the end of the first ten years of monitoring ties-blocked as they have been by tradi- over 1000 new titles had been recorded. tion, inertia, and simple prejudice-has Although surveys were made of earlier starved the field of money, personnel, and literature, up to the time of the extinction prestige. Standing against these hindrances of the movement by National Socialism in O BIBLIOGRAPHY

1933, no attempt had been made to organ- plans for a completely revised edition of ize this material into a single comprehen- the ONE bibliography have had to be sive bibliography of homosexual studies. shelved, at least for the present. Nonetheless, much valuable material was In San Francisco in the 1960s noted in the vast work of Magnus William Parker began gathering material Hirschfeld, Die Homosexualitiit des for a one-person effort. His first attempt Mannes und des Weibes (Berlin, 1914). was Homosexuality: Selected Abstracts The American Phase and Its 1n- and Bibliography (San Francisco, 1966); fluence. The nascent American homophile this publication, and a number of other movement, which began about 1950, took earlier lists, are now most easily accessible cognizance of the need for a comprehen- in the Arno Press reprint: A Gay Bibliogra- sive bibliography. Donald Webster Cory's phy: Eight Bibliographies on Lesbianism The Homosexual in America (New York, and Male Homosexuality (New York, 19511, a landmark of the early movement, 1975). Parker's more definitive work is had as appendices lists of both non-fiction Homosexuality: A Selected Bibliography and fiction on the subject. By the late of over 3,000 Items (Metuchen, NJ, 19711, 1950s small-scale efforts toward this end followed by two supplements (published had begun to coalesce in Los Angeles and in 1977 and 19851, which carry coverageup the San Francisco Bay area, two of the through 1982. These volumes arrange the movement's strongest centers. After many material (English-languageonly] by types delays, the Los Angeles endeavors resulted of publication; there are helpful subject in the most ambitious project attempted indices. Although some note is taken of up to that point: Vern Bullough et al., films, television programs and audiovis- Annotated Bibliography of Homosexual- ual materials, the coverage of print items ity (2vols., New York, 1976), which was is almost entirely restricted to nonfiction. prepared in the Los Angeles offices of ONE, Parker's two supplements cover Inc. This work provides about 13,000 en- six- and seven-year periods respectively, tries arranged in twenty broad subject but there is no current annual bibliography. categories. Some notion of the enopous- Gay Books Bulletin (later The Cabirion], ness of the whole subject is conveyed by issued by the Scholarship Committee of the fact that, even at that date, the number the New York Chapter of the Gay Aca- of entries could probably have been demic Union (1979-85))concentrated on doubled. Unlike most of the other Ameri- in-depth reviews, but ceased after twelve can bibliographies, this work is interna- issues. The best way of monitoringcurrent tional and multilingual in scope; unfortu- production is through the "Relevant" nately the set is marred by thousands of section of the scholarly Dutch bimonthly small errors and lacunae, especially in Homologie (Amsterdam, 1978- ). foreign-languageitems. The title notwith- In San Francisco the lesbian standing, annotations are very few, and monthly The Ladder, published by the uncertain in their critical stance. Full Daughters of Bilitis organization, included subject indexes, which would have served notices of books from its inception in 1956 to offset some of these shortcomings are (thefull set was reissued with a new index lacking; instead each volume has its own in New York in 1975). Eventually these author indexes. The shortcomings of this notices were coordinated on a monthly major work, undertaken largely by volun- basis by Gene Damon (Barbara Crier), teer staff working under movement aus- whose later columns have been recently pices, illustrate the problems that have, as collected in a handy, indexed volume: often as not, been made inevitable by the Lesbiana: Book Reviews from the Ladder, social neglect and obloquy in which the 1966-1972 (Reno, 1976). Utilizing input subject has been enveloped.Unfortunately, from Marion Zimmer Bradley and others, BIBLIOGRAPHY 9

Damon and Lee Stuart produced the first Malinowsky, International Directory of edition of 7'he Lesbian in Literature: A Gay and Lesbian Periodicals [Phoenix, Bibliography (San Francisco, 19671. This 1987). By definition, this work does not work subsequently appeared in an ex- include older journals that had ceased (309 panded, third edition: Barbara Grier, The of these are listed in Bullough, et al., cited Lesbian in Literature (Tallahassee, 1981)) above), nor does it provide, for obvious with about 3100 items, including some reasons, a listing of the contents of these nonfiction. The entries are coded by an publications. Gay and lesbian journals are unusual rating system, which correlates covered only sporadically in current bibli- both relevance and quality. ographies, and even copies of the less The complement to Grier in the familiar newspapers are hard to find once male sphere is Ian Young, The Male they leave the stands; here the gay and Homosexual in Literature: A Bibliogra- lesbian archives are doing an essential job phy (Metuchen,NJ, 1982),with 4282 items, of preservation, since public and univer- interpretive essays by several hands, and sity libraries usually do not preserve these title index. While there are no annota- materials. tions, Young sweeps the field: fiction, A summation of bibliographical poetry, drama, and autobiography. Like work appears in Wayne R. Dynes, Homo- Grier, the volume is limited to works sexuality: A Research Guide (New York, written in English and translations of for- 1987).In addition to the bibliography sec- eign works. tion proper, each of the approximately 170 Apart from the general bibliogra- subject groups contains an introduction phies just discussed, which claim to cover outlining the strengths and problems of at least the whole-English language pro- the topic in its current state of develop- duction in their chosen domains, there are ment (or lack of development). This vol- also a number of works defined by country ume is conceived as interdisciplinary, of production. William Crawford [ed.), cross-cultural,and transhistorical, and may Homosexuality in Canada: A Bibliogra- be consulted for a sense of the complexity phy (Toronto, 1984), contains a good deal of the overarchingfield. In somerespects it of material, in French as well as English, is the complement to the present Encyclo- that has been overlooked elsewhere. pedia of Homosexuality, where space for Manfred Hener, Bibliographie zur Homo- citations is necessarily limited. sexualitit . . . (Berlin, 1982) is an exem- Electronic Retrieval. In due course plary compilation of nonfiction items the bibliographical situation will be trans- published in German from 1466to 1975. A formed by electronic systems of retrieval similar work, annotated, is Giovanni of material from data-base sources. For DalllOrto, Leggere omosessuale (Turin, financial reasons, this shift began first in 19841, which covers Italian publications the natural and biological sciences. An from 1800 to 1983. Still to becovered is the early exemplar is the MEDLARS medical rich Italian material before 1800. Claude database, which traces its origins to 1964. Courouve's work on French bibliography A facility of considerable use to the study has been privately published. of homosexual behavior is the PsychLIT Almost from the beginning homo- Database, which offers citations and sexual organizations have created their summaries in psychology and related dis- own periodicals to supplement the main- 1 ciplines published from January 1981 on. stream journals which tend to scant, or It is compiled from material published in even exclude altogether research on sex- Psychology Abstracts and the PsychINFO ual variation. A detailed roster of no less Database. PsychLIT covers about 1400 than 1924 publications existing (or be- journals in 29 languages from approxi- lieved to exist) in the 1980s is Robert mately 54 countries. The Lexis system, 4 BIBLIOGRAPHY availablemainly inlaw libraries, goes back collect every piece of writing with some to the early 1970s. Geared mainly to the relevance to homosexuality in any given practice of law in North America, Lexis year: too much would simply be redun- also offers access to British and French dant. Like all else in human affairs, the libraries. As these examples show, the problems are in part a function of the time time frame of such enterprises tends to matrix. Yet when all is said and done, our restrict theitems collected to recent years, knowledge of homosexuality is increas- so that exclusive use of such sources nar- ing. Masses of material that in former rows the focus of material at the re- decades would have been ignored are being searcher's disposal by date of origin of the recorded and classified by state-of-the-art material. techniques. Large public and university li- See also Libraries and Archives. braries are beginning to record their acqui- sitions-though not usually extending to BIBLIOGRAPHY. Wayne R. Dynes, Homosexuality: A Research Guide, older holdings-in on-line systems, which New York: Garland Publishing, 1987. are gradually beingl/hookedup" into larger systems. One such computerized catalogue lists the recent acquisitions of 25 major American research libraries, with termi- BILITIS nals and print-out facilities in all of them. The name Bilitis is one of the These retrieval systems are commonly Hellenic forms of Ba'alat, the female linked to printers, so that users can with counterpart of Baal in Northwest Semitic minimal effort obtain a permanent record mythology. In the writings of Philo of of what they have found. In using all these Byblos, Baaltis is equated with Dione, one instruments, it must be remembered that of the three daughters of Uranos and con- they are only as good as what has been sorts of Kronos, who receives the city of entered in them. Classifiers may lack Byblos as her domain. The significance of sophistication, so that entries under Bilitis for lesbianism stems not from an- "Georgian" may mix indiscriminately the tiquity proper, but from the work of Pierre American state, the Soviet republic, the Louys, Les Chansons de Bilitis, traduites Caucasian language, and English architec- du grec, first published in 1894, although ture. Also, books and periodical articles clandestine editions with the erotically tend to live in two different universes as explicit lesbian passages appeared only after far as on-line systems go. For a number of the author's death, with the title Les 4easons (including the inherent conven- Chansons de Bilitis inidites (19291, and as ience of the book format), conventional, Les Chansons secrbtes de Bilitis (1931). hard-copy materialswill probably continue Louys originally offered the collection of to be used for a long time to come. Of texts to the world as translations from a course, the two modes are not incompat- classical source; it made the author's repu- ible, and the ideal situation is probably tation in France and was never surpassed that of simultaneous access to most col- by his later writing. The heroine of the lections of material through both chan- work is described as "born at the begin- nels. ning of the sixth century before our era, in Whatever systems may be used, amountainousvillage located onthe banks the compilers must face the problem of the of the Melas, in the eastern part of Pam- enormous proliferation of material. In 19 10, phylia.. . .Shewas the daughter of a Greek say, a one-page item would be worth not- and a Phoenician woman." Leaving her ing, while by 1980 the output has in- homeland, she settled in Mytilene on the creased so markedly that selectivity is isle of Lesbos, "then the center of the imperative. Today no one would aspire to world," which "had as its capital a city BILITIS 4 more enlightened than Athens and more first issue of its monthly publication, The corrupt than Sardis." Here she became Ladder, in a printing of 200 copies that was part of the circle around Sappho, the poet- mailed to "every lesbian whom any of its ess who taught her the art which she ex- members knew" and to professionals in pressed in some thirty elegies devoted to the Bay Area. her attachment to a girl of her own age For the most part, the Daughters named Mnasidika. of Bilitis worked closely and cooperatively This product of the decadent with its male homosexual counterparts school of the fin-de-sikcle has, though throughout the 1950~~since in an era of written by a man, became one of the clas- intolerance, the tiny movement had to sics of lesbian literature, and was to give close its ranks for self-protection. The full its name to the American organization support of the Mattachine Society miti- The Daughters of Bilitis, founded in San gated the growing pains of DOB, and the Francisco in October 1955. The name was shared outlook-the belief that dispelling chosen just because it "would sound like myth, misinformation, and prejudice was any other women's lodge," but convey an the primary means of bettering the status esoteric meaning to lesbians everywhere. of their members--bound the organiza- This first lesbian political organi- tions together. But DOB also existed to zation in the United States was founded provide self-help for lesbian women, a some five years after the Mattachine Soci- haven where they could experience a sense ety. The leaders of the group were Del of belonging instead of the rejection that Martin and Phyllis Lyon, who had settled they encountered elsewhere, and where in San Francisco as lovers in 1953. Their they could reorient their lives so that they desire was to socialize with other lesbian could face the larger society with renewed women. When one of their acquaintances strength. invited them to a meeting to discuss the The pages of the Ladder reflected start of a social club, the two accepted with the priority that DOB attached to personal enthusiasm. On September 21,1955 eight problems of the individual lesbian, espe- women-four couples-gathered and cially the one living in isolation far from within a few weeks had formed theDaugh- the subculture of the large cities. The ters of Bilitis (DOB). Before long Martin magazine reported political news, but was and Lyon were arguing that DOB should never meant to be a political journal, and broaden its activities to include the politi- so the publishers shunned advocacy, de- cal task of changing the public's attitude voting space instead to poetry, fiction, toward lesbianism. The model for the new history and biography. It was also a endeavor was the Mattachine Society of soundingboard for the experience that San Francisco. society distorted and denied. The special The group split over the sugges- concerns of lesbians were debated on its tion, and the six women who remained pages, such as the rearing of children in a joined forces with the Mattachine Society lesbian household, the problems of the and with ONE, Inc. in what was then still married lesbian, and the low salaries called the homophile movement. In April and restricted job opportunities of women 1956 the group participated in its first in Eisenhower's America. Published con- public event, a forum cosponsored by tinuously for sixteen years, this journal Mattachine on the differingproblemsfaced remains a major source for the period's by lesbians and homosexuals. DOB then activism; it was reprinted by Arno Press resolved to hold its own "public discus- (New YorkJ in 1975 with a new index by sions," where lesbians could attend with- Gene Damon. out fear as the "public." In October of the Some male attitudes, such as the same year the organization published the notion of the homosexual organizations 4 BILITIS that this was a "ladies' auxiliary," created too-human love of gossip and muckrak- tension between DOB and its allies. The ing. Moreover, the form of a human life, promiscuity of many homosexual men and from birth to death, provides a readily the police harassment which they encoun- comprehensible narrative structure in tered struck the lesbians as an encum- which the reader can identify with the brance and a stigma unjustly attached to subject as the moving center. Homosexual them by society. At jointly sponsored autobiographies, uncommon before mod- events the men even questioned the need em times, are the external embodiment of for a separate women's group, to which the a process of internal self-examination; in DOB members replied by asserting their writing autobiography and publishing it, need for autonomy and their identifica- one willy-nilly creates an apologia for tion with a larger movement for the eman- oneself. Problems of concealment are cipation of women-foreshadowing the far common in the biographies and autobiog- more radical feminism of the 1960s. raphies of homosexuals; lengthy tomes On the whole, DOB attracted have been compiled about such figures as significantly fewer members than did the Walt Whitman and Willa Cather without male organizations, in part because the a mention of their sexuality. Determining pool of potential constituentswas smaller, the sexual orientation of noted figures of in part because women had a more precari- the past is significant for its own sake: the ous economic position in American soci- establishment of historical truth in its ety. Professional women who had been fullness. This aim of truth usually accords successful felt that they did not need the (though it occasionally conflicts) with the group, and those who benefited from its psychological need that members of any nurturing efforts achieved independence minority group have for heroes. And and "graduated." The founders and leaders homosexuals and lesbians, so often stere- were white-collar semi-professionals who otyped en masse as hopelessly neurotic if could not identify with the blue-collar bar not deranged, understandably yearn for subculture of working women, reflecting reassurance that all have not been cases in the fact that women are generally more the medical waxworks museum of Krafft- sensitive to class identity than are men. Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis. Although The lesbian patronage of the bars belonged such psychological needs are normally met to a different subculturewith its own well- by candid and accurate biographies, there defined identity--one that the member- is also a temptation to provide "gay hagi- ship of DOB generally did not share. But ography," works which extoll an individ- during the initial phase of the American ual because he or she is homosexual, not to homosexual movement, the Daughters of mention the "reclamation" of figures Bilitis were the rallying point for lesbian whose sexual orientation is uncertain. interests and aspirations. Classical Antiquity. The first hesitant emergence of biography as a genre BIBLIOGRAPHY. Del Martin and about 500 B.C. is grounded in Greek indi- Phyllis Lyon, LesbianlWoman, new ed., New York: Bantam, 1983. vidualism, the idea that the uniqueness of Evelyn Gettone the human personality stands over against and must not be subsumed by one's public persona as fixed by official or class stand- BIOGRAPHYAND ing. This awareness allowed the Greeks to AUTOBIOGRAPHY maintain biography as a genre distinct The appeal of biography is multi- from history, which is concerned more faceted, ranging from a desire to elevate with the general and typical. The Theban one's imagination by dwelling on the ac- poet Pindar (518-438 B.c.],whose writings complishments of great figures to an all- are suffused with homoerotic sentiment, BIOGRAPHY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY + eulogized great athletes in brief odes. arranged around the lives of emperors, and Broadly speaking, the funeral oration, one even more in Suetonius' Lives of the 7kelve of the sources of Greek biography, tends to Caesars, written in the early second cen- fall into the trap of "de mortuis nil nisi tury, where the foibles of one Roman em- bonum," the stipulation that only admi- peror after another are set forth with a rable aspects of the deceased should be relish that anticipates amodem supermar- displayed. Another type of skewing is the ket scandal sheet. The most outrageous novelized biography, as seen inXenophonls life of a homoerotic Caesar stems from the (ca. 434-ca. 355 B.c.] Cyropaedia. In later late empire: that of Heliogabalus (reigned variants the temptation to invent detailsis 218-2221) attributed to Lampridius, one of freely indulged, a temptation fostered by Suetonius' continuators. Oddly, the first increasing demand for "juicy bits." On the major surviving autobiography, except for whole these faults are remarkably avoided the inscription erected by Augustus Cae- in the portraits of Socrates by his school: sar, came later. In his Confessions, St. the writers candidly reveal the faults as Augustine (354-430) contrasts his life well as the stature of this lover of men. before and after he became a Christian; Relatively few lives of women were pro- here we see a life transformed by a shift duced; here, however, the career of the from one set of ideals to the other. Al- Lesbian poet Sappho (who flourished ca. though Augustine wrote his memoir after 600 B.c.) provided a focus, though one his conversion, he nonetheless saw fit to afflicted to some extent with romantic include in it an account of his deep friend- invention. ship with a fellow student. His immensely While much has been lost, we popular autobiography, which long re- know that Greek biographies concentrated mained unique, thus preserved a moving on two types of people: public figures account of special friendship that was to (statesmen, law givers, rulers, and gener- reverberate through the centuries. als] and intellectuals (poets and philoso- Medieval andModern Times. The phers]. A remarkable collection of biogra- Gospels are echoed in Philostratus' Life of phies of public men survives: the Parallel Apollonius of Tyana, a homosexual phi- Lives of Plutarch (ca. A.D. 46-ca. 120),who losopher. Biographically, the early and high portrays an equal number of Greek and medieval eras are notable for the lives of Roman subjects, preparing the way for the saints. One, that of St. Pelagius/Pela- international biography in contrast to the gia, gives an account of an attempted nationalistic (and even localistic] restric- homoerotic seduction and the saint's he- tion of earlier Greeks. Although Plutarch roic resistance. The letters and lives of was keenly interested in psychological monks often attest to particular friend- motivation, his mentions of homoerotic ships, though the conventional aspect of aspects in some of his subjects are totally such effusions makes it difficult to use matter-of-fact: he takes his subjects1inter- them as direct historical evidence. est in boys as almost routine. Diogenes The Italian Renaissance, with its Laertius and Philostratus wrote lives of emphasis on the idea of fame, gave re- the philosophers replete with pederastic newed life to the art of secular biography. revelations. In 1550, for example, Giorgio Vasari The Romans, who regularly eulo- (151 1-1574) published his monumental gized their ancestors, had a more ambiva- Lives of the Architects, Sculptors, and lent attitude toward homosexual behav- Painters, providing, in addition to serious ior. They also savored the eccentricities assessments of the art works, many pi- and scandals that might be associated with quant details of the artists' personal lives. it. Such gossipy preoccupations come to Then in 1562, the flamboyant bisexual the fore in Tacitus' Annals and Histories, sculptor Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571 1, + BIOGRAPHY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY completed his Autobiography. In France, At this time the sexual orientations of Michel de Montaigne (1533-1 5921, though such varied figures as Helena Petrovna he published no autobiography as such, Blayatsky (founderof Theosophy),Franpis devoted much of his writing to introspec- de Bbisrobert, Christina of Sweden, Hein- tion and to musing on the nature of his rich von Kleist, August von Platen, and own intense male friendships. Walt Whitman came out of the shadows. At the end of the sixteenth cen- Subsequently several of the major figures tury the repressive influence of the Coun- of the German Movement, including Kurt cil of Trent, coupled with the new stan- Hiller and Magnus Hischfeld, wrote their dards of decorum dictated by literary clas- own memoirs. sicism, caused self-censorship to elirni- Because the trials of Oscar Wide nate details that would previously have in 1895 mercilessly exposed the intimate been permitted. One has to wait until the details of his sexual activities, his life Autobiography of Jean-Jacques Rousseau could not be sanitized. The first sympa- (1712-1778) for a new standard of candor thetic accounts were the memoirs of and authenticity. In this account of his friends, such as Robert Ross and AndrC life, devoted to a search for the truth about Gide. Almost a century had to pass before himself, Rousseau describes his involve- we got the fuller biographies of H. ment in a youthful homosexual episode in Montgomery Hyde and Richard Ellrnann. Turin. It may be, however, that the best life of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Wilde is his inadvertent autobiography, Centuries. The Victorian period counts as the Letters as edited by Rupert Hart-Davis the high water mark of prudery and cen- (1962).The memoirs of Wilde's scholarly sorship. Yet in this era scholars began to contemporary John Addington Syrnonds uncover material from the archives that could be published only in 1985. had been neglected before. The Life of Twentieth-century French writ- Michelangelo (1893 ] by the English homo- ersexcelled in self-examination as set forth sexual John Addington Symonds in diaries intended for publication. Best (1840-1893), with its hints of the artist's known of these works is the extensive abnormal sexuality, is an example of the lournal of AndrC Gide (1869-1 95 11, cover- fruits of this new research. At the same ing the years 1889-1949, and Marcel Jou- time, regrettably, the late nineteenth bandeau's (1888-1979) colossal Journali- century was obsessed with a purported ers in 26 volumes. Jean Cocteau link between genius and insanity champi- (1891-1963) also wrote a number of oned by such psychiatrists as Cesare Lorn- memoirs and diaries, some of which are broso, leading to the popular genre of being published posthumously. d'psychopathographies,"in which the tor- Michael Holroyd's full biography ments and inadequacies of literary and (196748)of Lytton Strachey (1880-1932) artistic figures are highlighted. Related to provided both candor and balanced detail; this trend is Sigmund Freud's 1910 essay it succeeded in reviving the reputation of on thehomosexuality of Leonardo daVinci. the subject as well as contributing to the Despite the expectations it awakened, expanding industry of Bloomsbury schol- psychoanalytic method did not contribute dip. Subsequently a number of large much in the ensuing decades to the deep biographies have appeared on such analysis of historic figures. Bloomsbury figures as Lord Keynes, E. M. The rise of the homophile move- Foster, and Virginia Woolf. An unusual ment in Germany at the turn of the cen- contribution is Nigel Nicolson's Portrait tury fostered a diligent scrutiny of the of a Marriage (1973), treating the homo- current production of biographies forindi- sexuality of both his parents: Harold Ni- cations of homosexuality and lesbianism. colsonandvita Sackville-West.Attention BIOGRAPHY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY 4 to the expatriate writers and artists of that litical figure; its existence, however, is generation in Paris has focused especially probably owing to his public exposure. on noteworthy lesbians, including Natalie The lives of ordinary male homo- Barney, Romaine Brooks, and Gertrude sexuals and lesbians of the past are for the Stein and Alice B. Toklas. most part hidden from us. Representing A distinguishedrecent biography turn of the century American life, how- of a major figure of the past is Louis ever, are the memoirs of Claude Hartland Crompton's Byron and Greek Love (1985). (1901) and Ralph Werther ("Earl Lind," Not seekingtoreplaceotherbiographiesof 1918; 1922). The four volumes of the dia- the poet, Crompton highlights the periods ries of Donald Vining cover a third of a of Byron's known homoerotic infatatu- century: 1936-75. Lesbian scholars have ations; he also shows the problems engen- begun to emphasize collective records, as dered by the homophobia of his contempo- seen in Margaret Cruikshank, ed., The raries, as well as Jeremy Bentham's efforts Lesbian Path ( 1980)) and Julia Penelope toargueagainstit.Thecontinuingfascina- Stanley and Susan J. Wolfe, eds., The tionwith suchromantic figuresas William Coming Out Stories ( 1980). A much-no- Beckford, Queen Christina of Sweden, T. ticed contribution to this genre is a collec- E. Lawrence ("of Arabia"), andKing Ludwig tion of the reflections of some fifty Catho- 11 of Bavaria has led to numerous bio- lic religious: Rosemary Curb and Nancy graphicalworks, but establishingthe truth Manahan, eds., Lesbian Nuns: Breaking tends to prove elusive. Adequate studies of the Silence (1985).Mostly unpublished are the homosexuality or bisexuality of a the tape-recorded reminiscences of older number of kings of England and France are homosexuals gathered by oral-history still lacking, though the record is some- projects in several cities of North her- what better with military commanders. ica; an exception is Keith Vacha's Quiet The post-Stonewall gay move- Pire [1985), in which older gay men tell ment after 1969 has been commemmo- their own story. rated in anumber of activist reminiscences, Research Challenges. The prob- most of them slight. Perhaps coinciden- lems confronting any scholar who would tally, Tennessee Williams decided to make attempt an in-depth study of the personal- a clean breast of things in his Memoirs ity of a subject believed to be homosexual (1975),while William Somerset Maugham or lesbian are serious. Where same-sex was finally dragged completely out of the practice is documented through autobiog- closet in the lengthy biography by Ted raphies or police records, there remains Morgan (1980).The homosexuality of the the task of situating the individual's sense English dramatist Joe Orton was revealed of self within the larger context of preva- in the lurid circumstances of his murder lent attitudes toward homosexuality. In by his lover in London in 1967; Orton has many cases, however, a self-protective now been profiled not only in the biogra- instinct caused the individual to lead a phy by John Lahr (1978),andin the writer's closeted life. In individual cases it may be Diaries, but also in an explicit film, Prick hard to establish whether the subject is a Up Your Ears (1987),based on both these deeply closeted individual, whose secrets sources and directed by Stephen Frears. will nonetheless emerge with determined Needless to say, Hollywood films on the effort, or whether contemporary gossip or lives of public figures who were homosex- later speculation has labeled someone ual or bisexual typically black out uncon- homosexual who in fact was not. In the ventional sexual aspects. In 1986 ex-Con- past some overenthusiastic researchers gressman Robert Bauman published a rare have, in effect, /'shanghaied" historic fig- example of an autobiography of a gay po- ures for enshrinement in the homosexual pantheon. 4 BIOGRAPHY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY

