Sexuality In Victorian Era Essay
“Did late Victorians think of homosexuality primarily as a crime, a disease, or something else?”
The late Victorian era of the nineteenth century, has long been synonymously recognised as highly-repressed and morally obsessive. Yet distinct from all preceding eras, there lay a fixation in society in the belief that an individual's sex and sexuality form the most basic core of their identity and indeed of one's social or political standing, and freedom. Though we can acknowledge that the urbanisation and industrialisation of society occurred at different paces influenced by its own geographical distinctions, the population as a whole came to see family structures, gender roles and employment patterns alter. The fragmentation of their communities and pluralisation of values for many was how previously unacknowledged parts of one's social identity came to gain significance and definition; sexuality had been brought to the forefront of Victorian discourse. As I attempt to identify what the popular attitudes towards homosexuality and same-sex behaviour were of this period, it becomes clear that …show more content…
earlier works are somewhat limited by a weakness in evidence, relying largely on the significance of famous homosexuals embroiled in notorious court cases, notably the Cleveland Street scandal or the Oscar Wilde trials amongst various others. However, what has emerged in recent decades is attempt to understand homosexuality not from an 'isolating' perceptive, but questioning its evolution within the wider context by acknowledging the diverse elements of social structures as being inextricably linked to the shaping of sexual identities. The notion that sexuality is a product of scientific discourses is a matter which incites great debate, drawn within the fundamental theories on sexuality introduced by Michel Foucault, which I will later discuss in more detail. What has also been clarified through the works of Jeffrey Weeks is '...a picture of new deepening hostility towards homosexuality alongside the emergence of new definitions of homosexuality and the homosexual'.1 The definitive medicalisation and pathologising of homosexuality came to lend itself as influential to the development of homosexual self-image, identity and subcultures, which we can trace back to the works of Havelock Ellis, John Addington Symonds, Edward Carpenter and Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, amongst others. In order to broaden the depth of my argument, I will also refer to the works of Seth Koven and Matt Houlbrook, which brings fresh insight to the dynamics of sexual identity under the influence of the metropolis by focusing on class boundaries and cross-cultural elements.
Often, Victorian understanding of sex is seen to be characteristically represented through the works of Dr William Acton. Best known as the pioneering advocate for the Contagious Diseases Act for the regulation of prostitution was also recognised for his most famous and quoted work, 'Functions and Disorders of the Reproductive Organs', first published in 1857, and considered to the qualified opinion on sex, as medical paper 'The Lancet' reviewed:
“In the work now before us, all essential detail upon its subject matter is cleverly and scientifically given. We recommend it accordingly, as meeting a necessary requistion of the day, refusing to join in that opinion which regards the consideration of the topics in question as beyond the duties of the medical practitioner.”2
This discourse on largely focused the aspects of male sexuality, with an explicit degree of attention accounting the perils of masturbation. The key understanding here was that the human body was a machine, with sexual functions serving for the purely mechanical purpose of procreation. Any experience of sex beyond the legitimising confines of marriage, enjoying it for non procreative reasons was considered condemnable and dangerous for one's health because of the importance attached given to seminal fluid:
“Semen is life itself under a fluid form-the vital principle, condensed and perceptible...nothing costs the economy so much as the production of semen, and its forced ejaculation.”3
Early associations between masturbation and homosexuality only served to encourage hostility, under this early discourse on the purpose of human purpose. Furthermore, the view that homosexuality was merely the result of moral wickedness and testament to a degraded, morally-vacant society encouraged the drive to curtail such depravities through deterrent punishment.
Whereas previous legislation had defined and prosecuted same-sex behaviour under the term 'sodomy' it was actually understood as an entirely ambiguous description, encompassing a wide range of offences; for example as bestiality. In 1885, the Labouchere Amendment introduced an additional clause to the pre-existing Criminal Law Amendment Act, primarily as a means to address the issue of male prostitution brought to public attention through scandalous articles published in W.T. Stead's 'Pall Mall Gazette' stated that:
“...any male person, who in public or private commits...any acts of gross indecency with another male person shall be guilty of a misdemeanour and punishable by up to two years in prison.”4
In a sense, this new legislation acted upon concerns which focused on homosexual activity as an individually recognised trait, marked by the influence of medical and psychological efforts to categorise and effectively construct a homosexual identity. Whereas the old theory of sodomy concerned sexual acts and effects, the new theory of homosexuality was about identity and causes; the pervert, child masturbator, homosexual, hysteric, prostitute, primitive and nymphomaniac, all emerged as distinctly classified sexual species once revealed under the scrutiny of science.5 Yet I would contest that it is important for us to not place heavy significance on this change in legal direction, for it fails to provide an accurate reflection of the prevailing moral evaluations concerning sexual conduct across the classes. Anti-homosexual sentiment was indeed enflamed further by the elevating notion of family as the anchor structure of social stability; a moral crusade embarked upon by members of the affluent society concentrated on launching an obsessive assault to promote chastity, discourage masturbation and define lines of acceptability generally.
