“Proletarian” Masculinity in Thomas Painter's Sexual Record and Visual
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Cross-Class Escape and the Erotics of “Proletarian” Masculinity in Thomas Painter’s Sexual Record and Visual Archive Yuriy Zikratyy A Thesis In the Humanities Program Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Concordia University Montreal, Quebec, Canada August 2013 © Yuriy Zikratyy, 2013 CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES This is to certify that the thesis prepared By: Yuriy Zikratyy Cross-Class Escape and the Erotics of "Proletarian" Entitled: Masculinity in Thomas Painter's Sexual Record and Visual Archive and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Humanities) complies with the regulations of the University and meets the accepted standards with respect to originality and quality. Signed by the final examining committee: Dr. Rachel Berger Chair Dr. Brian Lewis External Examiner Dr. John Potvin External to Program Dr. Donald Boisvert Examiner Dr. Marcie Frank Examiner Dr. Thomas Waugh Thesis Supervisor Approved by Chair of Department or Graduate Program Director Dean of Faculty Abstract Cross-Class Escape and the Erotics of “Proletarian” Masculinity in Thomas Painter’s Sexual Record and Visual Archive Yuriy Zikratyy, Ph.D. Concordia University, 2013 This dissertation examines the sexual journal and visual archive of Thomas N. Painter (1905-1978), an informal collaborator of Alfred C. Kinsey’s Institute for Sex Research, who since the 1930s documented in writing and photography his commercially-based homosexual relations. One of the largest sexual records ever produced, it focuses on Painter’s lifelong erotic interest in lower-class men whom he idealized as paragons of masculinity and sexual uninhibitedness. It chronicles Painter’s history of sexual contacts with these men, driven by his philanthropic ideal of socially beneficial cross-class friendship, and his attempts to reform his often delinquent lovers and rescue them from the life of poverty and crime. Analyzing Painter’s autobiographical and auto-ethnographic writing as well as his erotically-themed collection of drawings and photographs, this dissertation explores the practice of sexually motivated cross-class escape, evident in the personal histories of many upper- and middle-class homosexual men living in the mid-twentieth-century Europe and North America. One such man, Painter eschewed the cultural demands of marriage and bourgeois domesticity and, relinquishing his upper-middle-class background, sought to spend his life among the hyper-virile and sexually open “urban proletariat.” Tracing the influence that philanthropic discourses of “social brotherhood” and subcultural eroticization of “proletarian” masculinity had on Painter’s understanding iii of his same-sex desires and his vision of sexual and romantic relationships with his lower-class partners, the dissertation poses critical questions about the complex power dynamic in these relations, the changing notions of masculinity in the period, the role of commercial sex in early male homosexual communities and the alternative forms of intimacy and kinship fostered by their members. iv Acknowledgments This dissertation would not be possible without the input, advice and feedback from the members of my committee, Thomas Waugh, Marcie Frank and Donald Boisvert. I am greatly indebted to Professor Waugh for his steady encouragement of my graduate research work throughout many years, his determination to support me in the new directions that my project took, his unparalleled erudition in the field of sexuality studies. I am also very grateful to Professor Frank for introducing me to a variety a literary material that greatly enriched my understanding of the lives of homosexual men in the mid-twentieth-century America, her meticulous revisions of my drafts and her help with my sometimes awkward non-English-speaker writing style. Professor Boisvert, despite his late entry into my dissertation process, provided me with invaluable comments on the religious background of the dissertation’s protagonist Thomas Painter that dramatically changed my understanding of his sexual history and homosexual research work. I am grateful to the considerate and accommodating staff of the Library and Archives of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University, especially Library Director Liana Zhou and Library Public Services Manager Shawn C. Wilson. I would also like to thank the Humanities Program and the School of Graduate Studies at Concordia University for supporting my doctoral research. v Table of Contents Introduction: “My Lust Has Always Been Directed at Simple Muzhiks” 2 Part One. The Context 43 Chapter 1. Same-Sex Desire and Social Escape 44 “Eros and Altruism”: Cross-Class “Brotherhood” and the Homoerotics of Philanthropy 50 Sexual Travel and Social Escape: Homosexual “Pilgrims,” Exiles and Tourists 80 Part Two. The Story 101 Chapter 2. “A Level of Society Which Is Willing to Accept Me for What I Am”: From Middle-Class Puritanism to Homosexual Emancipation in the Urban Underworld 102 Chapter 3. The Naked Proletarian: Amateur Photography and the Erotics of Lower-Class Masculinity 152 Chapter 4. “Us Puerto Ricans”: Thomas Painter’s “Puerto Rican Era” 202 Chapter 5. “The Caresses That Last As Long As the Money Does”: The Pleasures, Dangers and Frustrations of Commercial Sex 250 Conclusion 305 Bibliography 322 Appendix. Thomas Painter’s Visual Archive: A Selection 355 vi List of Figures 1. Thomas Painter, untitled drawing, ca. 1944-1945. 2. Thomas Painter, untitled drawing, ca. 1944-1945. 3. Thomas Painter, untitled photograph, ca. 1954. 4. Thomas Painter, untitled photograph, 1945. 5. Thomas Painter, untitled drawing, 1948. 6. Thomas Painter, untitled photograph, 1955. 7. Henry Faulkner, untitled photographs, ca. 1940s. 8. Thomas Painter, untitled photograph, 1936. 9. Thomas Painter, untitled photograph, 1949. 10. Thomas Painter, untitled photograph, 1950. 11. Tom Clifford*, untitled photograph, ca. late 1920s. 12. Thomas Painter, untitled photograph, 1950. 13. Thomas Painter, untitled photograph, 1951. 14. Thomas Painter, untitled photograph, 1951. 15. Thomas Painter, untitled photograph, 1955. 16. Thomas Painter, untitled photograph, 1955. 17. Thomas Painter, untitled photograph, 1954. 18. Thomas Painter, untitled photograph, 1957. 19. Thomas Painter, untitled photograph, 1956. vii Between the luxurious mansion of pater familias and this dingy dive, give me the latter! For here alone I might be able to pass as a puella [a young girl, a sweetheart]. In my own cultured, Christian circle, female- impersonation is castigated. But would not the attitude of the offscouring of our mundane sphere—the Pugilists’ Haven gunmen—be different? Ralph Werther—“Jennie June,” The Female-Impersonators (1922) Introduction: “My Lust Has Always Been Directed at Simple Muzhiks” Reflecting back on the sources of my academic interest in cross-class sexual relations between men, I can now see how this dissertation stemmed, in a way, from my long-ago encounter with the published excerpts from the private diary of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich of Russia, the cousin of Tsar Nicholas II. A patron of the arts, a head of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1889-1915 and a minor poet and translator, now mainly remembered for his lyrics to some of the most famous sentimental ballads written by Piotr Tchaikovsky, Konstantin Konstantinovich left a rather candid diary in which he chronicled his inner struggle with his erotic attraction towards young and invariably lower-class men—coachmen, servants, subordinate military personnel and the ever-present bathhouse attendants (banschik).1 The Grand Duke was married, a father of nine children, but throughout his life had sexual relations with men and contemplated them in his diary, repeatedly resolving to fight his “passions” but equally often giving in to his “impure thoughts and desires.” The following is the entry from April 19, 1904: I feel uneasy again, once more sinful thoughts, memories and desires are haunting me. I dream of visiting a bathhouse on Moyka [Street] or ordering to prepare a bath at home, imagine the familiar attendants—Aleksey Frolov and especially Sergey Syroezhkin. My lust has always been directed at simple muzhiks, outside their circle I have never looked for and never found partners in sin. When passion is speaking, the arguments of conscience, 1 On Konstantin Konstantinovich’s diaries, see Kseniya Sak, “Dnevniki velikogo kniazia Konstantina Konstantinovicha kak pamiatnik dukhovnoy kultury Rossii vtoroy poloviny XIX—nachala XX v.” [The diaries of the Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich as a record of the Russian spiritual culture of the second half of nineteenth and early twentieth centuries], in Aktualnye problemy istoricheskikh issledovaniy: Vzgliad molodykh uchenykh, ed. Roman Romanov (Novosibirsk: Parallel, 2011), 81-87. Konstantin Konstantinovich began writing a diary when he was eleven years old and continued until his death in 1915. It is preserved in the State Archive of the Russian Federation (Moscow). Only short excerpts have been published so far, and the ones concerning his sexual contacts with men date from 1903-1905. 2 virtue and prudence subside.2 A month later, the occasion arose, and Konstantin Konstantinovich could not resist the temptation: Sinful thoughts overcame me during the meeting. On Morskaya [Street], before reaching the corner with Nevskiy [Avenue], I let the coachman go and continued on foot towards