In order to proceed with the in- of these birds have sometimes been trans- vestigation of some person of the past ferred to other species, including the believed to have been homosexual, one human. Aristotle noted homosexual be- should ascertain the presence of several of havior in fowls, and in the eighteenth the following indicators: the subject is century the French naturalist Georges unmarried (even, as sometimes happens, Louis Leclerc de Buffon reported his own to the point of vehemently resisting mar- independent observations in birds. In riage); the subject belonged to a circle the present century, the social hierarchy other members of which are known to of the barnyard formed the starting point have been gay; the subject had interests or for the concept of the pecking order in pursuits prevalent at the time among gay psychology. people; and the subject adopted unusual In 1977 a considerable stir took tmsof phrase (say the use of pronouns place in the American media over the appropriate to the opposite sex). Once the reports by George and Molly Hunt (Uni- scholar has attained familiarity with the versity of California, Irvine) of period, a cluster of such signs triggers a female-female pairs of gulls. As early as bell. One need scarcely add that the ab- 1885 a female-female swan pair had been sence of one of the others should not bring reported from England, and there is now the investigation to a halt. Many almost documentation of preferential same-sex exclusively homosexual figures, for ex- patterns among a number of species of ample, have been married; the giveaway is birds living in the wild. the taunting phrase {'the marriage was a Birds figure in erotic metaphor failure." and symbolism in a variety of ways. In Above and beyond these endeav- contemporary North America the term

ors of detection, sexual orientation needs "chicken" circulates among- pederasts- to to be fitted into larger contexts that will denote an attractive teenage boy. This show how it molded the individual's own usage should not be confused with the personality, and in turn what are the social clipped form "chick"-occasionally found functions of the orientation in the host in older sources in the full form, "chicken" society. The task is formidable, but con- showingthe origin-meaningwoman. The scientiously pursued it will yield substan- general derivation from slang chicken = tial rewards in understanding the inner life child is clear (attested from the eighteenth of the subject of the biography. century onwards). The homoerotic sense Wayne R. Dynes may be traced back as far as the late nine- teenth century: "The Affection which a sailor will lavish on a ship's boy to whom BIOLOGY he takes a fancy, and makes his 'chicken,' See Animal Homosexuality; as the phrase is." (Congressional Record, Sociobiology. April 21,1890). In another bird metaphor, the pursuer of adolescents is called the chicken hawk in today's street language. BIRDS AND Curiously, this semantic devel- AVIANSYMBOLISM opment had a forerunner in Latin, where Human interest in birds, bothwild pullus, chicken, was a general term of and domestic, and study of their behavior endearment, especially for handsome boys. impinge on sexual concerns in several Pullarius (literally "poulterer) meant a ways. From ancient Greek times onwards, "kidnapper of boys" or "boy stealer"; more barnyard fowls have provided aready source generally it signified "pederast." for the observation of behavior, including The male fowl, the cock, has sexual acts. Principles drawn from study provided a slang term for penis, by way of BISEXUALITY 9 the watercock or faucet (an evolution was reputed to employ its long beak to paralleled in other languages). Once the clean its own bowels. metaphor was created, however, it was See also Animal Homosexuality. reinforced by a natural similarity: "The extreme erectness of the cock, straining BIBLIOGRAPHY. Page Smith and Charles Daniel, The Chicken Book, upwards, has suggested to many besides Boston: Little Brown, 1975; Beryl the Greeks the erectness of a tumid penis" Rowland, Birds with Human Souls: A (Smith and Daniel). There is also evidence Guide to Bird Symbolism, Knoxville: of a broader association of birds with the University of Tennessee Press, 1978. penis, as seen inItalian, uccello, bird, penis, Wayne R. Dynes and German ~(igeln,to copulate (from Vogel, bird). Somewhat unusually, con- temporary Spanish street language uses BISEXUALITY the female form polla, hen, to designate Human bisexuality may be de- the penis. Contrast the established French fined as the capacity to feel sexual attrac- poule, hen, whore. In older American slang, tion toward, and to consummate sexual the word capon, a castrated rooster, served performance with, members of the oppo- as an abusive epithet for an "effeminate site and one's own sex. The concept needs man, a homosexual." to be distinguished from androgyny and Confusingly, in a few parts of the hermaphroditism, with which, however, English-speakingworld, as in the southern it is historically affiliated. United States, the slang word cock refers History of the Concept of Bisexu- to the female pudenda. There is no doubt, ality. Modem thinking about bisexuality however, that in the compounds cock- stems in part from medical investigations sucker and cockteaser the male organ is in the middle decades of the nineteenth meant (though the former term is usually century, which found that during the first limited to male homosexuals, the latter to few weeks after conception the urogenital flirtatious heterosexual women). system of the human embryo is undiffer- In seduction scenes depicted on entiated as to sex. (Bisexuality in plants ancient Greek vases, roosters are the most had been recognized since the beginning of common gift presented to youths by older the ninetenth century.) Determination of male suitors. In the mythological realm the anatomical gender of the organs of the the cock was associated with the bisexual originally neutral being is triggered by the god Dionysus. The noblest bird of all, the intervention of mechanisms later identi- eagle, sometimes deputizes for father Zeus fied as chromosomal. This embryological in depictions of the rape of Ganymede. A discovery suggested that human maleness common emblem for homosexual lust in and femaleness is in some sense secon- classical writing was two male partridges, dary, and the puzzling duality of our na- who were said to be so highly sexed they tures could be restored, at least on the level turned to each other as easily as to the of ontogeny, to a primal unity. Almost female. Another bird, the kite was linked inevitably, these modern findings called to homosexual behavior because of a fanci- to mind ancient Greek and Near Eastern ful association of its Latin name milvus mythological thinking about primordial with mollis, a passive homosexual. An- androgyny. From this fertile mix of ideas it cient folklore held that ravens conceived could be concluded that human sexual through their beaks; hence the Roman attraction should also be undifferentiated satirical poets Martial and Juvenal styled as to gender, since our postnatal gender fellators "ravens." Finally, the ibis, a bird dimorphism is but a secondary process well known to the Egyptians, figured as a superseding, but not completely effacing, symbol of anal preoccupations because it an original oneness. The result of such *:* *:* BISEXUALITY research and speculation was to offer two C. Kinsey faulted the then-current con- complementary models, one of primordial cept of bisexuality on two grounds. First, unity, the other of a comprehensive triad: in view of its historical origins, reliance on neutral, male, and female. Both the uni- the term bisexuality fosters confusion tary and the triadic themes were to excer- between the categories of gender and ori- cise their influence on the concept of sexual entation, which must be kept quite dis- orientation. tinct. Second, Kinsey averred, the triad of Before this medical and mytho- heterosexuality, bisexuality, and homo- logical amalgam could be applied to the sexuality is too rigid, and should be re- psychodynamic sphere, a conceptual ap- placed by his own more supple 0-6 scale. paratus had to be invented and diffused While Kinsey effectively attacked the that assigned human sexual orientation to prevailing exclusivism, his numerical scale two distinct poles-heterosexual and presented its own problems and failed to homosexual-a polarity which is distinct gain widespread popular recognition. Its from, yet analogous to the gender dimor- legacy was to leave the term "bisexual" phism of male and female. In classical with a somewhat amorphous and contro- antiquity and the Middle Ages, as well as versial claim to all those who could not be in many non-Western cultures today, no classified as exclusively heterosexual or such dichotomy was recognized. The homosexual. medieval sodomite was viewed as a depar- The countercultural and social- ture, sinful it is true, from universal human utopian currents of the 1960s and 70s standards which form the abiding context. stimulated attempts at revision and par- Thus, although the Middle Ages had to all tial restoration of the paradigm among intents and purposes its own notion of the many innovative (or would-be innovative) homosexual (the sodomite), it lacked a thinlters, who viewed the inherited "gen- concept of the heterosexual as such. The der system" of fixed roles for men and polarity of heterosexual and homosexual women as an albatross which kept women attraction was formulated in Central Eu- inferior and hindered the full self-realiza- rope in the 1860s by KarlHeinrich Ulrichs tion of both men and women. There was and K5roly Mhria Kertbeny, who devel- thus a trend to regard the anatomical dif- oped the holnosexual concept. By the end ferences of men and women as a minor of the century it had become widely famil- matter. If this be so, it maltes little sense to iar, and in the work of such writers as be overly concerned about the gender of Richardvon Krafft-Ebing, Otto Weininger, the individual to whom one is attracted, Wilhelm Fliess, and Sigmund Freud, the and we are all free to be simply "hu- heterosexual-homosexual contrast melded mansexuals." with the previously discussed medical Also in this period the vocal as- concept of primordial gender neutrality. sertion of homosexual rights, often cast in Hence the Freudian idea of 'fie "polymer- the minority mold, suggested to some that phous perverse," in which the individual's bisexuals too were a neglected and victim- attraction is freeform and undifferentiated ized minority, suffering from the invisibil- (though in mature individuals this state ity which had once characterized homo- yields to full heterosexuality]. From this sexuality, and who should join together to family of ideas descends the contemporary fight forrecognition and rights (Klein, 1978). popular notion that "we're all bisexual." Adoption of this "bisexual activist" view In the 1940s growing dissatisfac- would lead to full-fledged recognition of tion with such notions of bisexuality led three orientations, as seen, for example in to significant critiques. Sandor Rado's paper the 1986 New York City gay rights ordi- of 1940 signaled their abandonment by the nance, which explicitly protects hetero- psychoanalytic community. In 1948 Alfred 1 sexuals, homosexuals, and bisexuals. BISEXUALITY +

Contrasting with this triadic somewhat alienatedfrom identification as scheme is aunitary futurist utopian model either homosexual or heterosexual. which posits bisexuality as the eventual Bisexuals, according to the lead- human norm, superseding both exclusive ers of this movement, were discriminated heterosexuality and exclusive homosexu- against by homosexuals as well as by ality which would be regarded as forms of heterosexuals, and much of the discussion sexual restrictiveness, and even bigotry. revolved around a critique of homosexu- In support of their contention, als' attitudes toward bisexuality, and the the advocates of bisexuality point to ear- exclusion of recognition of bisexuals in lier civilizations and contemporary tribal the gay movement, which was seen as societies where, they claim, bisexual re- dedicated to the fostering of an exclusively sponse is the norm. This would be true homosexual identity. Other topics were also in advanced industrial societies, the implications of bisexuality for such which, it is held, would be also bisexual institutionsasmarriageand theghettoiza- were it not for their sophisticated appara- tion which leaders decried in homosexual tus of sexual repression. Here one should circles at the time. Bisexuals, it was held, interject the caveat that since the concepts should be allies in a common struggle with of heterosexuality, homosexuality, and gays against discrimination, but should bisexuality are themselves of recent West- function as a bridge to the heterosexual em origin, it may not be wise to impose world rather than being submerged in an them insouciantly on cultures other than exclusivist subculture. one's own. Still, with all due caution, onq Many bisexual spokespeople can observe that some societies, such ao advocated bisexuality as superior (forvari- ancient Greece and some contemporary ous reasons) to either form of "exclusiv- Melanesian tribes do exhibit a serial bi- ism" (heterosexual or homosexual); they sexuality, in which the maturing male also held it to be much more threateningto does undergo homosexual experience as the prevailing sexual norms, precisely part of initiatoryrites, assumingthe heten- because it potentially involved everyone sexual roles of husband and father after- rather than a small minority which could wards. This seriality is far, however, from be ghettoized. the ideal of nonorientation propounded by With the AIDScrisis in the 1980s, some theorists, that is to say, the notion bisexuals were targeted as the most seri- that anindividualis free to chose objects of ous source of infection for the heterosex- sexual attraction in total disregard of their ualmajority, and "bisexualchic" passed as gender. quickly as it had arisen. With it, for the Bisexual Liberation Movement. most part, went the bisexual liberation In the 1970s (and to a lesser extent in the movement. Its self-description as threat- 1980s) a number of organizations were eninghad been realized all too quickly, but active in support of "bisexual liberation," in a way none of its leaders had forseen. modeled on the gay liberation and the Bisexual Patterns. Examination other sexual freedom movements. While of the biographies in this Encyclopedia these groups did not establish a consensus reveals that many of theindividuals chron- definition of bisexuality, they tended icled displayed behavior patterns which toward a broad conceptualization in which today mlght be labeled "bisexual," whether bisexuality was thought of as a basic ca- a wide or a narrow definition is used. It is pacity to respond erotically and emotion- difficult, however, to analyze and catego- ally/romantically to persons of either rize data £rom such a wide spectrum of eras gender, either simultaneously or serially; and cultures. the response did not have to be equal but Contemporary American society had to be sufficient for a bisexual to feel exhibits a number of behavior types which 4 BISEXUALITY may be classified as bisexual. There are, "accept and equally enjoy both types of for example, macho men, basically hetero- contacts, and have no strong preferences sexual, who become to some degree ha- for one or the other"), they are a substan- bituated to achieving occasional gratifica- tial group, Kinsey's "3's" representing tion-employing the inserter role only- somewhere between 4 and 5 percent of all withmen who would define themselves as males for at least three years of their life. gay. Among women, the sense of sister- Those persons who are bisexual hood engendered by the women's move- under the definition cited at the beginning ment, accompanied in some cases by of this article, but who have a definite a wariness toward men, has led to preference for one side or theother, may be lesbian contacts involving women whose compared to Kinsey's "2's" and "4's", previous experience was essentially described by him as "predominantly" one heterosexual. way but "rather definitely . . . more than The United States, together with incidentally" the other way. Added to- other advanced industrialsocieties, reveals gether, these represent about 10.5 percent a number of versions of serial pattems of of the male population at age 25, divided other- and same-sex behavior. In what is between 7 percent predominantly hetero- sometimes termed situational homosexu- sexual and 3.5 percent predominantly ality, inmates of total institutions, typi- homosexual. Add the "3's" and we see cally men's and women's prisons, form why it is said that, usinga broad definition, homosexual liaisons, only to resume their about 15 percent of the American male heterosexual pattems on release. Some population is bisexual for a significant part young men follow a career of male prosti- of their lives. tution for a time, and then, as their looks As the types selectively reviewed fade or other circumstances supervene, above and the Kinsey figures suggest, most settle into a completely heterosexual life- people fall more strongly on the one side style. Yet another type of serial experience than the other, and when all is said and appears in "late blooming" individuals, done may be classified as predominantly that is, men andwomenwho have entered heterosexual or homosexual with at least into heterosexual marriages or relation- as much justification as bisexual. More- ships, and then find, sometimes as late as over, there seems to be a kind of funnel their forties, that they are strongly at- effect, whereby as an individual grows tracted to members of their own sex. It older he or she tends to focus more and should be noted that self-reports of per- more exclusively on one sex or another. sons' sexual orientation are not always Thus the number of Kinsey "3's" declines fully reliable; for understandable reasons, from 4.7 percent at age 25 to 2 percent at some men and women who are essentially age45. This trend is particularly evident if homosexual will say that they are bisex- one contrasts adolescent "sexual experi- ual, in the belief that this label is less mentation" with the more settled pat- stigmatizing. terns of later life. The risk, perhaps, is It seems that there are few indi- in sliding easily from the description viduals in today's society who have at- "predominantly homosexual" (or hetero- tained the posited ideal of "gender-blind- sexual] to just plain l'homosexual" (or ness," choosing their partners solely on heterosexual), thereby picking up the the basis of personal qualities, so that they connotations of exclusivity often associ- will go with a man one day and a woman ated with those terms. the next. It is hard to say how many come Conclusion. All in all, the pres- close to this ideal, with gender playing a ent status of the concept of bisexuality is relatively small role. If they are compa- far from satisfactory. As has been noted, rable with the Kinsey "3's" (those who both learned discussionsand popular think- BLACK GAY AMERICANS 4 ing display a recurrent tendency to Africa, the notion that the behavior is confuse bisexual orientation with anatomi- somehow distinctively white lingers. cal or psychic androgyny. Further, the EarlierHistory.For countries such assembling of useful ethnographies of as Brazil and Haiti there is evidence of contemporary groups requires a careful direct transfer of forms of homosexual life delimitation of the specific type or variety as part of the African cultural diaspora. For of bisexual behavior to be studied. With North America such evidence is lacking, respect to individual psychodynamics, it perhaps because the slave masters, observ- is essential to pay careful attention to the ing Protestant norms of opposition to depth and quality of the experience, rather "sodomy," ruthlessly sought to stamp the thanrelyingon amere quantitative assess- phenomenon out. Oral tradition suggests, ment of "sexual outlets." It is to be hoped however, that just as white masters en- that with further well-planned research, gaged in sexual relations with black the present chaotic amalgam of "bisexual- women, so some white men would seek ity" will yield to a more rational spectrum the sexual company of attractive young of "bisexualities," perhaps in parallel to a black slaves. After Emancipation, at the comparablephalanx of "homosexualities." turn of the century, there is evidence of large-scale black dance events in such BIBLIOGRAPHY. Sandor Rado, "A centers as St. Louis and Washington, D.C. Critical Examination of the Concept of Bisexuality," Psychoanalytic Medicine, These gatherings probably lie at the origin 2 (1940),459-67; Fred Klein, The of the drag balls in Harlem in the 1920~~ Bisexual Option, New York: Arbor which attracted both blacks and whites. House, 1978; Fritz Klein and Tiniothy J. Not altogether dissimilar is the still Wolf, eds., Bisexuality: Theory and surviving tradition of Mardi Gras in Research, New York: Harrington Park Press, 1985 (with bibliog. by C. Stear, pp. New Orleans-though a more visible 235-48). black-white gay presence is evident in Wayne R. Dynes the carnivals in Brazil.