Though I have used the word 'homosexual' throughout the course of this essay so far, it is important for us to identify the origins of its definition, otherwise this argument will fail to acknowledge the importance in developing a vocabulary, and our contemporary definition of 'gay identity seen within pre-existing frames of reference' are in a sense, anachronistically applied. Indeed, the exploration into linguistic representation reveals a myriad of labels as Matt Cook explains:
“...so we get mollies, sodomites, inverts, mary-annes, homosexuals, queens, trade, gays and queers. These labels were not synonymous though and each represents a different understanding of identity and desire.”6
Though many of these terms bear obvious derogatory and vilifying connotations, we can see the history of homosexual identity elucidated in the evolution of vocabulary. With regards to the fact that I have used the word 'homosexual' throughout this essay, it is important to consider that it was not a term in popular use until much later one; in was in fact first introduced in 1869, in the early correspondences of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, the first openly homosexual activist and less known Karl Maria Kertbeny, the latter coining the terms 'homosexual' and 'heterosexual'.7
Aside from understanding homosexual desire as an act of wickedness therefore rightfully punishable by law, deviant sexual abnormalities were also explained as a manifestation of hereditary degeneration.
Where Darwin's theory of evolution introduced the idea of a hierarchal classification of human beings, the works of Cesare Lombroso extended this approach in suggesting that criminals were 'biological atavisms'-throwbacks to an earlier stage of evolution-who were incapable of functioning adequately in the modern world.8Richard Von Krafft-Ebing's work entitled 'Psychopathia Sexualis' presented a equally moralistic view in that monogamous sex for the purposes of procreation was the desirable norm, and anything outside of this description was essentially 'perverse' and 'deviant', a point from which Krafft-Ebing would later argue as a means to decriminalise
homosexuality.
However, public understandings of homosexual behaviour were derived (if not from personal experience) not necessarily from scientific publications, but from the portrayal of homosexual characters in the press, where investigative journalism sought to delve into the public lives of others for the sake of enticing readers with a scandalous slant on 'truth'. The most distinctive traits identified of these sub cultures was the culture of effeminacy and transvestism, as exemplified in the trials of Ernest Boulton and Frederick Park, otherwise known as 'Fanny' and 'Stella' in 1877; two middle-class, respectable young men arrested after leaving the Strand Theatre dressed as women, and subsequently tried on the grounds of conspiring to commit sodomy. This very public imitation of women went directly against the accepted norms in society which upheld a clear separation of gender distinctions. The trial fell apart after no physical evidence of sodomy could be proved; yet it is utterly obvious from reading the court transcripts how there is a unfamiliarity within the medical and legal bodies as to how they were to regard with male homosexuality, or indeed what it actually was, as the Attorney General observed:
“It must be a matter of rare occurrence in this country at least for any person to be discovered who has the propensity for the practises which are imputed to them.”9 When the courts were eventually enlightened with the existence of Tardieu's compilation of cases regarding sodomy for the purposes of legal proof, it provoked a reaction of disdain rather than a desire to broaden the scientific approaches to such cases. Such an incident indicates that various literature and sexologist authors already established in the Continent, for example Moureau, Nordau and Westphal to name but a few of the earlier thinkers failed to influence British analysis on perversions because of the overwhelming moral offences it provoked. Furthermore, the Victorian discourse in categorising homosexual behaviour was more a reflection of the society which chose to provide those definitions as opposed to anything concerning the nature of same sex desires, as it arguably is for any historical period.
