Alan Sinfield

Lesbian and Gay Taxonomies

In a recent article designed to kick start gay history, DavidHalperinproposes a new categorization of same-sex relations. He distinguishes “the modern concept of homosexuality” and four “prehomosexual traditions.” These latter are found in European contexts from ancient Greece through early modern Italy and France and the molly houses of eighteenth-century England and on into the emergence of the concept of “sexual inversion” in the writings of late nineteenth-century sexologists (such as Karl Friedrich OttoWestphal). They are: “(1) effeminacy, (2) pederasty or ‘active’ sodomy, (3) friendship or male love, (4) passivity or inversion.” The key factor linking these prehomosexual traditions, Halperin says, is the privilegingof gender over sexuality (defined by object-choice). In “modern” homosexuality, which developed in the mid twentieth century, it is the other way round. Both partners in a same-sex scenario are regarded as gay and neither need be positioned as feminine. Today, Halperin says, “homosexual relations cease to be compulsorily structured by a polarization of identities and roles (active/passive, insertive/receptive, masculine/feminine, or man/boy). Exclusive, lifelong, companionate, romantic, andmutual homosexual love becomes possible for bothpartners” (“H,” p. 112). However, traces of earlier patterns linger and hence the confusion in many current ideas of gayness. Halperin’s model is relatively local; it charts particular social and historical contexts within western Europe and the classical tradition. He ad-

The challenge of transgender, the moment of Stonewall, and Neil Bartlett

much bigger iceberg. The trick is to turn all this theoretical and political awareness into real-world activism. And that is going to be a challenge, for two reasons. First, while I’m as proud as you are to be a member of our lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, questioning, straight-sympathetic, allies, youth movement, I’m not sure that this balkanization reflects anything other than our endless affection for identity politics. We must look beyond the simplistic political syllogism that gay is to sexual orientation as trans is to gender and start understanding gender stereotypes as an issue for everyone, whether they identify as gay, straight, transgendered, minority, youth, or feminist. Because gender is one of those rare issues that brings us together, that we can work on as equals on common ground. Second, although we all enjoy contemplating the hegemonic signifying practices of the prevailing phallogocentric economy, with its inevitable tropes and metaphors of heteronormativity, it’s time we pulled gender theory out of its long retreat from real life and demanded that it function as an applied science, instead settling for theory as a pure, abstract one. Feminist theory gave birth to women’s rights, gay theory to gay rights. It’s time to stop deconstructing endlessly and construct something. It’s time for gender theory to give rise to gender rights. Gender rights are human rights, and they are for all of us.

Changing concepts of the arts: from the leisure elite to Clause 28

‘The arts’ are a construct that we make; the transcendence claimed for art in our society gives it status at the expense of influence. Several distinct conceptions of ‘the arts’ are embedded in current usage. The leisure-class idea of high culture gave way after 1945 to the welfare-capitalist project of making good culture available to everyone, and this was developed rather than challenged by the new left, which gained an ascendancy in certain fields. The Thatcherite attack on the arts is not incidental, therefore: to make use of ‘the arts’ the new right has to reinvest them with its own values. Gay men tried to resist hostile legislation by pointing out that they have been major producers of art. But there is a longstanding association between the artistic and ‘effeminacy’, and to the new right the arts and homosexuals constitute a joint target. Probably its ‘universal’ implications make ‘art’ unhelpful to subordinate groups, such as gays: it might be better to insist upon a distinctive subculture.

Coming on to Shakespeare: Offstage Action and Sonnet 20

The death of the reader is celebrated and then questioned, in an attempt to defy hegemonic positions and, with some hyperbole and anachronism, to justify a minority reading as an ideal reading. Patricia Dunckers luminous novel, Hallucinating Foucault (London: Serpents Tail, 1996) is helpful. A queer reading position may afford ideal access to Shakespeares Sonnets. For once, straight commentators do not have it all their way; they have trouble accounting for a scenario of passionate intimacy, encoding confusion, frustration and bitterness; “shame” is a keyword. Sonnet 20, about how Nature has pricked out the Boy, is especially open to misunderstanding; critics generally have been reluctant to admit to insider knowledge in this field. (Indeed, impertinent analogies with gay culture today might be attempted.) Between Sonnets 19 and 20, figuratively speaking, something happens offstage to change the Poets outlook. Why is it suddenly necessary for him to clarify, so emphatically, his relation to the Boys gender, gender in general and the Boys penis in particular? Where does it leave the Poets passion?

'Below sea-level, the mark is inverted': Benchmarking and the reader

A change in editorship of Textual Practice is a moment for reflection on the state of the discipline, as it is focused by the benchmarking document published by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education. This is coercive, incoherent, and stifles long-standing disputes. Above all, it overlooks the death of the reader.

Humanism and ideology

ABSTRACT Combining autobiographical and theoretical reflections, this essay looks back impressionistically on the last 100 years of British/US LGBTQ history. The discussion draws on exemplary texts from a range of media; these texts include Brokeback Mountain, Audens poetry, Rattigans drama, queer oral history, and gay journalism.

Shakespeare and Masculinity

List of Illustrations Introduction Persons Ideals Passages Others Coalescences Notes Suggestions for Further Reading Index

Wilde and the Queer moment

The Wilde century: effeminacy, Oscar Wilde and the queer moment Alan Sinfield Cassell, 1994