New York City's Harlem,. origi-- nally developed as housing for the white BLACKGAY AMERICANS middle class, emerged at the end of World Thus far the social profile and War I as a vital center of black culture (the achievements of black gay Americans have Harlem renaissance). A number of black not received their due. This neglect stems gay writers contributed to this flowering, from several sources. White Americans including the poet Countee Cullen tend to view blacks almost monolithi- (1903-19461, and the prose writers (Rich- cally, through a lens of stereotypes, one of ard Bruce Nugent (1906- ] and Wallace which is that the black male is typically a Thurman (1902-1934). Other writers such macho heterosexual. The shghtingof black as LangstonHughes (1902-1 9673 were very lesbians is part and parcel of the relative discreet and ambiguous in their sexuality invisibility of lesbians as a whole. Until but occasionally displayed homoerotic recently, most socially conscious black sensitivities. More tolerant than gays chose to put their energies in the civil GreenwichVillage, Harlem'svibrant night- rights movement, rather than in the gay club scene attracted many white gays from movement. Finally, there is the view that other parts of the city. Here they were homosexuality is somehow alien to the regaled by such bisexual and lesbian enter- black experience. Some black nationalists tainers as Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, claim that same-sex behavior was un- "Moms" Mabley, and Gladys Bentley known in Sub-Saharan Africa until Euro- (1907-1960). Of these, Bentley was most pean colonialists imposed it. Although easily identifiable, with her male attire abundant evidence now exists for a variety and tough, butch behavior; eventually she of homosexual social patterns in black 9 BLACK GAY AMERICANS married her white lesbian lover in a highly The largely white andmiddle class publicized ceremony. Her recording career gay subculture sometimes openly discrimi- spanned the two decades after 1928. Dur- nated against blacks, as in the practice of ing the heyday of McCarthyism she was "carding" whereby black patrons of night- forced to conform and denounce her lesbi- clubs were singled out by being required anism, but even that could not save her to present personal documents to be singing career. admitted. While theDepression of the 1930s These and other problems led to put an end to the special brilliance of the formation of such organizations as Harlem, black gay and lesbian life contin- Black and White Men Together (renamed ued as before. There is increasing evidence Men of All Colors Together in some cities] of bars and nightspots in many American and the National Coalition of Black Lesbi- cities that were largely and completely ans and Gays (1978).Several little maga- black. More frequently than their hetero- zines appeared featuringblackwriters, and sexual counterparts, blacks and whites such black lesbian and gay authors as enteredinto homosexual coupled relation- Michelle Cliff, Anita Cornwell, Larry ships-though such "salt and pepper" Duplechan, Audre Lorde, and Anne Allen couples could attract the particular ire of Shockley took their place in America's gay white bigots and also the disapproval of bookstores. Samuel R. Delaney came to be black relatives. recognized as one of the four or five most Toward the Present. In the 1960s distinguished science fiction writers of James Baldwin achieved national-and America. New York's Blackheart Collec- international-renown with his depiction tive brought together and published gay of blacks and gays in such books as An- black poets. Other black gays became other Country (1962) and Tell Me How known in the worlds of music, sports, and Long the Train's Been Gone (1968).In a the church. Black gay self-affirmation in more subdued way the playwright Lor- tumstimulatedsimilar movements among raine Hansberry lent her support to the Asian-American and AmericanIndian gays. nascent lesbian movement. Blackgays such Meanwhile, organized black homosexuals as Bayard Rustin made important contri- continue towage a two-front battle against - butions to the civil rights movement. borh racism in the gay community and In the years of gay liberation after homophobia in the black community. the Stonewall Rebellion relatively few Black Perspectives on Homosexu- black gays and lesbians participated. This ality. While a substantial portion of black reflected in part their sense of the greater Americans share the dominant modern urgency of the black civil rights move- industrial-world model of homosexuality, ment, as has been noted, as well as the the majority of the black population, per- feeling of many who did attend that they haps reflecting class differences as well as were not comfortable. Heterosexual black a different ethnic tradition, seems to ac- leaders, even radicals, tended to keep their cept a different, more "Mediterranean" distance from the cause of gay liberation conception. For these blacks, homosexu- wellinto the 1980s.In 1983, after a stormy ality tends to be equated with effeminacy, battle over gay participation in the 20th and the penetrator is less likely to view anniversary March on Washington, agroup himself as homosexual. Thus, there are of prominent black leaders endorsed the fewer inhibitions preventing a "macho" national gay rights bill and put a speaker, black male from engaging in sexual activ- Audre Lorde from the National Coalition ity with another male, as long as he him- of Black Gays, on the agenda; the follow- self retains the "male role" and his partner ing year the Reverend Jesse Jackson in- restricts himself to the "femalerole," than cluded gays in his "Rainbow Coalition." for his white counterpart. The high pro- BLACK GAY AMERICANS 9 portion of young black males who pass the street, were less likely to worry about through American confinement institu- public exposure of their orientation, were tions and absorb models of homosexuality less likely to have sex with strangers, more which are normative in prisons, jails, and likely to accept older partners, more likely reformatories may contribute to this per- to engage in anal sex, less likely to belong spective. to a homophile organization, and were less Complicatingthe American black likely to have been arrested (in contrast perspective on homosexuality is the per- with the heterosexual blacks in the study, ception that slavery represented an attack who were more likely to have been ar- on black manhood and that continued rested than the heterosexual whites). white (economic, political, legal) control Interracial Homosexd~llity. over black men is an extension of that Given a perspectivewhich frequently inter- attack. Thus behavior which is seen as prets homosexual relations as signdying undermining black manhood, such as dominance and submission, interracial taking what is perceived as a feminine sexuality must often deal with racial poli- sexualrole, is seen by many as a betrayal of tics. For many heterosexual black men, it the race, imposing a burden on black gays is more acceptable to take a dominant, which whites do not ordinarily share. controlling sexual role with a white male Nonetheless, the black commu- who takes a "female" role because this is nity, having long commiserated in the face seen as reversing and compensatingfor the of common oppression and misfortune, historic politicaldominance of whitemen, seems to have developed an ethos which is a white dominance which has frequently somewhat more tolerant of individual been expressed (heterojsexually, not only eccentricities, including sexual ones, and in slave society when white men freely cognizant of the pernicious effects of dis- appropriated black women, but in the crimination of all kinds. Black culture contemporary world where black prosti- seems to have been spared much of the tutes are seen as having been appropriated anti-sexual heritage of the white Puritans by finanicially more powerful white male and their successors, and the sort of organ- clients. This dynamic is expressed in the ized witchhunt which white heterosexual most extreme form in prison rape, which society has from time to time inflicted on often follows racial lines. white homosexuality has apparently been Some gay blacks, on the other absent from black American history. It is hand, being more comfortable in the sub- on this community ethos of relative toler- missive role, generalize from their experi- ance that black gays must build in the fu- ence of whites as holding the major power ture. positions of American society to perceive Kinsey Statistics. The Kinsey white males as particularly sexually pow- Institute study of homosexuality in the erful, and so are attracted to them. San Francisco Bay Area, published by Alan Whites, too, can get caught up in Bell and Martin Weinberg in 1978, sought this situation, seeking out black transves- to measure differences between white and tites and effeminate gays because they feel black homosexuality; the original Kinsey more comfortable dominating them or surveys had restricted themselves to placing them in roles which elicit con- whites. Among the findings of this survey tempt from such white males. In the other (which has undergone some methodologi- direction, there are whites who are drawn cal criticism) is that homosexual blacks to more "macho" black men because they were more likely to be "out" with their are responding to a popular belief which families than whites, were more sexually depicts blacks as more virile, sexually active but had fewer partners, were more uninhibited and forceful, with larger or- likely to cruise at private parties and on gans and without the supposedly weaken- 4 BLACK CAY AMERICANS ing qualities of cultivated white civiliza- money or secret information, or the com- tion. Certainly the images of black men mission of some official act) with a threat presented in written, photographic, and (to reveal some compromising action cinematic gay pornography do nothing to committed by the victim) for one's own dispel such notions. gain or to the detriment of the victim. Having outlined such situations, Until quite recent times the fear of black- it must also be noted that there is wide- mail in homosexual circles was intense. spread interracial homosexuality which Most overt homosexuals were obliged by does not follow such lines, but which may the moral attitude of society to lead a be affected more by the attractiveness of double life, posing as heterosexuals in the "different," curiosity, classdifferences, public view and engaging in forbidden rebellion against social custom, or a belief sexual acts clandestinely. By contrast, the that race should not be a factor in discrimi- professional criminal often cannot be nating between potential sexual partners. blackmailed simply because he has no The San Francisco Kinsey survey fa~adeof respectability, or else lives in a found that 22 percent of white but only 2 subculture in which such a demand would percent of black homosexual males had be promptly met withviolence against the never experienced interracial sex; none of would-be informer. the whites reported more than half their History. The origins of blackmail partners to be black, while two-thirds of lie in the practice of delation that was the blacks reported more than half their widespread in antiquity. Before a modem partners to be white. For lesbians, only 28 police and detective force existed, the state percent of the whites had interracial expe- power had to rely on informers who were rience, while 78 percent of the blacks did, characteristically rewarded for the infor- and 30 percent of those had a majority of mation which they conveyed to the au- white partners. thorities. But if they could obtain a far Interracial couples seem to be greater sum from the delinquent party rarer than the frequency of interracial sex than the state would pay for the informa- would lead one to expect, probably be- tion, cost-benefit analysis pointed in the cause the dynamics of an ongoingrelation- direction of extortion. It has been estab- ship are more likely to trigger hostility lished that by the end of the thirteenth from a society which is both homophobic century, the moral teaching of the West- and racist than would isolated encounters. em Church had succeeded in outlawing homosexual behavior, for which the Bible BIBLIOGRAPHY. Alan P. Bell and and the Code of Justinian prescribed the Martin S.. Weinberg, Homosexualities, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978; J. penalty of death. This meant that the R. Roberts, Black Lesbians, Tallahassee: individual who defied the ban on sod- Naiad Press, 1981; Michael J. Smjth, omitical acts exposed himself to capital Colorful People and Places, San punishment, and had besides to conceal Francisco: Quarterly Press of BWMT, even his interest in the forbidden conduct. 1983; idem, ed., Black Men, White Men, San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press, In practice the fact that sexual behavior . . 1983. tends to be relegated to the most intimate Ward Houser sphere of private life, one to be hidden from all except the participants, made it nearly impossible for the state power to BLACKMAIL uncover and punish the culprits. But the Blackmail is the popular term for potential blackmailer, if he discovered the what criminal law designates as extortion, homosexual propensities of his victim, which is defined as the making of a de- could extort major sums of money from mand for some action (thehanding over of I him for his silence.

L! "'I BLACKMAIL 9

The lifelong hypocrisy and con- letter which stated or implied that if the cealment that Christian morality imposed recipient did not pay the sum demanded, upon the homosexual meant that in early his conduct would become public knowl- modern times, for the criminal underworld edge or would be disclosed to the authori- blackmail of covert sex offenders was to be ties. If the victim or his family were a lucrative source of income, as the morals wealthy, the sums extorted annually could squads of nineteenth-century Europe run into thousands of dollars. On the other quickly discovered. Even in countries like hand, a petty criminal desiring only a small France, where the Constituent Assembly sum might merely threaten the homosex- had abolished the laws against sodomy in ual with physical violence on the spot. 1791, the social ruin that would befall the More subtle forms of blackmail could turn homosexual whose conduct becamewidely upon the conduct of a businessman or known was basis enough for the practice of politician in his professional life, or take chantage (although French law prefers the the form of threats to reveal an individ- term extorsion). L6o Tail even alleged ual's conduct on the pages of a newspaper that every government from that of Napo- or magazine. This latter practice was a leon I to the Third Republic had used lucrative source of income for the yellow homosexuality as grounds for political press of the early twentieth century. blackmail. A third use of blackmail-after In the face of an intolerant public money and social control-was for pur- opinion, the homosexual threatened with poses of espionage, as in the case of the blackmail rarely attempted to seek aid Austrian Colonel Alfred Redl, who was from the police, and there were cities in supposedly compelled by the Russians to which the police force itself, or individuals reveal his country's military secrets. on the margin of law enforcement, en- Arguments of the Homosexual gaged in regular shakedowns of homo- Rights Movement. The early homosexual sexuals whom they either entrapped or rights movement made much of the dan- observed in known trysting places. The ger of blackmail in its propaganda for re- invention of instantaneous photography peal of the notorious Paragraph 175. The provided the blackmailer with a conven- threat of extortion exacerbated the fear ient tool, since an unsupported allegation and misery of the homosexualwho already of behavior that left no physicaltracecould exposed himself to imprisonment and far more easily be refuted than the evi- social ruin every time he sought sexual dence of the culprit in flagrante delicto. gratification. The situation of the victim Even if the victim sought the aid of an was made even worse by the legal practice attorney, he would find that no respect- of allowing the blackmailer, even if found able member of the bar would touch the guilty in court, to testlfy against the other case, and he would be referred to a criminal party in turn, so that the homosexual who lawyer on the fringe of the profession who was subjected to extortion had every rea- for his services would demand fees that son to fear any judicial inquiry. English amounted to an indirect mode of extor- law, by contrast, confined the proceeding tion. Some masochistic individuals were against the blackmailer to the simple unable to break out of the blackmailer's question of whetherthe extortion had been clutches, others sought to escape by flee- committed. The blackmailer could be a ing to another country, some were driven male prostitute, but more often a young to suicide when they saw no way out of criminal who knew that he could entice a their plight. Only rarely would a particuarly homosexualinto a compromising situation strong or aggressive individual find the and then obtain either money or valuable courage tointimidateor even kill the black- objects as the price for his silence. The mailer. Of Magnus Hirschfeld's ten thou- actual demand could be expressed in a sand subjects only a small number had 4 BLACKMAIL ever been imprisoned, but more than three threat of prosecution faded with the re- thousand had been blackmailed. A study form of the criminal laws, beginning in made in Austria in the early 1970s) when England in 1967, and even more with the homosexual conduct was still illegal, came education of law enforcement officials in to a similar figure: approximately one- regard to homosexuality, the danger of third of a sample group of homosexuals blackmail receded. In retrospect, black- had been victims of extortion. mail was the tribute which fear paid to OfficialResponse. The arguments intolerance. It will end only when the mounted by Hirschfeld and other support- social stigma attached to homosexual ers of the early homosexual rights move- behavior has been eradicated. The rallying ment were compelling enough to persuade cry of thegay liberationmovement "Come even theNationalSocialist lawmakers who out!" is an appeal for candor and courage in the legislation of June 28, 1935 in- on the part of the homosexual community creased the penalties for male homosexu- that will relegate the eventuality of black- ality, but at the same time amended the , mail to the dark annals of history. Code of Criminal Procedure to allow the district attorney to refrain from prosecut- BIBLIOGRAPHY. Magnus Hirschfeld, Die Homosexualitat des Mannes und ing an individual whose criminal conduct des Weibes, Berlin: Louis Marcus, 1914; had subjected him to blackmail. In con- Konrad Schirna, Erpressung und trast, the subcommittee of the United Notigung: Eine kriminologische Studie, States Senate that was appointed in 1950 Vienna and New York: Springer-Verlag, to investigate Senator Joseph R. Mc- 1973. Carthy's charges that the administration Warren Iohansson was harboring "sex perverts in govern- ment" found that the danger of blackmail made homosexualssecurity risks; and since .j BLOCH,IWAN the penal laws of theDistrict of Columbia (1872-1 922) had no provision against homosexual acts German physician, historian, and the subcommittee urged that the code be sex researcher. One of an extraordinary amended in this direction. In other words, group of investigators active in Wilhelrnine it created a situation in which a homosex- Berlin, Bloch perhaps surpassed all the ual employee of the Federal Government others in learning. Omnivorously curious, could be dismissed from his job and even he is said to have possessed a personal prosecuted for his sexual activity, and then library of 80,000 volumes. In addition to used the risk of blackmail to justlfy the the medical approach in which he had policy it was advocating. This is a classic been trained, Bloch directed his full atten- instance of how arguments formulated as tion to historical, literary, sociological, an appeal for toleration could be mali- and ethnographic evidence, so as to create ciously turned into justifications for fur- a multidisciplinary concept of Sexualwis- ther intolerance. senschaft (sexual science). In his own time Current Situation. In the debate he viewed the problem of venereal disease over the recommendations of the Wolfen- as emblematic, holding that this once den Committee in England after 1957, the overcome, humanity could look forward issue of blackmail played a considerable to a bright future. role, and the Criminal Law Amendment Rejecting the degeneration the- Act of 1885 was even dubbed "The Black- ory, Bloch first held that homosexuality mailer's Charter" because of the opportu- could be acquired in a multiplicity of ways, nity that it had given the criminal under- but then--on the basis of first-hand obser- world to prey upon otherwise respectable, vation-accepted Hirschfeld's doctrine law-abiding members of society. As the that "true homosexuality," of congenital BLOOMSBURY 4 origin, was not morbid, but rather healthy ety, The Apostles, which was suffused in that it was spontaneous and occurred in with homoeroticism (the "Higher Sod- individuals who were able to function as omy"). Although Bloomsbury was not well as other members of society. He dis- secret, the smugness and self-satisfaction tinguished homosexuality per se from stemming from belonging to an exclusive pedophilia, pederasty, hermaphroditism, coterie clung to members-and repelled misogyny, and "pseudo-homosexuality" outsiders such as D. H. Lawrence and (thelatter largely corresponding to bisexu- Wyndham Lewis. For those who had been ality). scarred early by life's rough-and-tumble, Some of the English translations Bloomsbq offered a refuge. Within the of Bloch's works, especially those dealing protected redoubt they freely cultivated with anthropological and historical sub- opinions, modes of speech and conversa- jects, are so heavily abridged as to be no tion, and clothing styles that struck out- true measure of his erudition. siders, to the extent that they could com- prehend them, as aberrant and bizarre. The BIBLIOGRAPHY. Works: Das Gesch- character and doings of members and lechtsleben in England, by Eugen Diihren 1pseud.L 3 vols., Berlin: Barodorf, friends were tirelessly chronicled in arch 190143; Beitrdge nu Atiologie der and informed gossip. Blasphemy and Psychopathia sexualis, 2 vols., Dresden: bawdiness flowed unstintingly. In a 1914 H. R. Dohrn, 190243; Die Prostitution, letter VanessaBell wrote: "One can talk of 2 vols., Berlin: L. Marcus, 1912-25; The fucking & sodomy & sucking & bushes all Sexual Life of Our Time, trans. M. 'Eden Paul, London: Heinemann, 1908; Der without turning a hair." Social gatherings, Urspmg der Syphilis, 2 vols., Jena: G. the life support of thegroup, featuredmore Fischer, 1901-11. than just talk: opportunities for sexual encounter+indeed of a sexual merry- ground-were ever present. Homosexual- BLOOMSBURY ity was "in." As Virginia Woolf, a member Taking its name from the district of the Stephen family, bluntly remarked: of London where many of the members "The society of buggers has many advan- lived, the Bloomsbury coterie influenced tages-if you are a woman. It is simple, it British thought and letters during the first is honest, it makes one feel . . . in some half of the twentieth century. Broadly respects at one's ease." A sign of their cultural rather than academic in their sexual adaptability was the fact that some interests and affiliations, its members members settled into a mknage h trois. practiced and favored several arts, stand- After Clive Bell-who stood out ing for civilized tolerance as against the for his "special charm of normalityM- competitive ethic of official Britain. Ad- married Vanessa Stephen in 1907, a second herents were socially cohesive, but sexu- salon was established in which the visual ally varied: the salons ofBloomsbq hosted arts were favored. Later Roger Fry was to heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual promote avant-garde modem art through members. his writings, exhibitions, and above all The group began in March 1905, through a collaborative atelier, the Omega when the Stephen family launched their Workshops, which employed a number of "at homes" at 46 Gordon Square. Many of "Bloomsberries." By international stan- the recruits were young men who had just dards, however, theBloomsbury painters- been graduated from Cambridge, where Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, and Fry they had absorbed, in an atmosphere of himself-were second-rate, never enjoy- wide-rangingenquiry, the ethical precepts ing the prestige of the novelists E. M. of the philosopher G. E. Moore. At Cam- Foster and Virginia Woolf, not to speak of bridge most had belonged to a secret soci- the economist John Maynard Keynes. 4 BLOOMSBURY