The trials of Oscar Wilde in 1895, begin initially as a criminal libel trial prompted by a reaction to the father of Wilde's lover (Lord Alfred Douglas), the Marquess of Queensbury who had accused the author and socialite of being a sodomite. Wilde's sexuality was unexpectedly called under scrutiny as the defence presented eventually resulting in Wilde's tragic and very public fate of a two year imprisonment has been credited, most significantly by Michel Foucault, who I will refer to in greater detail later on in my essay. With emergence of homosexual social identity, sodomites and inverts defined themselves in the character of Wilde; the trials received much attention in the press, with Wilde as the centre of ridicule and he was considered extremely effeminate, excessive and extravagant. In spite of how many came to regard Wilde as an utterly ridiculous and confusing fellow, Foucault has stressed the relevance of this in that other homosexual men were influenced out of this particular context during the late 19th century as served as a category of knowledge, rather than a discovered identity. However, rather than focusing on these trials as a central point of my argument I would like to focus more on other areas, and I feel it is important to refer back to a central point reiterated through the works of Jonathan Dollimore, whereby there was a historical shift in the conceptualising of homosexuality from a behaviour to an identity, stating:
'In the nineteenth century a major and specifically "scientific" branch of this development comes to construct homosexuality as primarily a congenital abnormality rather than, as before, a sinful and evil practice'.10
In spite of this ever-growing abundance of medical literature offered as a means to rationalise same-sex desires within the realms of scientific categories, no objective or unbiased terminology existed, as commented upon by John Addington Symonds, who was a homosexual, in 1891:
“The accomplished languages of Europe in the nineteenth century supply no terms for this persistent feature of human psychology without importing some implication of disgust, disgrace or vituperation.”11
'Sexual Inversion' co-authored by Symonds and sexologist Havelock Ellis in 1897, has been recognised as a pioneering piece of British research into the studies of human sexuality, and a product of their attempts to redress this failure. Their argument proposed that homosexual desires could be traced back to the animal kingdom thereby providing a natural pre-existence and that it was congenital as opposed to a vice or beyond legal or moral proscriptions:
“It can scarcely be said that the consciousness of this attitude of society is favourable to the invert's attainment of a fairly sane and well-balanced attitude...we all regard homosexuality with absolute and unmitigated disgust. We have been taught to venerate Alexander the Great, Epaminondas, Socrates and other antique heroes; but they are safely buried in the remote past and do not affect our scorn of homosexuality in the present.” 12
By defining homosexuality without the moral or legal classifications, what they labelled as 'inversion' as a definition of same sex behaviour radicalised an intellectual dimension to the understanding of sexuality without moral restraints, but from a biological perspective it was considered as an abnormality because of its statistical minority. In addition, Ellis and Symonds paid particular attention in providing historical examples of great men and women in history as sexual inverts as an advocation for the decriminalisation of homosexuality, as they criticised moral hypocrisy of Victorian conservatism.
One fundamental conflict between the various means to identify homosexuality as an identity during the last few decades, has been dominated between essentialists and constructionists. The essentialist position holds that through an innate predisposition there always has been and always will be a certain proportion of the population who are homosexual; it is a position stressing historical continuity which implies that the homosexuals have always existed, but lacked the significantly acknowledgment from wider society. The constructivist position claims that homosexuality, far from constituting an 'essential' part of the physical or psychological make-up of individuals engaged in homosexual acts was really just an invention, or rather a construction, of the late 19th century society. Michel Foucault's theories outlined in 'The History of Sexuality: Volume One' (1978) provided the groundwork to this established field in social history by introducing this constructionist interpretation. Foucault argues that the open discussions on sexuality in modern Western culture during the nineteenth century created new classifications of sexual categories were formed, as well as establishing the modern conception of sexuality as a form of identity in itself. Foucault attributed the medical, psychological and psychiatric categories as a influential source codification; another crucial dimension of his argument was a critique of sexual repression, choosing to argue the 'repression hypothesis' whereby the 'homosexual' now grew from a constructed category of knowledge offered by this awareness of self.