The public image of the group and Bloomsbury faded in public aware- was already forming before World War I, ness, though individual members contin- and the mutual support that adherents ued to produce. could rely on helped to advance their indi- The revival of interest in vidual careers. The group was generally Bloomsbury coincided with the new pros- hostile to the war, and a number of mem- perity of the 1950s, which made its life- bers became conscientious objectors. In style preferences available to a larger seg- 1918 a homosexual Bloomsberry, Lytton ment of society. A further stimulus was Strachey, published his Eminent Victori- the fascination with the early phases of ans, which poured scorn on the icons of modernism. Then there was the sexual official Britain. Bloomsbury discounted revolution of the 1960~~whichBloomsbury religion assomethingthat educatedpeople was rightly seen as having anticipated. For could not take seriously, while politics the first time Michael Holroyd's massive was generally dismissed as coarse and life- study, Lytton Strachey: A Critical Biogra- diminishing. Thevalues of the group were phy (London, 1967-68) revealed to a larger frankly hedonistic: they appreciated mod- public the centrality of homosexuality to ernist painting largely for its "retinal" the group. All these factors turned writing qualities, cultivated French cuisine, and about Bloomsbury into an academicgrowth engaged in the kinds of sex that appealed to industry, and there was much uncritical individual taste. Although members were acclaim. Books poured from the presses, individualistic, their headquarters in and on the art market prices of even the London gave them a cohesion that no shabbiest Omega workshop items in- group of academics, scattered among pro- creased enormously. Inevitably, a reaction vincial universities, could hope to attain. followed, but not so sharp as to exclude the They used their access to the media to consolidation of a more balanced picture project what they sincerely believed were of the group's accomplishments. the ideals of civilization and tolerance. To its enemiesBloomsbury stood BIBLIOGRAPHY. Leon Edel, Bloomsbury: A House of Lions, New for superficiality and self-indulgence, a York: Avon, 1980; 1. K. Johnstone,The prolongation in a new guise of the aes- Bloomsbury Group: A Study of E. M. theticism and decadence of the 1890s. In Forster, Lytton Strachey, Virginia Woolf art and literature, theBloomsberries sacri- and Their Circle, New York: Noonday, ficed content to form, and indeed their 1954; S. P. Rosenbaum, The Bloomsbury Group: A Collection of Memoirs, aesthetic ideas belonged to the interna- Commentary and Criticism, Toronto: tional context of Formalism. For their University of Toronto Press, 1975. highbrow tastes "proletarian culture" was Wayne R. Dynes as repulsive as "capitalist culture": both were hopelessly vulgar. For all their dis- like of the degradation brought by the BLUHER,HANS industrial system, their revolt against (1888-1955) Victorianism seemed to depend, all too German homophile leader and crucially, on the maintenance of the sta- scholar. His early, controversial studies on bility secured by the sacrifices of earlier the German youth movement (Wander- generations-not to mention their social vogelbewegung) emphasized the positive position and income. At Bloomsbury gath- function of male eroticism in the initia- erings, servants always hovered in the tion of the young to collective life. Bliiher background and class privilege-gas taken was strongly influenced by the psychoana- for granted. The coming of the interna- lytic theories of Sigmund Freud, and radi- tional depression in 1929and World War II cally opposed to the "third sex" theory of seemed to lend substance to this critique, Mignus Hirschfefd, the leader of the Ger- BOHEMIANISM + man homophile movement. In a two-vol- sion of its being disorganized, bohemia ume work of 19 17-19, Die Rolle der Erotik had its fixed meetingplaces-the cafkbeing in dermijnnlichen Gesellschaft [TheRole of central importance-and its press. of the Erotic in Male Society], he divided This urban phenomenon is obvi- homosexuals into three types: the "heroic ously older than the name itself. A text by male," the effeminate invert, and the Richard of Devizes pertaining to London suppressed homosexual. Society was in in the twelfth century shows homosexu- his view organized around two institu- als living in the company of other denizens tions, the family and the state. The first of the urban demimonde. At the end of the was by its very nature heterosexual, the Middle Ages a Cologne text of 1484 points second had its basis in male bonding- to the existence of a homosexual subcul- with homoerotic overtones. He was also ture with regular meeting places, known an,anti-Semiticthinker who played a part habitues, and the like. Agroup of difficult in the right-wing politics of homosexual jargon poems of Franqois Villon (b. 1431) paramilitary cliques under the Weimar has been given an interpretation which Republic. In later years, increasingly de- would reveal their author as a homosexual parting from his earlier concerns, Bliiher situated in just such a milieu in mid- evolved a somewhat murky metaphysics fifteenth-century Paris. Most Italian cit- of Christianity and nature. He was twice ies, including Venice and Florence, had married and had two children. Despite his such groups. fame as the author of two major books on The gay side of Paris under the homosexuality the Nazis left him alone. early Third Republic is illuminated by the At the close of his life he composed his classic relationship of the poets Rimbaud memoirs under the title Works and Days. and Verlaine. Francis Carcots novel /isus- la-Caille (1910) paints a convincing pic- ture of the life of a bisexual hustler in the BODY LANGUAGE French capital during the Belle Epoque. In See Gesture and Body Language. the United States the archetypal bohemias were in New York City: the Greenwich Village and Harlem of the 1920s. The BOHEMIANISM Greenwich Village poet Maxwell Boden- The expression La Bohbme first heim (1893-1954) openly admitted his emerged in Paris in the 1840s, where it bisexuality in his autobiography, and denoted a segment of urban life character- popular journalism affords occasional ized by a mixture of semiunderground glimpses of cafes and bars frequented by figures-mountebanks, fixers, petty crimi- homosexuals in the interwar period. Out- nals, and prostitutes along with struggling, sideNew YorkCity, themost fertileground impoverished writers and artists-and the for imitation of the "bohemian" lifestyle free use of alcohol and other stimulants. was the elite college campus, where stu- The term derives not from the Bohemia dents (and ex-students)emancipated from (BohCme)that is now a part of Czechoslo- the surveillance of their families could vakia, but from the gypsies, to whom that revel in the freedom of late adolescence geographic origin was erroneously ascribed. without adult responsibilities. Bohemian The fame of theParisianBoh6me led to the cafes, though their patrons may have been detection of others (which had probably "mixed," were clearly the ancestors of been in existence for some time) in the today's gay and lesbian establishments. major cities of Europe and North America. The nationwide Prohibition of alcohol as a A typical feature of bohemia was emanci- result of the passage of the Eighteenth pation from the family with its values and Amendment in 19 19 caused speakeasies constraints. Contrary to outsiders' impres- to spring up in every city, but with a 9 BOHEMIANISM particular concentration in the bohemian and luxurious clothing. But at the same quarters. While attracting a more varied time he evinced a wit and humor, a gift for and upscale clientele, these mob-protected storytelling, that made him a favorite of bars created a new interface between CardinalRichelieu. He knew how to wound bohemia and crime. Then, when Prohibi- and stigmatize some, to flatter and cajole tion was repealed in 1933 much of the others. Though not high-born or brilliant, acquired aura of clandestinity-and the he gained access to the highest circles need for payoffs-lingered in gay bars in thanks to the Cardinal's protection, and in the bohemian quarters, where the effects spite of his undisguised sexual proclivi- of sleazy, specious glamor and the aura of ties. "He could have given the Greeks the forbidden were not to disappear until lessons in how to make love," said a con- the 1960s. temporary, and he even earned the sobri- The beatniks and hippies of this quet of "the mayor of Sodom." His posi- period sanctioned sexual experimentation tion at court he also used to intercede on along with the use of consciousness-ex- behalf of less talented and needy men of .panding drugs and similar avenues of se- letters. As a token of his favor Richelieu cession from the constraints of American conferred the title of canon at Rouen on middle-class life. To a considerable ex- Boisrobert, but this in no way changed his tent, the post- 1969 phase of the gay move- lifestyle. ment was launched from the social base of At this time a group of writers an "alternative" culture in the metropoli- assembled weekly in a remote comer of. tan bohemias whose residents were not Paris to discuss matters of language and threatened by the ostracism and economic literature, and out of this Boisrobert cre- boycott that would have befallen'known ated an association with formal member- activists in Middle America. ship and statutes-the French Academy, admission to which became a coveted BIBLIOGRAPHY. Jerrold Seidel, symbol of recognition as a littkrateur of Bohemian Paris: Culture, Politics and the Bourgeois Life, 1830-1930, New the first rank; and at the outset it was York: Viking Press, 1986; Caroline F. Boisrobert's personal recommendation that Ware, Greenwich ViLlage 1920-1 930, mattered, and he presided over the Acad- Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1935. emy with elegance and refinement. An Wayne R. Dynes incident at the theatre cost him the favor of the monarch, and he was exiled to Rouen, B OISROBERT, but returned as Cardinal Richelieu was FRAN~OISLE METELDE dying (16421. In favor again, he encoun- (1572-1662) tered hostility from the grammarian and Courtier of Cardinal Richelieu lexicographer Gilles Menage, who railed and founder of the French Academy. Born at him as "Cet admirablePathelin/Aimant in Caen, he practiced law briefly in Rouen, le genre masculin" [That admirable pa- but after some legal troubles in that city he thic/Loving the masculine gender]. After a left for Paris with letters of recommenda- further mishap that led to a second exile in tion to highly placed personalities. In the Rouen, the courtier returned to bask in the French capital he soon gave proof of his favor of the ladies of the court, with whom lifelong talent for insinuating himself in he hada feminine identification that made to circles of pretty and educated women them overlook or forgive his own erotic whom he flattered and entertained. In time proclivity for pages and manservants. With a sexual interest in the handsome pages a physique reminiscent of a fragile statu- who adorned the court of Louis XIII awak- ette he combined a charm that enabled ened in him, and he exhibited a feminine him to empathize with the female sex and delight in appearing publicly in elegant to play the role of courtier with skill and BONHEUR, ROSA 4 audacity. The French Academy with its At the age of fourteen Rosa Bon- forty immortals remains a monument to heur began a friendship with Nathalie his incarnation of the homosexual affinity Micas, a sickly child whom she protected. for literature and art. In their blossoming relationship [which Bonheur described as "sisterly"), Nathalie BIBLIOGRAPHY. Emile Magne, Le looked after the clothes and the studio, plaisant abbi de Boisrobert, Pondateur de I'Acnddmie franpise, 1592-1662, freeing Bonheur for her work. Although it Paris: Mercure de France, 1909; Numa was never openly acknowledged as a love Praetorius (pseudonym of Eugen affair, this intimate connection lasted until Wilhelm), "Der homosexuelle AbM de Nathalie's death in 1889. Boisrobert, der Griinder der 'Acaamie Her last years were illuminated franpise,'" Zeitschrift fur Sexualwis- senschaft, 9 (1922), 4-7,33-43. by a passionate friendship with a young Warren Johansson American artist, Anna ElizabethKlumpke, whose mother had brought her daughters BONDAGE from San Francisco to Paris so that they might take advantage of European culture. See Sadomasochism. Although they had met in 1889, the very year of Micas' death, it was not until 1898, BONDING in an imperious letter to Mrs. Klumpke, See Friendship; Homosociality. that Bonheur announced that she and Anna had decided to share their lives. Klumpke's writings leave little doubt of the nature of BONHEUR,ROSA her relationship with Bonheur. In a few (1822-1877) letters to intimate friends the aged painter Frenchpainter. Born into a family referred to her companion as "my wife." of artists, Bonheur was encouraged early Despite family opposition, Bonheur made on by her father, who sent her to the Klumpke her sole heir. Louvre to copy old-master canvases and Although there had been notable urged her to visit farms and stables to women painters in earlier centuries, Bon- sketch. She was only nineteen when she heur's career flourished in an era of in- entered her work for the first time in the creasing assertion of women's rights and official Salon. In her twenties she fre- creativity, as seen in the careers of such quented the slaughterhouses and horse writers as Flora Tristan and George Sand. fairs for material. For these visits she ob- Bonheur also took advantage of the inter- tained a permit to wear male costume. At est in androgyny then current to paint the age of twenty-six she won her first "men's" subjects, while adopting, how- Gold Medal, awarded by a jury that in- ever guardedly, a male role in her personal cluded Corot, Delacroix, and Ingres. Five relations as well. After her death Bon- years later, herreputation reached its height heur's reputation declined, but it revived in France with the display of The Horse again with the late-twentieth century Fair, an imposing tour de force which today resurgence of interest in academic paint- adorns The Metropolitan Museum of Art ing. in New York. Prosperity enabled her to acquire BIBLIOGRAPHY. Dore Ashton and a chateau near Fontainebleau, where she Denise Browne Hare, Rosa Bonheur: A Life and a Legend, New York: Viking kept a menagerie of exotic animals. She Press, 1981; Albert Boirne, "The Case of traveled frequently and hobnobbed with Rosa Bonheur: Why Should a Woman royalty. Claiming that the duties of her Want to Be Like a Man?"Art History, 4 craft required her full attention, Bonheur (1981), 384-409. never married. Kathy D. Schnapper 9 BOSTON

BOSTON and, by adopting the German Ph.D. sys- The capital of Massachusettswas tem, turned it into a world center of schol- founded in 1630 by John Winthrop and arship. other Puritans as "the city on a hill" to be Prominent homosexuals as well a beacon to show the world how true as bars and an emerginggay subculture can Christians should live. The religious con- be traced to this period. The Imagist poet victions of the colonists naturally entailed Amy Lowell smoked cigars and had along- a hatred of all forms of sexual "depravity." term relationship with a lesbian lover. As early as 1636 the General Court of Katherine Lee Bates, who wrote "America Massachusetts Bay asked Rev. John Cot- the Beautiful" in 1893 and was a professor ton to draft a law code for the colony, at Wellesley (1885-1925), was also gay. In which included the death penalty for 1907 the Monatsberichte of the Berlin "unnatural filthiness, whether sodomy, Scientific-Humanitarian Committee which is carnal fellowship of man with printed a letter which said that "Boston, man, or woman with woman." Although this good old Puritan city, has homosexu- this proposal was not accepted, another als by the hundreds," Yankees being the law-providing for the death penalty for most numerous, but French Canadians male homosexuality only-was adopted also well represented. Homosexuality in 1641. extended into all social classes, from the Because of its exceptional harbor North End teeming with immigrants to and enterprising merchants and shipown- the fashionable Beacon Hill and Back Bay. ers, Boston achieved wealth and sophisti- The grapevine carried word of homosexual cation in the eighteenth century. Profits figures in the highest stratum of Bostonian from the sordid triangle trade-molasses, life. However, the anonymous correspon- rum, and slaves-were not disdained by dent believed that the American homo- these mercantile aristocrats. Secularizing sexuals were "astonishingly ignorant about merchants won their prolonged struggle their own true natureu-which amounted against dour ministers, but the Puritan to saying that while they were conscious strain has never been completely eradi- of their physical desires, they had not yet cated. Boston's aggressive patriots, like been exposed to European concepts of the Adamses, remained more puritanical homosexual identity and militancy. The than the Southern deists with whom they political emancipation of the American were allied. After 1830 clipper ships and gay subculture lay decades in the future. China trade brought new wealth and power With the coming of the subway, to the Boston Brahmins, who gave the city street-car, and electric tram, suburbs de- the particular cachet it has long retained. veloped. World War I increased the cos- The flowering of New England lifted the mopolitanism of Bostonians and loosened city-now called the Athens of America- their sexual mores. During Prohibition to the front rank of American culture. certain speakeasies, including the Napo- Bostonians profited in the mid-nineteenth leon Club and the Chess Room in the century from speculation in railroads, Hotel Touraine, attracted a gay clientele. textile and leather manufacturing, bank- Irish politicians such as James Michael ing and profiteering from the Civil War, Curley broke the power of the Brahmins while abolitionists, wrapping themselves who retreated to Beacon Hill or the sub- in the mantle of moral superiority that urbs, though they still held power in the their Puritan forebears had worn, berated financial district. One governer was reput- both Southern slaveowners and Northern edly gay, as were the son of another and robber barons. President Charles William two cardinals. A gay ghetto developed on Eliot (1834-19261 raised Harvard to a lead- St. Botolph Street, on the border between ing position among American universities the Back Bay and the South End, the once- BOSTON MARRIAGE 4 fashionable district where George Santay- ciation (NAMBLA),founded in 1978 and ana lived. Italians occupied the North End now a nationalgroup, although theBoston and blacks were displaced from the back of chapter disbanded subsequently. Beacon Hill to Massachusetts Avenue Fag Rag, the second oldest gay where they had their own speakeasies and periodical still published in North Amer- jazz places, their numbers swollen by ica, was founded in 1970 by an editorial emigrants from the South. group that included Charley Shively. Three World War I1 saw more black years later appeared the Gay Community immigration and more sexual experimen- News, a lesbianlgayweekly unique in being tation in the military by all classes of a collective equally balanced between men males and females. After the war, as the and women. A successful gay book pub- elite and upper-middle class fled the city lisher, Alyson Press, was created by Sasha to the automobile suburbs, the gay move- Alyson, who also founded a pro-religious ment beganwith the formation of Boston's paper Bay Windows. Daughters of Bilitis and the founding of Though deeply divided and often the Mattachine Society of Boston in the cantankerous, Boston's gay community late 1950s by the erratic and picturesque ranks as one of the most important in figure of Prescott Townsend, a scion of one North America. Its annual Gay Pride March of the great Brahmin families, who sum- has been held each year since 1971 in mid- mered in nearby Provincetown, now a June, before the one in New York. The major gay resort. Gay bars in and near the Good Gay Poets was organized in 1972 and "combat zone" and in Scolly Square con- has continued to publish. If Boston has less tinued the prosperity they had gained of a Bohemia and is more discreet in its gay during the war. life than New York or San Francisco, as an Boston declined in the 1950s and educational center each year it attracts 1960s for economic and social reasons. thousands of the brightest American youth. Later, a bitter dispute over school busing With over 200,000 students in numerous pitted Irish in South Boston andItalians in colleges and universities, large numbers of East Boston intent on protecting their faculty, and outstanding medical and legal ethnic neighborhoods against blacks and institutions, the city vies with Paris, Lon- Hispanics, now the fastest growing ele- don, and New York as one of the leading ment in Boston's mix. Economic recovery cultural centers of the world. Increasingly, and urban renewal began in the late 1960s it is also a tourist mecca that lures the gay and have since accelerated. Homosexuals vacationer in search of erotic pleasures. arrived in great numbers on elegant Bea- con fill and Back Bay and subsequently BIBLIOGRAPHY. Joseph Interrante, "From the Puritans to the Present: 350 gentrified the South End and the Fenway. Years of Lesbian and Gay History in After the Stonewall Rebellion in Boston," Gay lubilee: A Guidebook to New YorkCity in 1969Boston's gay move- Gay Boston-Its History and Resources, ment developed. The Mattachine Society Boston: Lesbian & Gay Task Force of had been replaced by the Homophile Un- Jubilee350, 1980, pp. 7-29. Antonio A. Gianaputo and ion of Boston (HUB). William A. Percy In 1977 the Boston Boise Com- mittee organized to demand fair trials for a group accused of child pornography. The BOSTON MARRIAGE District Attorney was thrown out of of- The term "Boston marriage" was fice, and only two of the defendants were used in late nineteenth-century New convicted. Out of the Committee grew England to describe a long-term monoga- GLAD (Gay and Lesbian Advocates) and mous relationship between two otherwise the North American Man-Boy Love Asso- unmarried women. The women were 9 BOSTON MARRIAGE generally financially independent of men, BOTTICELLI,SANDRO either through inheritance or because of a (ALESSANDRODI career. They were usually feminists, New MARIANOFELIPEPI; Women, often pioneers in a profession. CA. 1444-1510) They were also very involved in culture Italian painter of the early Ren- and social betterment, and these female aissance in Florence. Botticelli's art ma- values formed a strong basis for their life tured in the culturalefflorescence fostered together. Their relationships were in ev- by the Medici family-a milieu that was ery sense (as described by a Bostonian, shattered by the turbulent events of the Mark DeWolfe Howe, the nineteenth- end of the century, including the theo- century Atlantic Monthly editor, who had cratic dictatorship of Savonarola. After social contact with a number of these this break there developed the different women, including Sarah Orne Jewett who artistic ideals that were to crystallize in had a Boston marriage with Annie Fields], the high Renaissance. "a union-there is no truer word for it." Botticelli's paintings capture Whether these unions sometimes or aften perfectly the essence of a transient era. included a sexual relationship can not be Theremarkable beauty of theartist's style known, but it is clear that these women stems from a thoroughgoing fusion of the spent their lives primarily with other older linear manner known as the Interna- women, they gave to other women the tional Style with the new sense of formal bulk of their energy and attention, and rigor demanded by Renaissance ideals. they formed powerful emotional ties with Although most of Botticelli's surviving other women. If their personalities could works were religious-responding to stan- be projected to our times, it is probable dard patterns of patronage-he also ex- that they would see themselves as celled in portraiture as well as mythologi- "women-identifiedwomen,"i.e., what we cal allegory of classical derivation. Paint- would call lesbians, regardless of the level ings in the latter category, above all the of their sexual interests. celebrated Primavera (Spring)and the Birth Henry James intended his novel of Venus, were created in an atmosphere of The Bostonians (1885),which he charac- philosophical syncretism generated by the tcrized as "a very American tale" (the Neo-Platonic movement. The chief figure italics are James'), to be a study of just such in this trend, Marsilio Ficino, advocated a a relationship-"one of those friendships concept of Socratic love, a cautious and between women which are so common in high-minded rationalization of his own New England," he wrote in his Notebook. homoerotic leanings. Moreover, the influ- James' sister Alice had a Boston marriage ence of another closeted homophile with Katharine Loring in the years before Humanist, the poet and philologist Angelo Alice's death. Poliziano has been detected in Botticelli's works. BIBLIOGRAPHY. Lillian Faderman, More concrete evidence of Bot- Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women ticelli's sexual orientation is available. On from the Renaissance to the Present, November 16, 1502, someone dropped a New York: William Morrow, 1981. denunciation in the box of the sinister Lillian Faderman Uffiziali di Notte, a municipal committee concerned with morals charges. Accord- ing to this anonymous informant, the art- ist had been' engaging in sodomy with one of his young assistants. Perhaps because of the painter's venerable age and high pro- fessional standing, no further action was BRAND, ADOLF 4 taken. In view of the fact that Botticelli visiting Morocco. In 1948 Paul introduced never married, and that such liaisons with her to an illiterate, but charismatic young pupils [ganoni]were common, as shown woman of Fez, Cherifa, with whom Jane by similar accusations lodged, among was to have a stormy relationship over the others, against Donatello and Leonardo, it years. She suffered intermittently from a seems unwise to dismiss the incident, as writing block, complicated by troubles some modern scholars, in their zeal to with drinking. During their stay in Mo- preserve Botticelli's "purity," have done. rocco Jane and Paul Bowles became ac- In the last decade of his life Bot- quainted with many visiting gay literary ticelli had the misfortune of seeing his art figures, including William Burroughs, come to be regarded as old fashioned, and Truman Capote, Allen Ginsberg, and he painted little. On his death his artistic Tennessee Williams. reputation fell into a decline that lasted Jane Bowles' last years were diffi- some 250 years. The triumphant revival of cult, and she converted to Catholicism. Botticelli, which was made possible in the She was hospitalized on several occasions light of more inclusive nineteenth-cen- in a clinic at Mglaga, where she died on tury taste, owes much to two homophile May 4,1973. Her husband Paul continued writers: the aesthete Walter Pater, who to live and work in Morocco, devoting included an essay on the painter in his himself to translating the work of local immensely popular The Renaissance writers. (1868)) and the scholar Herbert Horne, In the view of the poet John who published his great monograph on Ashbery, Jane Bowles was "one of the Botticelli in 1908. finest modem writers of fiction, in any Wayne R. Dynes language." Her work stands outside the mainstream of American fiction, andsome BOTTO, ANTONIO have likened it to the Jewish mystical See Pessoa, Fernando. tradition of the Kabbala. She had a power- ful sense of women's independence from BOWLES,JANE men, which she strove to incarnate in the (1917-1973) force and quality of her writing. American writer. Born Jane Auer BIBLIOGRAPHY. Millicent Dillon, A to a middle-class Jewish family of New Little Original Sin: The Life and Work York City, she early had a sense of a pow- of lane Bowles, New York: Holt, erful imagination together with a aware- Rinehart and Winston, 198 1. ness of standing apart from others. A child- Evelyn Gettone hood brush with tuberculosis resulted in an operation that made her lame, increas- ing her alienation. In 1937, at a party in BRAND,ADOLF Harlem, she met the bisexual American (1874-1945) writer and composer Paul Bowles. They German book dealer, publisher, soon traveled to Mexico together, and in and writer. Brand is chiefly remembered the followingyearwere married. Janebegan for editingDerEigene: Ein Blattfurmannli- work on her novel Two Serious Ladies, che Kultur [The Exceptional: A Magazine which was published by Knopf in 1943. In for MaleCulture]between 1896 and 193 1- 1947 Paul left for Morocco, where Jane a publication that has been claimed as the joined him the following year. Tangiers world's first homosexual periodical. It was to be her home for the rest of her life. began to appear in April 1896 with the Jane had had lesbian relationships subtitle Monatsschrift fur Kunst und Le- before her marriage and was to have a ben [Monthly for Art and Life], and only in number afterwards, often with Europeans July 1899-that is to say, after the found- 9 BRAND, ADOLF ing of the Berlin Scientific-Humanitarian BRAZIL Committee--did it assume the subtitle This vast country, with its 140 which openly identified it as a homoerotic million inhabitants, is unique in Latin publication. Unlike the Jahrbuch fzir America in derivingits language and much sexuelle Zwischenstufen [Yearbook for of its culture from Portugal. It enjoys the Sexual Intergrades], Der Eigene was de- enviable distinction of being known inter- voted toliterature and art, publishingshort nationally as the New World country with stories on homosexual themes and draw- perhaps the greatest freedom for homo- ings and photographs of male subjects in a sexuals. Visitors concur in praising the style that represented the best of the beauty and vivacity of Brazilian gays who printer's art of that day. The volumes for may be easily encountered in the streets, 1903 and 1906 are magnificent produc- squares, and places of public accommoda- tions, with illustrations in sepia and in tion. Historical and anthropological fac- color. In contrast with Magnus Hirschfeld tors underlie this phenomenon. The vi- and his followers, Brand gravitated more brant multiracial character of Brazil, which to the faction of the homosexual move- blends large components of native Indi- ment represented by Benedict Friedlaen- ans, Africans imported as slaves, and Por- der, John Henry Mackay ("Sagitta"), and tuguese colonists-all groups that had their Gustav Wyneken, who sought to revive own homosexual traditions-explains the the pederastic traditions of antiquity and strong presence of male and female homo- the cult of the erospaidagiigikos, the hand- sexuals in Brazilian society. some adolescent as protCgC and love object The Colonial Era. When the Por- of an older man. tuguese reached Brazil in 1500, they were To a certain extent Brand inclined horrified to discover so many Indians who politically to the right, though he qualified practiced the "unspeakablesinof sodomy." himself as an "anarchist and pederast"; his In the Indian language they were called interests overlapped with the cult of the tivira, and AndrC Thevet, chaplain to youthful athlete and with the Wander- Catherine de Medici, described them in vogelbewegung, the German youth move- 1575with the word bardache, perhaps the ment, as well as with a certain aristocratic first occasion onwhich this term was used idealization of the past and of the exclu- to describe Amerindian homosexuals. The sive male bonding that had been a feature native women also had relations with one of warrior societies. For all these reasons another: according to the chroniclers they Brand and his collaborators scorned were completely "inverted" in appearance, Hirschfeld's notion of the homosexual as a work, and leisure, preferring to die rather "third sex" and of the male homosexual as than accept the name of women. Perhaps an effeminate "intergrade." Although Der these cacoaimbeguire contributed to the Eigene did not survive the early years of rise of the New World Amazon myth. the great Depression, the volumes scat- In their turn the blacks-more tered in libraries and private collections than five million were imported during are a legacy of what the early twentieth almost four centuries of slavery-made a century could accomplish in explicit male major contribution to the spread of homo- homoerotic art and literature. sexuality in the "Land of the Parrots." The first transvestite inBrazilian history was a BIBLIOGRAPHY. Joachim S. Hohmann, black named Francisco, of the Mani-Congo ed., Der Eigene: Dos Bate ous der ersten Hornosexuellenzeitschrift der Welt, tribe, who was denounced in 1591 by the Frankfurt am Main and Berlin: Foerster Inquisition visitors, but refused to discard Verlag, 1981. women's clothing. Francisco was a mem- ber of the brotherhood of the quimbanba, homosexual fetishists who were well BRAZIL 4 known and respected in the old kingdom Matos, author of the oldest known poem of Congo-Angola. Less well established about a lesbian in the Americas, "Nise." than among the Amerindians anh AM- He himself was brought before the Inqui- cans, the Portuguese component (despite sition for blasphemy in saying that "Jesus the menace of the Tribunal of the Holy Christ was a sodomite." In the nineteenth Office [1536-162:l.l) continued unabated century the revolutionary leader Sabino during the whole history of the kingdom, was accused of homosexual practices. A involving three rulers and innumerable considerable surviving correspondence notables, and earning sodomy the sobri- between Empress Leopoldina, consort of quet of the "vice of the clergy." If we the Brazil's first sovereign, Dom Pedro, compare Portugalwith the other European with her English lady in waiting, Maria countries of the Renaissance-not exclud- Graham, attests that they had both a ing England and the Netherlands--our homosexual relationship and an intense documentation (abundant in the archives homoemotional reciprocity. Such famous of the Inquisition) requires the conclusion poets and writers as ~lvaresde Azevedo that Lisbon and the principal cities of the (1831-18521, Olavo Bilac (1865-1918), and realm, including the overseas metropo- Mkio de Andrade (1893-1945)rankamong lises of Bahia and Rio de Janeiro, boasted a the votaries of Ganymede. The list also gay subculture that was stronger, more includes the pioneer of Brazilian aeronau- vital, and more stratified than those of tics, Alberto Santos-Dumont (1873-1932)) other lands, reflecting the fact that Luso- after whose airship the pommes Santos- Brazilian gays were accorded more toler- Dumont were named. ance and social acceptance. Thirty sodo- At the end of the nineteenth mites were burned by the Inquisition century homosexuality appears as a liter- during three centuries of repression, but ary theme. In 1890 Aluizio Azevedo in- none in Brazil, despite the more than 300 cluded a realistic lesbian scene in 0 Cor- whowere denoucedfor practicing the "evil tigo, and in 1895 Adolfo Caminha devoted sin." They were referred to as sodomitas the entire novel 0 Bom Crioulo (which and fanchonos. has been translated into English) to a love Independence. With Brazilian affair between a cabin boy and his black independence and the promulgation of the protector. In the faculties of medicine of first constitution (1823) under the influ- Rio de Janeiro and Bahia various theses ence of the Napoleonic Code, homosexual addressed the homosexual question, be- behavior ceased to be criminal, and from ginning withi'O Androfilismo" of Domin- this date forward there has been no Brazil- gos Firminio Ribeiro (1898)and "0 Homo- ian law restricting homosexuality-apart sexualismo: A Libertinagem no Rio de from the prohibition with persons less Janeiro" (1906)by Pires de Almeida-both than 18 years of age, thesameas forhetero- strongly influenced by the European sexuals. Lesbianism, outlawed by the psychiatrists Moll, Krafft-Ebing, and Inquisition since 1646, had always been Tardieu. From 1930 comes the first and less visible than male homosexuality in most outspoken Brazilian novel on Brazil, and there is no record of any mulher- lesbianism, 0 3" Sexo, by Odilon Azevedo, macho ("male woman") burned by the where lesbian workers founded an associa- Portuguese Inquisition. In the course of tion intended to displace men from power, Brazilian history various persons of note thus setting forth a radical feminist dis- were publicly defamed for practicing course. homosexuality: in the seventeenth cen- The Contemporary Gay Situ- tury two Bahia governors, Diogo Botelho ation. It was only at the end of the 1970s and Camara Coutinho, both contemporar- that gays were able to realize the dream of ies of the major satirical poet, GregBrio de the terceiristasof Azevedo'snovel. In 1976 - 9 BRAZIL appeared the main gay journal of Brazilian among less prosperous youth, who consti- history, 0 LampiHo ("TheLantern"], which tute half of the population. Brazil, once the had a great positive effect on the rise of the paradise of gays, has entered a difficult Brazilian homosexual movement. By 1980 path. twenty-two organized groups had been formed and two national congresses had BIBLIOGRAPHY. Peter Fry, "Male Homosexuality and Afro-Brazilian been held. Such a promising start was Cults," in S. 0. Murray, ed., Male succeeded by inevitable setbacks, caused HomosexuaLity in Central and South mainly by the lack of political discipline of America, New York: Gay Academic the gay activists who had founded the Union, 1987, pp. 55-91; Luiz Mott, 0 groups and the material and intellectual Lesbismo no Brasil, Porto Alegre: Mercado Aberto, 1987; JoHo Silverio poverty of the participants. Four gay groups Trevisan, Perverts in Paradise, London: remain (Bahia, Rio de Janeiro, and two in Gay Men's Press, 1986; Frederick Slo Paulo], all of them legally recognized. Whitam, Male Homosexuality in Pour Among the main victories of the Brazilian Societies, New York: Praeger, 1986. gay movement is the freeing of homosexu- Luiz Mott als from the role of "sexual deviants and inverts" and the ratification of several BRITAIN resolutions on the part of scientific bodies See England. protesting antigay discrimination and calling for financial support for research BRITTEN,BENJAMIN on homosexuality. One of the chief battles (1913-1976) of gay activists is to denounce the repeated English composer. His works, murders of homosexuals-about every ten written in a variety of media, achieved days the newspapers report a homophobic both popular and specialist success, though crime. with the passage of years they came to be Recently the transvestiteRoberta labeled "traditionalist" by some. Britten Close appeared on the cover of the main shared much of his life with the tenor national magazines, receiving the acco- Peter Pears, who frequently interpreted lade of "the model of the beauty of the his works. In the late 1930s he began sev- Brazilian woman." In the mid-1980s more eral collaborations with the poet W. H. than 400 Brazilian transvestites could be Auden, including incidental music to two counted in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris; plays, songs, and the operetta Paul Bunyan many also offerthemselvesinRome. When (1941).Words have always been an impor- they hearthestatistics of theKinsey Report, tant stimulus for Britten: he has set to Brazilian gays smile, suggesting through music poems by Michelangelo and Rim- experience and ''participant observationii baud, amongothers. In 1976 hewas named that in Brazil the proportion of predomi- a life peer (Baron Britten of AldeburghJ by nantly homosexual men is as high as 30 Queen Elizabeth. percent. In his dramatic compositions Since 1983, with the death of the Britten worked with the idea of "parable" first Brazilian AIDS victim, the "epidemic as a means of effecting changes in existing of the century" has caused much concern patterns of human relationships. The opera in the homosexual community. Situated Peter Grimes (1945)is loosely based on a in the third place in the world, after the poem by George Crabbe. Grimes, a fisher- United States and France, Brazil was tardy man accused of involvement in the death in mounting a public information cam- of two apprentices, cannot face social paign aimed at the prevention of AIDS. pressure and commits suicide. In this Given the general bisexuality, the spread choice of subject it has been argued that of the disease was particularly worrisome Britten was presenting, perhaps uncon- BROOKS, ROMAINE GODDARD 4 sciously, a parable of his own homosexual- a childhood marred by her mother's prefer- ity. The libretto of The Turn of the Screw ring her sickly brother to her. At the age of (1954)derivesfrom afamous story by Henry seventeen she was sent to a girls' finishing James, which it follows closely. Two or- school in Geneva, where she had crushes phaned children are placed in the care of a on several other students. She showed a new governess, who must struggle for talent for both art and music, and was able control of the boy Miles with the ghost of to transfer to Paris. She was briefly mar- Quint, a former valet. Although she per- ried to the homosexual pianist JohnElling- suades Miles to repudiate Quint, the effort hamBrooks, and had a stormy relationship is too much and he fallslifeless beside her. with the predatory Italian writer Gabriele In the story one could assume that the dfAnnunzio. In 1905, after study in Italy, ghost is afigment of the characters' imagi- Romaine Brooks began a serious career as nation-a collective delusion-but in the an artist in Paris, capped by her successful opera he must appear in the flesh. Hence show in 1910. Her specialty was portrai- the relationship takes on a more clearly ture, where she showed the influence of pederastic character than it otherwise James McNeil Whistler, though she never would have done. studied with him.Her finest singleworkis The Turn of the Screw remains probably her self-portrait, which captures shrouded in a certain amount of ambigu- a magnificent brooding figure set against a ity, which disappears in the case of Death ruined landscape (Washington, DC, Na- in Venice (1976).Thomas Manu's novella, tional Collection of Fine Arts). Many of which the opera faithfully follows, con- her female portraits, including one of cems a Central European bourgeois, the Una Lady Troubridge, the companion of image of respectability, who falls precipi- Radclyffe Hall, have an androgynous tously in love with a teenage boy. The quality. Britten setting, which has been success- On the eve of World War I Brooks fully staged in a number of major opera met Natalie Barney, a wealthy lesbian houses, offers an adroit, sometimes mov- expatriate. Their relationship was to last ing version of a subject that at first sight for fifty years. The two women collabo- would seem difficult for audiences to rated on Barney's book One Who Is Le- accept. Death in Venice is not only a gion, for which Brooks produced a series of fitting climax to a brilliant career, but an quirky drawings of impossibly thin fig- example of the work of a homosexual ures. Some have detected a humorous side artist who made creative use of the oppor- in this aspect of herwork, complementing tunities that a changing social climate the high seriousness of her portraiture. provided. The last thirty years of Brooks' long life were passed in obscurity, and she BIBLIOGRAPHY. Alan Blyth, Remem- did not live to see the revival of interest in bering Bzitten, London: Hutchinson, 1981; Donald Mitchell, Bzitten and women artists that emerged in the 1970s Auden in the Thirties, London: Faber, (including a posthumous retrospective of 1981; Christopher Palmer, ed., The herworkin 1971).Brooks stood apart from Britten Companion, London: Faber, modernism and abstraction, pursuing a 1984. humanistic art that gradually opened a Wayne R. Dynes gulf with the avant-garde. Her importance is secured, however, by her place in the constellation of creative expatriate lesbi- BROOKS,ROMAINE ans in Paris in the first half of the twenti- GODDARD(1874-1970) eth century, which included not only American artist. Born in Rome to NatalieBarney, but DjunaBames, Gertrude a wealthy American family, Romaine had Stein, and Alice B. Toklas. 4 BROOKS, ROMAINE GODDARD