“Homosexuality appeared as one of the forms of sexuality when it was transposed from the practise of sodomy onto a kind of interior androgyny, a hermaphrodism of the soul. The sodomite had been a temporary aberration; the homosexual was now a species...it was everywhere present in him; at the root of his actions. ”13
The suggestion that sexuality is a historical construction has led historical perspectives to develop understandings on sexual identity as part the wider moral and social contexts of Victorian era. The works of Jeffrey Weeks, David Halperin and Mary McIntosh do assert Foucault's theories essential to the deconstruction of the perpetuation of sexuality as an axiomatic social structure and the recent origins behind a homosexual identity, but crucially they have the explored the mechanisms of historical change within the wider frames of gender, class, race as well as focusing on state regulation as opposed to social oppression. Shifting conceptions on homosexuality and the sub-cultures of the metropolis enlightens a new consideration of culture, society and identity. The works of Matt Houlbrook and Seth Koven examine the possibilities to explore and embrace new forms of identity as well as anonymity within a previously unfelt social order introduced through urbanisation. The city created a pool of potential partners, friends and associates, and offered the space to congregate or seek security from those they came to identify with; a stark contrast to the isolated vulnerability of localised communities. In contrast, the opportunities offered were also subject to the controls of municipal authority in a time where the criminalisation of homosexual activity relied on a negative and damaging portrayal of a minority. Seth Koven's recent publication, 'Slumming: sexual and social politics in Victorian London' elucidates a history of cross-class sympathies and and same-sex desire in the poorest areas of the city. Focusing on the 1896 Pall Mall Gazette publication of a series of articles entitled 'A Night in The Workhouse' exemplified a new mode of investigative, incognito approach to journalism written by journalist James Greenwood. His chronicles offered an insight into the degrading conditions of Lambeth Workhouse that would fascinate readers with its constant undertones of homoerotism. Greenwood's language through deepens the exposure of cross-class fascinations with the underclass, associating extreme poverty amongst men as a form of sexual deviance in itself and also reminds us of a point earlier addressed, where the original Lambouchere Amendment was prompted by a desire to punish and prevent male prostitution and homosexual activity in general exposed by Greenwood's article.
Matt Houlbrook's work has alternatively unveiled an ambiguous definition of queer identity by addressing a broader context. Understanding the impact of London's public parks and streets with specific areas marked out as popular haunts draws from a myriad of personal sources such as the letters of men like Cyril. L could exclaim in private company, “I have only been queer since I came to London about two years ago”.14 Cyril's interactions and experiences were testament to the networks created by gay men to forge access to public and commercial sociability and unlike previous urban perspectives, Houlbrook gives equal attention to those who considered themselves "normal" but nonetheless acted on their desires to have sex with men,have friends that understood them, and to form meaningful relationships.
*
““Men cried in the city. Men were afraid lonely, guilty and isolated. Men were arrested and imprisoned, attacked and blackmailed. Men took their own lives in the city. Queer lives were braced by these common and contradictory experiences, taking shape with a persistent tension between pleasure and desire.”15
Matt Haulbrook's quote illustrates quite plainly here the potential consequences or senarios one could experience as a gay man in the late nineteenth century; succinct clarifying how the lives and experiences of gay men were irrevocably and intimately linked to their relationship with the metropolis. For many, the Victorian era witnessed an move towards ending sexual reservation; an epoch to usher in a new discourse free of sexual repression, and one that crucially granted a rhetoric to those wanting to speak upon the matters of one's sexual desires without fear of retribution. In this essay, I have argued a preference for the influence of medical categorisation, rather than legislative influence as premise of Victorian conceptualisation of homosexuality, yet the works inspired by Foucault have certainly offered us deeper and more compelling insights by mapping the progress of queer identity within the context of British modernity. The explanation offered here by Gayle Rubin is as equally illustrative and significant as Matt Houlbrook's understanding homosexual identity, but does so in order to express the relationship between identity and context:
“The realms of sexuality has its own internal politics, inequities and modes of oppression. As with other aspects of human behaviour, the concrete institutional forms of sexuality at any given time and place are products of human activity...they are imbued with conflicts of interest and political manoeuvring, both deliberate and incidental. In that sense, sex is always politic. But there are also historical periods in which sexuality is more sharply contested and more overtly politicised.”16
Through the course of my research, I have discovered that there is an unbounded and ever-growing wealth of the studies, theories, contributions and approaches (I regret to admit that there are many more elements of this argument and notable characters/events that I had not been able to elaborate on or include, such as Hellenism, Westphal, Magnus Hirschfeld, George Cecil Ives, the influence of middle-class liberals such as the Bloomsbury group to name but a few) which seek to elucidate what was once an inchoate understanding of sexual and social history. Those who experienced homosexual desires sought an understanding of themselves in the dominating images of sexual difference, from which one can argue that the Victorian period offered up its conclusive characteristics to serve as a framework, consequently as a means of influencing contemporary definitions of homosexuality.