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Mexyle Secrest, I Nineteenth-Centurv Paris. From Between Me and ~ife:~~io~ra~h~ of early nineteenth-century Paris we have an NY: Romaine Brooks, Garden City, exceptionally detailed report of a male Doubleday, 1974. do thy D.schnapper brothel in the Rue du Doyenne, which even had its own resident physicians. This establishment was closed by the police in 1826. Fran~ois-EugkneVidocq, in his Vo- BROTHELS leurs (18371, mentions an establishment Because of the clandestinity in run by a certain Cottin for the benefit of which they have been shrouded, it is diffi- pederasts in the Paris of the July Monar- cult to essay a history and typology of chy. The ex-police chief Louis Canler houses of male prostitution. Where de- reported in his MLmoires that an individ- mand was present, however, generally ual nicknamed la mbe des tantes, "the means would be found to satisfy it. Often mother of the queans," kept a house of male prostitutes would be included-as male prostitution that attracted a varied they are today in Mexico-as a sideline of clientele. Under the Second Empire Paris the female brothel, men being the clients had a world-renowned male brothel kept of both. Secular houses of prostitution by an elderly proprietor who had been a must be distinguished from locales where hustler in his youth but was left destitute sacred prostitutes were available. . by the Revolution of 1848. Toward 1860 Historical Perspectives. In fourth- he organized his establishment in such a century Athens houses existed in which manner that clients of every social and attractive boys were readily available. economic class could frequent its prem- There seems to have been no need for ises. The room corresponded in price to concealment, as their owners paid a spe- the degree of luxury that it afforded, and cial tax. Attractive slaves were freely traded could be rented by the hour or by the day, for use in such establishments. Athenian as well as reserved by correspondence in law strictly insisted that only slaves or advance. Likewise a customer with a par- metics (foreignersresidentin the city),not ticular sexual preference could arrange to free-born citizens, could be inmates. Oc- have his desires satisfied by an appropriate casionally, as in the case of the handsome partner, and if he was not pressed for time, Phaedrus, a well-born war captive who evenwithout advance notice he could have became a member of Socrates' circle, a boy a prompt search made for the hustler of his would catch the fancy of a client who choice. The proprietor energetically man- would buy and free him. aged the affairs of the brothel, aided by the While male prostitutes existed in pan-European notoriety which it enjoyed medieval Europe, their situations are hard among both potential clients and aspiring to assess, in part because the category of employees. Thus modem capitalist meth- house of prostitution merged, as it had ods of business administration filtered often done in the Roman Empire and still down to the market for illicit sexual pleas- does in many countries, with that of the ures in the prosperous France of Napoleon bathhouse (the "stews" or "bagnio"). The m. institution flourished in medieval and later The Cleveland Street Affair. Vic- Islam, though what connections it had torian London was to be scandalized by the with Europe is uncertain. In China boy discovery on July 4,1889 of a male brothel brothels were known to exist in profusion at 19 Cleveland Street in the West End. from Sung (960-1279) times. In the late This aspect of the sexual underworld of nineteenth century, European travelers London had been familiar to Henry Spencer report visiting a then-characteristic type Ashbee, who had written that if discretion of brothel situated on a junk. did not forbid it, "it would be easy to name BROTHELS 4 men of the very highest positions in diplo- lishment, the brothel owner carefully macy, literature and the army who at the screens applicants to exclude those with present day indulge in these idiosyncra- criminal records or a history of hepatitis or sies, and to point out the haunts they venereal disease. The would-be male pros- frequent." What particularly alarmed the titute is usually a model, sometimes an British authorities was that messengers aspiring actor, who takes on the trade to from the General Post Office were being supplement his income. The owner inter- recruited as hustlers for a brothel that views the candidate to determine the catered to "the most abominable of all character of his own preferences; to have vices." For theBritish press of that day the qualms is perfectly acceptable, as he is not sordid facts of the case were virtually disqualified for not desiring a partner of unmentionable, even by way of euphe- another race or refusing to participate in mism, and only the peripheral aspects were sadomasochistic activities. The versatile publicized at the time, thanks to Henry applicant is preferred, but one who is ex- Labouchere, who had also been respon- tremely attractive will be accepted even if sible for the provisions on "gross inde- he takes the active role only. The owner cency" in the Criminal Law Amendment asks the candidate whether he objects to Act of 1885. The proprietor of the house having nude photographs of himself ap- from the latter part of that year until the pear in magazines or motion pictures; such scandal broke was CharlesHarnmond, who exposure usually precludes a further ca- fled the country on July 6,1889, and a few reer as a commercial model. The applicant months later took up residence in Seattle, is finally required to perform in a situation joining a long list of British exiles and approximating one with a client; if he timigrks. He had kept a roster of his clients proves impotent under these conditions that fell into the hands of the police when he is disqualified. If he passes the test he is the premises were raided. The conduct of photographed in the nude with his penis the case revealed the inequity of class both relaxed and erect. The owner care- justice in the prosecution of sexual of- fully records the exact dimensions of the fenses, as thewealthy and powerful figures virilemember. The photographic and other compromised by the disclosures found data are, with additional vital statistics, underlings in the field of law enforcement then entered in a book which is shown to who did their best to obstruct the investi- prospective clients. The owner warns his gation. new employee not to have sexual contact The Contemporary Scene. The with others in the house, as this causes male house of prostitution continues to conflicts and undesirable attachments exist at the present day. Its raison dlOtre is among the staff. the same as that of a legitimate enterprise, The financial arrangement con- that is, to make a profit by satisfying the sists of a fixed fee for a stated period of demands of customers who will patronize time, which in certain establishments is the establishment again and again. The split on a prescribed basis between the brothel offers the client the assurance of management and the prostitute, who re- full protection against being cheated, tains any tips that he receives from the robbed, assaulted, or blackmailed during client. Minimum fees for first-class estab- or after the sexual encounter; furthermore, lishments have risen with inflation, and the client, who may be socially prominent may be as high as $225 for a single encoun- or in a sensitive position in political life or ter. Prostitution is characterized by the in the diplomatic or intelligence commu- commercialization of the entire relation- nity, is shielded from public exposure of ship: emotional indifference to the cus- his homosexuality, which would make his tomer, barter, and promiscuity. The em- existence impossible. In one typical estab- ployees of the brothel rarely use their real 4 BROTHELS names, only assumed ones; they are cau- ing over many lifetimes. Buddhism has tioned not to become emotionally involved exerted a major influence on the cultures with their clients or to see them outside of India, Nepal, China, Japan, Tibet, Ko- the business context, and also not to give rea, Mongolia, Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka, customers their real names, addresses, or Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, and in the telephonenumbers. For economicreasons, current century has gained a foothold in the house seeks to control the channels of Western countries as well. Among world contact between the client and the prosti- religions, Buddhism has been notable for tute. the absence of condemnation of homo- The prostitute is expected to sexuality as such. maintain a youthful and attractive exte- Early and Theravada Buddhism. rior. The hair must be carefully groomed For an account of the earliest form of and not too long, while body hair is shaved Buddhism, scholars look to the canonical off or removed with depilatory creams. texts of the Tipitaka preserved in the Pali The clothing worn by the male prostitute language and transmitted orally until must correspond to the image that he committed to writing in the second century desires to project, whether as an escort for B.C. These scriptures remain authoritative dinner in an exclusive restaurant or as an for the Theravada or Hinayana school of habitue of leather bars. At the outset the Buddhism, now dominant in Southeast employment can be financially rewarding Asia and Sri Lanka. and emotionally gratifying, but as time The Pali Canon draws a sharp goes by it looms more and more as a dead distinction between the path of the layper- end, financially and emotionally, as age son and that of the bhikkhu (mendicant and the strain of the sexual routine take monk, an ordained member of theBuddhist their toll. The prostitute often needs drugs Sangha or OrderJ. The former is expected or alcohol or both in order to perform on primarily to support the Sangha and to demand, and these stimulants are ruinous improve his karmic standing through the to the peak of physical attractiveness that performance of meritorious deeds so that the successful provider of sexual services his future lives will be more fortunate must maintain. The time span of a career than his present one. The bhikkhu, in in this field is seldom more than three contrast, is expected to devote all his years, but as the house has a steady supply energies to self-liberation, the struggle to of new applicants, it can always find re- cast off the attachments which prevent placements for those who retire. him from attaining the goal of nirvana in See also Kadesh; Prostitution. the present lifetime. The layperson's moral code per- BIBLIOGRAPHY. David J. Pittman, taining to sexuality consists of the resolu- "The Male House of Prostitution," TzansAction, 815-6 (19711, 21-27. tion to avoid kiimesu micchactira. As a "training rule" or resolution it does not BUDDHISM have the absolute prohibitive nature of A spiritual tradition founded in Western religious codes (e.g., the Ten northern India in the sixth to fifth century Commandments), and is promulgated not B.C. by Siddhartha Gautama (known as as the desire of a God but as a practical "the Buddha," or "Awakened One"), Bud- guide toward improving one's karma and dhism places emphasis on practicing so (eventually)attaining nirvana. The Pali meditation and following a spiritual path phrase cited is literally translated as that leads from a state of suffering, viewed "wrongdoing in the sense-desires," and as the result of attachment, to a state of thus is thought originally to have covered enlightenment, transcendence and bliss misuse of all the senses [for example, glut- called nirvana. This path is seen as extend- tony). In most current English transla- BUDDHISM 9 tions, under the influence of Victorian lowed for. A sijmanera may masturbate missionaries who did the early transla- without committing an offense. Interest- tions, this has been rendered, however, as ingly, while a novice commits a grave "sexual misconduct." offenseif heengagesin coituswith afemale, The lay moral code (Paficasila) requiring him to leave the Sangha, should leaves it up to the individual to interpret he instead have sex with a male he is only what such misconduct might be, but the guilty of a lesser offense requiring that he supplementary texts spell out such of- reaffirm his samanera vows and perform fenses as adultery, rape, and taking advan- such penance as is directed by his teacher. tage of those over whom one exercises This may be the only instance of a world authority. What is not included even in religion treating homosexual acts more the supplementary canonical texts is any favorably than heterosexual ones. condemnation of pre-marital sex or of While there is very little secon- homosexuality as such. In short, the dary Theravada literature (at least in Eng- unmarried Buddhist layperson is free to lish) pertaining to homosexuality, it has engage in consentual homosexual acts. been speculated that homosexual orienta- This had led to a great deal of tolerance of tion may arise from the residual karma of homosexuality in modern Buddhist coun- a previous life spent in the opposite gender tries. from that of the body currently occupied The monastic code of discipline by the life-continuum. This explanation or vinaya, however, is aimed at curtailing containsno element of negativity but rather all passions, including sexual ones. "Is not posits homosexuality as a "natural" result the Law taught by me for the allaying of of the rebirth cycle. the fever of pleasures of the senses?" ex- TheMahayana andJapanese Bud- plains the Buddha in a canonical vinaya dhism. The form of Buddhism which spread text. Thus all acts involving the inten- northward into Tibet, China, Japan, Ko- tional emission of his semen are prohib- rea, and Mongolia from its Indian heart- ited for the monk; the insertion of the land came to be known as the Mahayana. penis into a female or male is grounds for It de-emphasized the dichotomy between automatic expulsion from the Sangha, monk and layperson and relaxed the strict while even masturbation is a (lesser) of- vinaya codes, even permitting monks to fense. On the other hand, the vinaya is marry (in Japan]. The Mahayana doctri- silent on matters which presumably were nally sought to obliterate categoricalthink- not thought to arouse the sense-pleasures; ingingeneral andresolutely fought against thus there is no law against a monkreceiv- conceptual dualism. These tendencies ing a penis into his own body. While a favored the development of positive atti- monk is prohibited by lesser rules from tudes toward homosexual practices, most even touching the body of a female (even a notably in Japan. female animal], no such rule pertains to Homoeroticism was introduced other males, and the physical expression to Japan, legend has it, by the Buddhist of affection is very common among the monk Kukai, also known as Kobo Daishi, Buddhist monks. in 806 upon his return from studyingwith The full rules of the vinaya are a spiritual master in China. According to not applied to the sfimanera or novice NoguchiTakenori and PaulSchalow, while monk, who may be taken into the Sangha "homosexuality surely existed in Japan as early as seven years old and who is before then . . . the traditional account of generally expected though not obligated to its origins helps explain why homosexual- take the Higher Ordination by the age of ity became a preferred form of sexual 21. In this way the more intense sexual expression among the Buddhist priest- drive of the male teenager is tacitly al- hood." O BUDDHISM

When Father Francis Xavier ar- relations, both between monks and be- rived in Japan in the mid-sixteenth cen- tween monks and novices (known as tury with the hope of converting the Japa- kasshiki and shami), appear to have been nese to Christianity, hewas horrifiedupon so commonplace that the shogun Hojo encountering many Buddhist monks in- Sadatoki (whom we might now refer to as volved in same-sex relationships; indeed, "homophobic"] initiated an unsuccessful he soon began referring to homoeroticism campaign in 1303 to rid the monasteries of as the "Japanese vice." Although some same-sex love. Homoerotic relationships Buddhist monks condemned such rela- occurring within a Zen Buddhist context tionships, notably the monk Genshin, have been documented in such literary many others either accepted or partici- works as the Gozan Bungaku, Iwatsutsuji, pated in same-sex relationships. Among and Comrade Loves of the Samurai. Japanese Buddhist sects in which such The blending of Buddhism and relationships have been documented are homoeroticism has continued to figure the Ji-shu, Hoklze-shu, Shingon, and Zen. prominently in the works of contempo- Practitioners of Ji-shu revered rary Japanese writers, notably Yukio Amida, the "Buddha of the Pure Land" or Mishima and Mutsuo Takahashi. of "the Western Paradise." Many of its Although not specifically linked devotees were warriors, and Father Xavier to homoeroticism, at least one Japanese reported that Ji-shu monlzs acted as teach- response to AIDS should be noted. In 1987, ers, spiritual masters, and lovers to the Wahei Sakurai reported that at a fertility sons of samurai. Practitioners of Hokke- shrine in Kawasaki City where elements shu (or Nichiren) Buddhism, the "black" of Shinto and Buddhism are blended, a or lllotus" sect, revered Shakyamuni local priest, Hirohiko Nakamura, displayed (Siddhartha Gautama). They were well two paintings, one of a samurai, the other known for their sacred mantra, Namu- of a deity in meditation, both in the pro- myohorengekyo, "homage to the lotus of cess of destroying AIDS, in the hope that the good law." While Holzlze-shu monks these paintings, when combined with officially disapproved of all forms of sexual prayers, would protect practitioners from intercourse, relationships between monks the disease. and novices often appear to have been both Tibet. Although four major tradi- pedagogic and amatory. According to tions of Buddhism emerged in Tibet, only Xavier, despite their official disapproval of one, the Gelug or d Ge.lugs.pa sect, has intercourse, the monks "openly adrnit- been traditionally associated with same- ted" their sexual preference forothermales; sex love. The Gelug, or "yellow hat," tra- moreover, Xavier reports that "the vice dition was founded in the early fifteenth was so general and so deeply rooted that century by TsonglzhapaLozang, and it is to the bonzes [monks] were not reproached this tradition that the Dalai Lama (spiri- for it." tual head of Tibetan Buddhism) belongs. Shingon Buddhism is tradition- "Among the Gelugpas," Lama Anagarika ally linked to homoeroticism by way of its ' Govinda explains, "intellectual knowledge founder, Kukai (mentioned above). The . . . including history, logic, philosophy, Japanese manifestation of Tantric Bud- poetry . . . medicine and astrology, was dhism, Shingon may also have included given particular prominence . . . the Gel- homoerotic sex-magical practices which ugpas had to qualify themselves through a are now lost to us. long course of studies in one of the monas- Zen, that form of Buddhism per- tic communities (like Drepung, Ganden, haps most familiar to Westerners, emerged or Sera)." during the ninth century. In the Zen It is most probably in its adoption monasteries of medieval Japan, same-sex of the strictest vinaya rules regarding BUGGERY 9 females that the Gelug tradition has be- have also begun to focus on the specific come linked to homoeroticism. According concerns of gay people, as, for example, the to these rules, no woman may stay over- Hartford Street Zen Center of San Fran- night within the monastery walls. More- cisco, whose co-founder, IssanDorsey, is a over, the Gelugpas (at least in the past) gay Zen monk. Other organizations, like condemned heterosexual intercourse for the Buddhist AIDS Project of Los Angeles, monks, believing that the mere odor re- while not addressing the specific concerns sultingfrom heterosexual copulation could of gays, have been established to provide provoke the rage of certain deities. Such services for persons with AIDS. misogynistic and anti-heterosexual notions While some practitioners of Bud- may have encouraged same-sex bonding. dhism maintain that the practice of same- A number of writers have suggested that sex love runs counter to the moral pre- homoerotic relationships were until re- cepts set downlong ago by Buddhist monks, cently quite commonplace in Gelug many others, both gay and non-gay, main- monasteries, especially thoserelationships tain that if one accepts one's gayness and between so-called"scho1ar" and "warrior" attempts to dwell in harmony with and to monks. In the early twentieth century, E. care for one's fellow creatures, then one Kawaguchi, describing the monks of the is indeed following in the steps of the monastery at Sera as "descendents of the Buddha. men of Sodom," reported that the'monks "scarcely fight for a pecuniary matter, but BIBLIOGRAPHY. Ron Bluestein, "Zen and the Art of Maintenance in Mecca," the beauty of young boys presents an excit- The Advocate, April 2, 1985; Martin ing cause, and the theft of a boy will often Colcutt, Five Mountains: The Rinzai lead to a duel. Once challenged, no priest Zen Monastic Institution in Medieval can honorably avoid the duel, for to shun Japan, Cambridge: Haward University it would instantly excommunicate him Press, 1981; Saikaku Ihara, Comrade Loves of the Samurai, E. Powys fromamonghis fellow-priests and he would Mathers, trans., Rutland, VT:Tuttle, be drivenooutof the temple." 1972; Matsuo Takahashi, Poems of a Buddhism in America. Among Penisist, Hiroaki Sato, trans., Chicago: those who may be credited with introduc- Chicago Review Press, 1975; Noguchi ing the West to Buddhism are Walt Takenori and Paul Schalow, "Homo- sexuality," in Kodansha Encyclopedia of Whitman and Henry David Thoreau, both Japan, Gen Itasaka, ed., Tokyo and New of whom are thought to have loved mem- York: Kodansha Ltd., 1983, vol. 3, pp. bers of the same sex and both of whom 2 17-218; Allen YoungAllen Ginsberg: blended elements of Buddhism with ele- Gay Sunshine Interview with Allen ments of other spiritual traditions in their Young, Bolinas: Grey Fox Press, 1974. Randy P. Conner and work. In the latter half of the twentieth Stephen Donaldson century, many American gays are practi- tioners of Buddhism, and the blending of homoeroticism and Buddhism may be found in the work of a number of gay BUGGERY American writers and musicians includ- By the early eighteenth century ing Allen Ginsberg, Harold Norse, Richard buggery had become the universal signi- Ronan, Franklin Abbott, and Lou Harri- fier in English law for intercourse regarded son. Of these, Ginsberg has perhaps been as criminally unnatural, whether manwith the most vocal in terms of claiming Bud- man, man with woman, or man or woman dhism, especially in its Tibetan manifes- with beast. That is to say, it had come to tation as taught by the late Chogyam encompass male homosexuality (analand Trungpa Rimpoche, as a source of inspira- oral j, deviant heterosexual conduct (anal tion. A number of Buddhist organizations and oral), and bestiality. Lesbianism, which + BUGGERY was never criminalized in England, is not century). In the Middle Ages heresy and included in this list. Curiously, after "unnatural" sexual activity were both homosexual offenses between consenting traced to the instigation of the Devil, since adults were decriminalized in 1967 in neither could presumably have occurred England and Wales, a few cases were still to anyone spontaneously. At all events the prosecuted subsequently for male-female ascription of sexual irregularity to the buggery. Albigensians seems wholly unfounded, Although the legal definition is albeit the perfecti-the inner circle of rig- broad, attention tends to focus on anal orists-did abstain from all types of inter- relations, as shown by the verb "to bug- course. Thus what might at most be termed ger," which almost always refers to anal a case of sexual exceptionalism, chastity, penetration. Onceinvested with an auraof was slanderously converted into its oppo- taboo-the word bugger was considered site, sexual licence. Such accusations no unprintable outside of legal statutes and doubt helped to rationalize the bloody commentaries-it has undergone consid- suppression of the Albigensian heretics. erable banalization in popular speech, as The English derivative of bougre seen in such expressions as "the old bug- is bugger, which in the medieval texts has ger" = "the old guy." Note also "bugger the sole meaning of "heretic." The first up" (mess up] "buggered out" [tired], and occurrence of "buggery" in the legal sense "bugger-all" (nothing). All these expres- of "sodomy" is in the fateful law of 1533 sions are much more common in Great (25 Henry WI c. 6).In his commentaries Britain than in North America, where the on the laws of England, Sir Edward Coke word family is obsolescent. There is no (1552-1634) defined buggery as "a detest- etymological link with "bug" or "bogey- able and abominable sin amongst Chris- man," though these words may enter into tians not to be named, committed by car- the outer zones of the term's semantic nal knowledge against the ordinance of the penumbra. creator and order of nature by mankind Historical Background. The his- with mankind or with brute beasts, or by tory of the word bugger displays a number womankind with brute beast" (Third Part of revealing bypaths of popular prejudice. of the Institutes of the Laws of England, Ultimately itstemsfrom theoldBulgarian 1644, pp. 58-59). All that is lacking in this biilgarinii, the ethnic name of the Slavic catalogue of capital crimes (for which the people inhabiting the southeastern part of penalty specified was execution by hang- the Balkan peninsula. Although the ing or drowning] is heterosexual buggery. Bogomil and Paulician (dualist] heresies That is supplied in the comprehensive emerge in Bulgaria-on the periphery of definition found in G. Jacob's Law Dic- theByzantine empire-as early as the tenth tionary of 1729: "Buggery. . . is defined to century, it was only in the wake of the be carnalis copula contra Naturam et hoc Fourth Crusade (1204)that medievalLatin velper confusionem Specierum, sc. a Man bulgarus (and its vernacular congeners] or Woman with a brute Beast; vel sexuum, came to be associated with these heresies. aManwith a Man, or Man withawoman." In the West the principal reflex of the An additional factor is the Old dualist systems was the Cathar or Al- French use of bougre to mean llusurer,lla bigensian heresy in southern France. moneylender who profits from interest. And so in the thirteenth century This association (heretic = sodomite = bougre appeared in Old French with two usurer] derives from the ancient notion meanings: (1JAlbigensianheretic;(2)sodo- that interest is "unnatural" because mite. Sexual depravity had, in fact, been money, unlike land, is intrinsically ster- charged to certain Gnostic sects as early as ile, just as homosexual activity is doomed the time of Irenaeus of Lyon (late second to sterility. Lexicographers have noted the BURCHIELLESQUE POETRY 4 curious fact that the three areas of human experience that generate the greatest BURCHIELLESQUEPOETRY amount of slang are money, sex, and ine- This term denotes a type of Ital- briation. Though it is now obsolete, the ian poetry (all0 burchia; "haphazardly"] sodomiteus- link united the first two. utilizing "Aesopic" or coded language, and InFmcethewordbougrerienever bristling with obscene double meanings *ddstatus as a term of rut in law codes, which offera certain parallel to the famous though it sometimes makes its way into poems in jargon of Fran~oisVillon reporu, of muti- ("sin of buggery"]. In (1431-ca. 1463). Burchiellesque poetry the menteenth and eighteenth centuries flourished from the early years of the fif- a contrast developed between bougre for teenth century through the sixteenth. The the active homosexual partner as aeinst leading practitioner of the mode was bardache for the passive one. Modern Domenico di Giovanni, known, because Frenchretainsthe~ldyord~togetherwith of his facility, as "I1 Burchiello" the female counterpart bougresse, mainly (1404-14491. as a jocular term of pity or mild abuse; the Among the followers and succes- sexual content h- hatentirely faded sors of I1 Burchiello, one should note away. As has been noted, the English en- Antonio Cammelli (1436-15021 and Ber- the term burigery in the statute nard~Bellincioni (1452-14921, who wrote books and legal commentaries, tying the many compositions on homosexual meaning to the sexual aspect, but broaden- themes. Various ether writers also wrote ing it to include a whole spectrum of car- alla burchia, notably Domenico di Prato rial offenses (excepting only lesbianism (ca. 1370-ca. 14321, Rose110 Roselli and masturbation). (1399-1451), and the great architects Fil- In southem Europe forms pre- ippo Brunelleschi (1377-14461 and Leon vailed in which the second consonant is Battista Alberti (1404-14721. soft; hence Spanish bujarrbn and Italian Burchiellesque language also buggerone (cf. the French variant boug- appeared in prose: for Tuscan Renaissance emn). At the end of the fifteenth century writers it was standard practice--when the Italian word was carried northwards to they wrote euphemistically on sex (as in German-speaking countries by travelers private correspondence, for example)--to and mercenaries in the adapted form have recourse to Burchiellesque "cypher," puseran(t), with &voicing of initial 'b.' as did Niccolb Machiavelli and Francesco Thus Albrecht Dilrer labels his 1504draw- Berni. ing of the Death of Orpheus "Der erst Burchiellesque poetry faded away puserant" (the first bugger]. Although the in the sixteenth century, giving life to the word has disappeared in modern Geman, less exuberant variant of burlesque known variants linger as loan words in several as Bernesque. Yet elements of Bur- neighboring Slavic tongues. Thus when chiellesque language lingered for a long the American gay poet Allen Ginsberg time, for example in the Roman visited Prague in 1965his popularity among pasquinades satirizing the popes. Czech students provoked the ire of the Often innocent nonsense, fore- Communist auth~ritiesand he was shadowing the later limericks, Bur- roughed up by a plainclothesman who chiellesque language consists eritirely in yelled the epithet buzerant at him [see doublemeanings,whichusually stem from "Kral Majales," Collected Poems, riddles or puns; these are almost always 1947-1 980, 1984, p. 353). obscene, and often homoerotic. To the uninitiated burchiellesquepoems can seem BIBLIOGRAPHY.' Claude Courouve, complete in themselves in terms of their Vocabulaire de Z'homosexualitd masculine, Paris: Payot, 1985. surface meaning, so that they seem harm- Wayne R. Dynes 173 O BURCHIELLESQUE POETRY less if somewhat eccentric. In other in- BURMA stances they are hermetic at the surface A southeast Asian republic of level also, and indecipherable to anyone about 40 million people, Burma is an agi- who does not possess the key. cultural, mountainous country. Conquered Interpreting burchiellesque Ian- by Great Britain in the nineteenth cen- guage is difficult, inasmuch as often the tury, it achieved independence in 194.8. solution is ariddle leadingto another riddle. Knowledge of homosexuality in Burma is For example, it is possible to read the verb complicated by the fact that the country tasliare (meaning "to cut1' in standard has been largely closed to tourists since Italian]as "to sodomize" becauseit echoes independence (except for brief tomist vi- the word tagfiere, "chopping board." In sas of up to seven days), by the dominant former times these boards were round, not language, Burmese (which is tonal and part square; hence the meaning "anus." The of theSino-Tibetangoup],by theBurmese metaphorical meaning of tagliere parallels script (which derives from south Indian that of tondo (l'round" and, by extension, scripts), and by the plurality of cultures a round sculpted or painted relief), which and cultural influences. More than one also means "anus.11 hundred indigenous languages are spoken Burchiellesque jargon is generally in Burma. Besides Burmese, Mon, Shan, constructed through symmetrical Karin, Chinese, and Kachin are spoken by contrasts: asciutto, "d&' - "sodomy" VS. large numbers of people, though at the umido, "humid" = "heterosexual coitus"; time of the British occupation only Bur- valle, "valley" = "vulva" vs. monte, mese, Mon, and Shan had written alpha- "mountain" = "anus. In other compari- bets. sons the counterpart of the penis is not the Animism, which preceded Bud- vagina, but usually the anus. dhism, introduced in the fifth century, is Penetration is not usually ex- still practiced by the hill tribes in the ~ressedin the heterosexual sense, but northeast such as the Shans, Karins, and commonly in terms of anal copulation Kachins. Among the Kachin, the Ga- with a man as object. This prominence of shadip, according t~ Joel M.and Ester G. sodomitical coitus probably reflects the ~aring,is "conceptualized as a bisexual "transgressive" intent of burchiellesque human being who controls the fertility of poetry, for which anal relations are more the soul and of human beings. The Kachin suited than "banal" heterosexual contact. chief makes periodic offerings to the ga- The difficulty of bmchiellesque shadip." Such bisexual mythic beings language, and the "scandalous" subject appear widely across southeast Asia, in matter, have combined to discourage sch01- Indonesia and in northem Australia. arship. Even today there is no critical edi- Burmese Buddhism, like that of tion of the works of 11 Burchiello, the Tbiland, is of the Theravada School founder of the trend, nor has a key been dominant in Sri Lanka and in Southeast worked out that would enable one to re- Asia and has been compulsory in large cover all the hidden meanings. parts of thecountry since King Anawaratha conquered Thaton in the south in 1044 BIBLIOGRAPHY. Works: Sonetti del Burchieflo,del Befincioni d,altri paeti and forcibly removed the entire popula- fiorentinj alla burchiellesca, q,ondon~ tion, including Buddhist monks, to Pagan iactually Lucca and Pisa], 1757; I1 1 in the north. It has been tolerant of homo- Burchiello, Sonetti inediti, M. Messina, sexuality. Monks are said to be highly-. ed., Florence: Olschki, 1952. sexed and tourists are warned to be careful Giovanni Dall'Orto of sexual advances-though such reports may be exaggerated. Transvestism is also BURMA 4 known. The first Western report of homo- University of London, School of Oriental sexuality in Burma stems from Jan Van and African Studies (themain repositories Linschoten's (1563-161 1)visit to Pegu. outside Burma) have not been assessed for Homosexuality is said to be por- homosexuality so far as is known. trayed in puppet plays in a comic way as in With over 2,000 monuments, the Indonesian puppet theatre, in Asia as far great archeological site of Pagan sacked by west as Turkey and in Europe. Homosexu- the Mongols in 1287 (but not destroyed), als no doubt existed and exist in Burmese should be examined (particularly its wall theatre--especially probably in Burmese reliefs and frescoes) by someone farnilar dance-as they certainly do in the closely with Buddhist iconography and its pos- related dance traditions of East Java.Dance sible homosexual references. The erotic in Burma is largely based, as in Indonesia, symbolism of the stupa and the spireneeds in East Java and Bali, on the epics of India, to be considered-especially in regard to the Ramciyana and Mahabhifrata. The the great Shwedagon pagoda in Rangoon greatest oil painter of modern Burma, U and such masterpieces as the Ananda Thein, was almost certainly homosexual; pagoda in Pagan and also in relation to for example, in the painting "Best Friend" Tantric Buddhism which is highly influ- in the National Museum in Rangoon, the ential inBurma. The underplayingof eroti- artist's Friend is portrayed as the Loving cism is a serious handicap. I. B. Homer in Buddha, an icon suggestive of homosexu- translating the Pali scriptures in the early ality. twentieth century left out many refer- Homosexual references or writ- ences to sexuality at the time of Christ, ings have not been found in Burmese; but including the split among Buddhists in Sri as Burmese literature is based on Indian Lanka over five theses, one of which con- literatures-which are highly erotic with- cemednocturnal emissions by monks. The out, especially in south India and in Tan- influence of Chinese culture-also toler- trism, distinguishing between hetero- and ant of homosexuality--on Burmese cul- homoeroticism-it seems reasonable to ture must also be considered. For much of look for them. Homosexual writing in its history Burma, likeThailand, Vietnam, Thai-also tonal and written in a similar Korea, and Japan (though only culturally script with a common south Indian ori- for Japan), was a vassal state of China gin-has been reported; so, given the close where the ruler had absolute power until interrelationship of the two bordering 1908.In thematter of sexuality thismeant cultures (the Burmese conquered Thai- that he--or she--could do as he--or she- land in the eighteenth century and sacked pleased sexually. Burmese rulers, likeThai, the capital Ayutthaya], this also points to Korean, and Vietnamese, modeled them- the fact that homosexual references and selves on Chinese. Their sexuality needs homoerotic writings may exist in Bur- to be examined in detail by a competent mese. The issue is complicated by the scholar as does the art and literature, both massive destruction of Burmese culture written and oral. both by wars (such as the British conquest in the nineteenth century and scorched BIBLIOGRAPHY. J.H. Luce, Old Burma, Early Pagan, Locust Vally, NY: J.J. earth policies in World War 11) and by Augustin, 1969; Maung Htin Aung, nature (a ferociously hot climate in the Burmese Drama, new ed., London: north which led to the destruction of the Oxford University Press, 1957; idem, A wooden palace of Burmese rulers and its History of Burma, New York: Columbia contents in Mandalay after it survived University Press, 1967. Paul Knobel World War 11-and high humidity in the south). Manuscripts in Rangoon and in London at the British Library and the + BURNS, JOHNHORNE

BURNS,JOHN HORNE BIBLIOGRAPHY. JohnMitzel, John (1916-1953) Horne Bums: An Appreciative Biogm- phy, Dorchester, MA: Manifest Destiny, American novelist. Born into an 1976. Irish Catholic family in Andover, Massa- chusetts, Burns was educated at Harvard University. He taught English at the Loornis School from 1937 to 1942. During World War I1 Burns served in the Army in BURTON, RICHARD North Africa and Italy. There he gathered FRANCIS,SIR the material for his book The Gallery (1821-1890) 11 947), a series of brilliant episodes unified British explorer, geographer, ad- by the passage of the characters through venturer, writer, anthropologist, transla- the Galleria Umberto in Naples. Many tor, and sexologist, Although married readers have regarded the section entitled unhappily to the beautiful but obtuse Isa- "Momma" as the most vivid account of belleBurton, by whom he had no children, the special atmosphere of a classic gay bar he led alife that was eccentricand scandal- that has ever been written. Thecharacters, ous. In his youth, he visited boy-brothels several of whom are campy queens, are in Karachi, which led him to have a life- sharply delineated, and the author showed long interest in homosexuality, although aremarkable ear for argot and the rhythms this interest bore fruit only toward the end of gay speech. Other parts of the novel of his life. Burton was famous for his explo- contain gay allusions, but these are gener- rations in Arabia and Africa, and he trav- ally too subtle to be picked up by most eled to every part of the globe, often being readers. The overarching presence in the the first white man to visit the regions novel is the freedom and sensuality of which he explored. He wrote a long series Italy, and the book is thus another docu- of thickvolumes on Africaandotherplaces, ment in the attraction of the northerner and translated several books. for fabled Mediterranean lands, though in The later part of Burton's life was this instance refracted in the turmoil of devoted to translation of the The Thou- war. sand and One Nights and other works of Sensingachangein the American oriental eroticism, which created a stir at literary climate signaled by critical at- a time when such writings were consid- tacks on writers who allegedly belonged to ered to be outrageously pornographic and the "fairy Freudian" school, Burns sought unspeakable. He added insult to injury by to direct his talent into more conventional appending a notorious "Terminal Essay" paths. Although the main character of to the Nights which included a long article Luciferwith a Book 11949)is heterosexual, on pederasty, one of the first [and the first the novel contains a number of minor gay published in English J extended discussions characters. Its main purpose was to indict of this taboo theme in modern times. the hypocrisy of American secondary Burton believed that there was a so-called education, which Burns knew well. A Cry Sotadic Zone in the equatorial regions of of Children (1952)also has a heterosexual the world in which pederasty was wide- hero, a pianist named David Murray. Al- spread and tolerated, while the northern though homosexuality enters into this and southern regions tended to outlaw book as well, it is much more negatively pederasty and limit .it to a minority. He presented. This shift reflects not only the said that the hot weather was the factor hostile climate of the Cold War years, but which determined all of this, a theory Bums' own confusions stemmingfrom his which now appears unlikely but which growing alcoholism. The writer died of was taken seriously in the early days of sunstroke during a visit to Leghorn, Italy. sexology. It now appears that this division BUTCH-FEM (LESBIAN)RELATIONSHIPS 4 into two zones has some validity, but is sexual, emotional and social identities, due to folkways, morality, and economic outside of the relationship. Some butches factors rather than the weather. This essay believe they were born different from other has sometimes been mistaken for a "gay women; others view their identity as so- lib" apology ahead of its time, but a close cially constructed. reading reveals that Burton looked upon While no exact date has yet been sodomy as a lurid vice suitable for shock- established for the start of the usage of the ing Mrs. Grundy when Burton was in a terms "butch" and "fern," oral histories do mischievous mood. There is no proof that show their prevalence from the 1930s on. he ever had sexual relations with any The butch-fem couple was particularly woman (including his wife) or boy, al- dominant in the United States, in both though the visit to the brothels of Karachi blackandwhite lesbian communities, from has naturally led to suspicions that he did the 1920s through the fifties and early more than just look at the catarnites. sixties. The final years of Burton's life Basic Features. Because the com- were spent in Trieste, working on'a mas- plementarity of butch and fem is perceived sive erotic masterpiece which supposedly differently by different women, no simple includedmuchinformationonhomosexu- definition can be offered. When seen ality, information supplied to him by through outsiders' eyes, the butch appears Symonds, Ulrichs, Henry Spencer Ashbee, simplistically "masculine," and the fem, and Guy de Maupassant. However, the "feminine," paralleling heterosexual cate- manuscript was destroyed after Burton's gories. But butches and fems transformed death by his widow as part of her sanctifi- heterosexual elements such as gender atti- cation plans for her husband's memory. tude and dress into a unique lesbian lan- This work was supposedly an annotated guage of sexuality and emotional bonding. translation of the Perfumed Garden of the Butch-fem relationships are based on an Sheikh Nefzawi (or Nafzawi), but the intense erotic attraction with its own ritu- French translation had no references to als of courtship, seduction and offers of pederasty. TheGloryofthe Perfumed Gar- mutual protection. While the erotic con- den is a recent work claiming to be the nection is the basis for the relationship, "missing" half of this work, with chapters and while butches often see themselves as on pederasty and lesbianism, but this may the more aggressive partner, butch-fern be a fraud. relationships, when they work well, de- velop a nurturing balance between two BIBLIOGRAPHY. Stephen W. Foster, different kinds of women, each encourag- "The Annotated Burton," in The Gay Academic, Louie Crew, ed., Palm ing the other's sexual-emotional identity. Springs, California: ETC Publications, Couples often settle into domestic long- 1978, pp. 92-103; Brian Reade, ed., term relationships or engage in serial Sexual Heretics, New York: Coward- monogamy, a practice Kennedy and Davis McCann, 1971. trace back to the thirties, and one they Stephen W.Foster view as a major Lesbian contribution to an alternative for heterosexual marriage. In BUTCH-FEM (LESBIAN) the streets in the fifties, butch-fern couples RELATIONSHIPS were a symbol of women's erotic auton- Butch-fem(me] relationships are omy, a visual statement of a sexual and a style of lesbian loving and self-presenta- emotional accomplishment that did not tion which can in America be traced back include men. to the beginning of the twentieth century; Butch-fem relationships are historical counterparts can be found even complex erotic and social statements, filled earlier. Butches and fems have separate with a language of stance, dress, gesture, 4 BUTCH-FEM [LESBIAN)RELATIONSHIPS and comradeship. Both butches and fems financial and social securities of the hetero- carry with them their own erotic and sexual world, caring for each other in ill- emotional identities, announced in differ- ness and death, in times of economic ent ways. In the fifties, butch women, depression, and in the face of the rampant dressed in slacks and shirts and flashing homophobia of the fifties. Younger butches pinky rings, announced their sexual exper- were often initiated into the community tise in a public style that often opened by older, more experienced women who their lives to ridicule and assault. Many passed on the rituals of expected dress, adopted men's clothes and wore short attitude, and erotic behavior. This sense of "DA" hair cuts to be comfortable and so responsibility to each other stood the that their sexual identity and preference women in good stead when police raided would be clearly visible. As Liz Kennedy their bars or when groups of men threat- and Madeline Davis, authors of a study of ened them on the streets. aworking-class blackand white butch-fem Bars were the social background community inBuffalo, New York, 1940-60, for many working-class butch-fem com- have pointed out, the butch woman took munities and it was in their dimly lit as her main goal in love-making the pleas- interiors that butches and fems could ure she could give her fem partner. This perfect their styles and find each other. In sense of dedication to her lover, rather the fifties, sexual and social tension often than to her own sexual fulfillment, is one erupted into fights and many butches felt of the ways a butch is clearly distinct from they had to be tough to protect themselves the men she is assumed to be imitating. and their women, not just in the bars but The fem woman, who can often on the streets as well. pass as a straight woman when not with Butch-fem is not a monolithic her lover, actively sought to share her life social-sexual category. Within its general with a woman others labeled a freak. Be- outline, class, race, and region give rise to fore androgynous fashions became popu- style variations. In the black lesbian lar, many fems were the breadwinners in community of New York, for instance, their homes because they could get jobs "bull dagger" and "stud" were more com- open to traditional-looking women, but monly used than the word "butch." A fem they confronted the same public scorn would be "my lady" or "my family." Many when appearingin public with their butch women of the lesbian literary world and of lovers. Contrary to gender stereotyping, the upper classes also adopted this style of many fems were and are aggressive, strong self-presentation. In the 1920s, Radclyffe women who take responsibility for ac- Hall, the author of The Well of Loneliness, tively seeking the sexual and social part- called herself John in her marriage to Lady ner they desire. Una Troubridge. Butch-fem style also CommunityAspects. Particularly shows the impact of changing social mod- in the fifties and sixties, the butch-fem els and politics. Feminism, for instance, community became the public face of as well as open relationships and non- lesbianism when its members formed bar monogamy, have been incorporated communities across the country, and thus into butch-fem life of the seventies and became targets of street and police vio- eighties. lence. With the surge of lesbian femi- In earlier decades, butch-fem nism in the early seventies, butch-fem communities were tightly knit, made up women were often ridiculed and ostra- of couples who, in some cases, had long- cized because of their seeming adherence standingrelationships. Exhibiting traits of to heterosexual role playing. In the eight- feminism before the seventies, butch-fem ies, however, a new understanding of the working-class women lived without the historical and sexual-social importance of BYRON, GEORGE GORDON, LORD O butch-fem women and communities has (Spring 19861, 7-28; JonathanKntz, Gay begun to emerge. Controversy still exists American History, New York: Thomas about the value of this lesbian way of Y. Crowell, 1976; Audre Lorde, Zami, Tnunansburg, New York: The Crossing loving and living, however. Members of Press, 1982; Merril Mushroom, "How to such groups as Women Against Pomogra- Engage in Courting Rituals, 1950 Butch phy depict butch-fem as a patriarchal, Style in the Bars: an Essay," Common oppressive, hierarchical way of relating. LiveslLesbian Lives (Summer 1982), The American lesbian community is now 6-10; Joan Nestle, "The Fem Question," in Pleasure and Danger, Carole S. marked by awiderange of relational styles: Vance, ed., Boston: Routledge and Kegan butch-fem is just one of the ways to love, Paul, 1984; idem, A Restricted Country, but the butch-fem community does carry Ithaca: Firebrand Books, 1987; idem, with it the heritage of being the first pub- "An Old Dyke's Tale: An Interview with Doris Lunden," Conditions 6 (1980), licly visible lesbian community. 2644. Related Terms. Joan Nestle "Stone butch": a butch woman who does not allow herself to be touched during lovemaking, but who often experi- BYRON,GEORGE enced orgasm while making love to her GORDON,LORD partner. This was a sexual style prevalent (1788-1824) in the forties and fifties. English Romantic poet, born in "Baby butch": a young-looking London. The most influential poet of his butch woman with a naive face who brings day, with a world-wide reputation, Byron out the maternal as well as sexual longings became famous with the publication of of fem women. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (18 12-18), an "Kiki": a term used from the for- account of his early travels in Portugal, ties through the sixties for a lesbian who Spain, Albania, and Greece. The proud, could be either butch or fem. A publicly gloomy, guilt-ridden, alienated Harold kiki woman in the forties and fifties was defined the "Byronic hero" who was to often looked upon with suspicion though reappear in various guises in Byron's later in the privacy of butch-fem homes, differ- poems, notably in "Manfred," "The Cor- ent sexual positions were often explored. sair," and "Lara." The type became a de- "Passingwoman": a woman who fining image for European and American works and dresses like a man; this style of romanticism. Forced into exile in 1816 self-presentation was often used in the because of the scandal caused by his wife's past to transcend the gender limitations leaving him, Byron settled in Italy, princi- placed on women. Many working-class pally in Venice. There he wrote his spar- women "passed" in order to hold down the kling satire on cant and hypocrisy, Don jobs they wanted without harassment; in 1 Juan. He spent the last months of his life in earlier decades passing women often mar- Greece, trying to help the Greeks in their ried other women. Passing women have struggle to gain independence from the their own sexual identity. I Turks. (The author wishes to extend Notorious in his lifetime for his special thanks to Deborah Edel, Lee many affairs with women, Byron at 17 fell Hudson, and the New YorkButch Support , in love with a Cambridge college choir Group for help in preparing this article.) boy, John Edleston, two years his junior. This love is expressed in such early poems BIBLIOGRAPHY. Madeline Davis and as E-,u Elizabeth Lopovsky Kennedy, "Oral tq-he comelian,,t and "Stan- Historv and the Studv of Sexualitv in zas to Jessy," but most fully in the "Thyna" the ~eibianCommunity: Buffalo, New elegies written after Edleston's death in York. 1940-1960," Feminist Studies 12 I 1811 and published (in part) with Childe 0:- BYRON, GEORGE GORDON, LORD

Harold. Because of the intense homovho- I BIBLIOGRAPHY. Louis Crompton, hia of English society these poems were Byron and Greek Love: Homophobia in 19th-Century England, Berkeley: ostensibly addressed to a woman, as the University of California Press, 1985; name "Thyrza" and Byron's use of femi- Leslie A. Marchand. Byron: A Bioma- nine pronouns implied. phy, 3 vols., New ~ork:Alfred ~.l(no~f, Durina., his first journey to Greece 1957; Doris Langley Moore, Lord Byron: (1809-11) Byron was involved in several Accounts Rendered, London: John Murray, 1974 (Appendix 2: Byron's liaisons with Greek boys. One of them, Sexual Ambivalence]. Nicolb Giraud, he made his heir when he Louis Crompton returned to England.- Details of these af- fairs appear in letters to his friend John CamHobhouse, sometimes in aLatin code. BYZANTINEEMPIRE Rumors about Byron's homosexual adven- Like China and Egypt this Greek tures, circulated in London by Byron's ex- Empire was known for its stability and mistress Lady Caroline Lamb afterByronls conservativism. Held together by fidelity wife left him, were a principal reason for to Orthodox Christianity and Roman law, Byron's being forced to go into exile; pub- the Byzantine Empire evolved over eleven licity about his love affair with his half- centuries. This development falls into three sister, Augusta Leigh, compounded the distinct formations: 330-71 1, 71 1-1071, scandal. We know nothing more of the 1071-1453, each about half the size of the homosexual side of Byron's life until his previous. Beginning in 641 the empire lost final return to Greece. There he fell in love Asian and African provinces to Islam; in with the fifteen-year-old Loultas Chalan- 1071 half of Anatolia fell to the Turks. dritsanos, a young soldier in the Greece Byzantium defended Europe from invad- resistance movement, whose family he ers in spite of bitter religious squabbles had befriended. Byron's last three poems, involving monks and heretics. "On This Day I Complete My Thirty- Basic Features. The beginning of Sixth Year," "Last Words on GreecQ" and the Byzantine empire, also known as the "Love andDeath," poignantly describe his Eastern or East Roman Empire, is usually love for Loukas, which was not recipro- placed at A.D. 330, when Constantine the cated. Great founded his new capital, Constantin- Byron died at Missolonghi at- ople, on the ancient site of Byzantium tempting to provide financial and military (now Istanbul]. From the first the new city aid for the Greeks while under the spell of was Christian, but many of its institu- this "maddening fascination," as he called tions, including the Senate and the law it. code, continued the traditions of ancient Byron's bisexuality remained a Rome. Latin was the official language until secret from the general public until 1935, the reign of Justinian, but Greek was from when Peter Quennel broached the subject the start the language of commerce and in Byron: The Years of Fame. A surrepti- intellectual life. The imperial administra- tiously published erotic poem, Don Leon, tion, which never wavered in its policy of purporting to be Byron's lost autobiogra- antihomosexual repression, managed phy, probably written in 1833, had set largely to drive same-se~loveunder~round. forth many of the facts about Byron's Yet some of the dearth of current knowl- homosexuality but was dismissed as an edge of Byzantine homosexuality is proba- unwarranted libel. An edition appeared in bly owing simply to inadequate attention 1866 but it remained unknown to all but a by modern scholars. few specialists. When the Fortune Press Byzantinemonks and scholars did reprinted it in 1934, the publication was copy and transmit many ancient Greek confiscated by the British police. pederastic texts, including the twelfth book BYZANTINE EMPIRE 9 of the Greek Anthology. Although lexi- systems in a large part of the globe. cographers and antiquarians recorded rare Even before assuming full power ancient terms for homosexual acts, and in 527, Justinian seems to have been impli- some original heterosexual erotica are also cated in an anti-homosexual trial of 521. known from the empire, homosexual erot- The chronicler John Malalas describes the ica of this kind have not yet come to light. trial of two bishops, Isaiah of Rhodes and From the time of Constantine nude figures Alexander of Diospolis in Thrace; the for- disappeared from art, and nothing is heard mer was exiled after being subjected to of gymnasia after 380. The pre-Justinian cruel tortures, the latter castrated and period was nonetheless one of some arnbi- publicly dragged in an ignominious pro- guity: those wh~overthrew him alleged cession. that Constans, Constantine's son, was an Not surprisingly, the Corpus re- exclusive homoiwxual who surrounded tains the antihomosexual laws promul- himself with barbarian soldiers selected gated by his predecessors in 342 and 390. more for looks than for military ability. Justinian shrewdly perceived, however, The Cappadocian Fathers, Sts. that just as in the case of divorce, the hated Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Na- practices couldnot by extirpated by astroke zianzen, and most of all John Chrysostom, of the pen. Initiating a more tenacious and harshly condewned homosexuality. Un- extended series of steps, he issued two new influenced by Latin Christianity, they set antihomosexual laws in 53839 and 559, the tone for the official attitudes of the which reiterated the death penalty already Orthodox church. prescribed by the Theodosian Code 9.7.3. The Byzantine terms for male In the first of the novellae (no. 77) he homosexuality are paiderastia, arrhe- ascribed homosexual lust to diabolical nomixia ("mingling with males"), and incitement and claimed that "because of arrhenokoitia ("intercourse with males"). suchcrimes there are famines, earthquakes, The general designation for sexual immor- and pestilences," inferring that homosex- ality in Byzantine law codes is aselgeia ual behavior endangered the very physical ("lasciviousness"). Malakia, which had basis of the empire. Enough of the seismo- meant "effeminacy" in Classical Greek, logical literature of antiquity had survived came to mean "masturbation," so that in into his reign to make such reasoning the Byzantine cultural sphere the transla- clearly a superstitious regression, a point tion of I Corinthians 6:9 reads "masturba- conveniently ignored by Christian apolo- tors . . . shall not inherit the kingdom of gists who would have Justinian act only God." Homosexual behavior is also styled out of "sincere concern for the general the "sin of the Sodomite" (e.g,, Macarius welfare." The second (no. 141) was the the Great, Patrologia Graeca, 342243). first law ever to refer explicitly to Sodom, Justinian. The reign of Justinian where the land supposedly still burned (527-565) constitute8 what is sometimes with inextinguishable fire. Seeming to termed the PPst Golden Age of Byzan- combine magnanimousness with sever- tium. Justinian's military campaigns suc- ity, Justinian appealed to such sinners to ceeded in recovefifig Italy and other areas confess themselves humbly and penitently of the empire that had been lost to the to the Patriarch of Constantinople, con- barbarians in the preceding century, and signing them to the avenging flames if he adorned the cities of the empire with they did not repent. In fact Justinian and splendid buildings, above all the cathedral his consort Theodora conducted a kind of of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. He witch hunt among homosexuals of the also reorganized Roman law in the Corpus city, several of whom were publicly dis- Iuris Civilis, the ultimate basis of the civil graced, whether penitent or not. The rul- law tradition that today dominates legal ers used theimputation of homosexuality *> BYZANTINE EMPIRE to persecute thoseUagainstwhomno other the monasteries to beardless youths and crimes could be imputed," (Edward eunuchs in an effort to shield monks from Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman temptation. Empire)orwhosefortunes offered a tempt- The Later Byzantine Empire. ing adjunct to the imperial treasury Beginning in 1071 the Comneni created a (Procopius, Secret History, 11:34-36). new state. After the Byzantines expelled Later Byzantine Times. Needless the Latins, who ruled the Eastern empire to say, these measures, though reaffirmed from the time of the Fourth Crusade (which in later codes such as the Basilica, did not capturedByzantium in 120344)untiltheir stop same-sex activity. A number of em- expulsion in 1261, the Palaeologi restored perors themselves are believed to have a decentralized state ruled by "feudal" been homosexual. Successful in military magnates on the Western model with the campaigns against the Arabs, Slavs, and commerce dominated by the Italian mari- Bulgars, the iconoclast Constantine V (r. time republics. Cities shrank, Turks from 741-7751] sought to limit the power of the the East and Bulgars, Serbs, and Franks in monasteries. Theophanes the Confessor theBalkans encroached and barbarized the lists the "impious lust for males" among provinces, and culture declined so precipi- his crimes. A particularly tragic case, the tously that by the time the capital fell in alcoholic Michael III (r. 842-8671) fell in 1453 the dwindling elite had less knowl- love with a macho soldier-courtier, Basil edge of Plato and Homer than did the the Macedonian, whom he made coruler Renaissance Italian humanists, who had in 866. Basil promptly murdered his pa- mastered as well the Corpus Juris Civilis tron, and founded the Macedonian dy- and the Orthodox fathers. nasty. Also thought to be homosexualwere An eleventh-century text offers Basil I1 (r. 976-1025), a great campaigner evidence for homosexual clergy in the against the Bulgarians, Constantine VIII Orthodox church. The Penitential of (jointrulerwith his brother 976-1025, sole pseudo-John N the Faster instructed the r. 1025-1028)) and the Empress Zoe's confessor to inquire about the sin of arrhe- husband Constantine IX (r. 1042-1055). nokoitia, which in this text means "anal Eunuchs played a major role at the impe- intercourse" in general. Ecclesiastical law rial courts, reaching their zenith under the punished the "sin of the Sodomite" with Macedonian dynasty (867-1057). two or three years of epitimion, whilecivil Accusations of homosexual vice law (the Eclogues) established decapita- became a standard device of Byzantine tion by the sword as the penalty. polemics. After the ninth century such In the Orthodox church priests, charges become rarer probably after the the "white clergy," could marry, but not consolidation of Christian family values monks or bishops, the "black clergy." Still and emergingmasculineideals.In the field a staple of reading, the texts of the Cappa- of law the Basilica do not repeat the old docian Fathers, whose admonitions to regulations but only something of secon- those who could not resist sex to marry dary importance from the Pandects, a young probably lowered the age of mar- change that might besignificant in view of riage, denounced homosexuality as the the foregoing circumstance. In the last most heinous of sins, but nothing could centuries of the Eastern Empire, however, prevent its spread in the monasteries. At complaints about homosexuality again themostfamousmonasticestablishments, surface (e.g., in the Patriarch Athanasius I those on Mount Athos, from which even and JosephBryennius).Thevice flourished female animals were banished, homosexu- in both male and female monasteries (typi- ality must have flourished from early times; con of Prodromos tou Phoberou, certainlyit becamenotorious thereinlater 80.31-82.1); the typica denied access to centuries. BYZANTINE EMPIRE Q

In 1453 Byzantium fell at last to was undoubtedly a good deal of borrowing the Ottoman Turks, and Mehmed the from Islamic pederastic customs. This Conqueror immediately sent his agents to cultural interaction awaits further study. requisition the most beautiful boys of the Christian aristocracy for his harem. BIBLIOGRAPHY. John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Mehmed tried to rape the fourteen-year- Homosexuality, Chicago: Chicago old son of the noble Lucas Notaras; father University Press, 1980, pp. 137-66, and son both perished for their resistance. 335-53, 359-65; Eva Cantarella, Secondo Likewise the sons of the historian George natura, Rome: Riuniti, 1987; Danilo Phrantzes were killed for refusing to yield Dalla, "Ubi Venus mutatur": omosessu- alitd e diritto nel mondo romano, to the Sultan's lusts. Milan: Giuffr&, 1987; Phaidon These episodes suggest a cultural Koukoules, Byzantinon Bi6s kai Politis- contrast that was probably less acute in mos, Athens, 1948-55, vol. 6, pp. 506-15; practice, for interface with Islamic homo- Spyros N. Troianos, Ho "Poinalios" tu sexuality must have begun centuries ear- Eklogadiu [Porschungen zur byzantinis- chen Rechtsgeschichte, 61, Frankfurt am lier. Officially, the greater vigilance of the Main: Klostermann, 1980, pp. 16-19. Byzantine authorities against "the vice" William A. Percy would have served to distinguish them from their adversaries; in practice, there