The late Victorian era of the nineteenth century, has long been synonymously recognised as highly-repressed and morally obsessive. Yet distinct from all preceding eras, there lay a fixation in society in the belief that an individual's sex and sexuality form the most basic core of their identity and indeed of one's social or political standing, and freedom. Though we can acknowledge that the urbanisation and industrialisation of society occurred at different paces influenced by its own geographical distinctions, the population as a whole came to see family structures, gender roles and employment patterns alter. The fragmentation of their communities and pluralisation of values for many was how previously unacknowledged parts of one's social identity came to gain significance and definition; sexuality had been brought to the forefront of Victorian discourse. As I attempt to identify what the popular attitudes towards homosexuality and same-sex behaviour were of this period, it becomes clear that …show more content…
earlier works are somewhat limited by a weakness in evidence, relying largely on the significance of famous homosexuals embroiled in notorious court cases, notably the Cleveland Street scandal or the Oscar Wilde trials amongst various others. However, what has emerged in recent decades is attempt to understand homosexuality not from an 'isolating' perceptive, but questioning its evolution within the wider context by acknowledging the diverse elements of social structures as being inextricably linked to the shaping of sexual identities. The notion that sexuality is a product of scientific discourses is a matter which incites great debate, drawn within the fundamental theories on sexuality introduced by Michel Foucault, which I will later discuss in more detail. What has also been clarified through the works of Jeffrey Weeks is '...a picture of new deepening hostility towards homosexuality alongside the emergence of new definitions of homosexuality and the homosexual'.1 The definitive medicalisation and pathologising of homosexuality came to lend itself as influential to the development of homosexual self-image, identity and subcultures, which we can trace back to the works of Havelock Ellis, John Addington Symonds, Edward Carpenter and Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, amongst others. In order to broaden the depth of my argument, I will also refer to the works of Seth Koven and Matt Houlbrook, which brings fresh insight to the dynamics of sexual identity under the influence of the metropolis by focusing on class boundaries and cross-cultural elements.
Often, Victorian understanding of sex is seen to be characteristically represented through the works of Dr William Acton. Best known as the pioneering advocate for the Contagious Diseases Act for the regulation of prostitution was also recognised for his most famous and quoted work, 'Functions and Disorders of the Reproductive Organs', first published in 1857, and considered to the qualified opinion on sex, as medical paper 'The Lancet' reviewed:
“In the work now before us, all essential detail upon its subject matter is cleverly and scientifically given. We recommend it accordingly, as meeting a necessary requistion of the day, refusing to join in that opinion which regards the consideration of the topics in question as beyond the duties of the medical practitioner.”2
This discourse on largely focused the aspects of male sexuality, with an explicit degree of attention accounting the perils of masturbation. The key understanding here was that the human body was a machine, with sexual functions serving for the purely mechanical purpose of procreation. Any experience of sex beyond the legitimising confines of marriage, enjoying it for non procreative reasons was considered condemnable and dangerous for one's health because of the importance attached given to seminal fluid:
“Semen is life itself under a fluid form-the vital principle, condensed and perceptible...nothing costs the economy so much as the production of semen, and its forced ejaculation.”3
Early associations between masturbation and homosexuality only served to encourage hostility, under this early discourse on the purpose of human purpose. Furthermore, the view that homosexuality was merely the result of moral wickedness and testament to a degraded, morally-vacant society encouraged the drive to curtail such depravities through deterrent punishment.
Whereas previous legislation had defined and prosecuted same-sex behaviour under the term 'sodomy' it was actually understood as an entirely ambiguous description, encompassing a wide range of offences; for example as bestiality. In 1885, the Labouchere Amendment introduced an additional clause to the pre-existing Criminal Law Amendment Act, primarily as a means to address the issue of male prostitution brought to public attention through scandalous articles published in W.T. Stead's 'Pall Mall Gazette' stated that:
“...any male person, who in public or private commits...any acts of gross indecency with another male person shall be guilty of a misdemeanour and punishable by up to two years in prison.”4
In a sense, this new legislation acted upon concerns which focused on homosexual activity as an individually recognised trait, marked by the influence of medical and psychological efforts to categorise and effectively construct a homosexual identity. Whereas the old theory of sodomy concerned sexual acts and effects, the new theory of homosexuality was about identity and causes; the pervert, child masturbator, homosexual, hysteric, prostitute, primitive and nymphomaniac, all emerged as distinctly classified sexual species once revealed under the scrutiny of science.5 Yet I would contest that it is important for us to not place heavy significance on this change in legal direction, for it fails to provide an accurate reflection of the prevailing moral evaluations concerning sexual conduct across the classes. Anti-homosexual sentiment was indeed enflamed further by the elevating notion of family as the anchor structure of social stability; a moral crusade embarked upon by members of the affluent society concentrated on launching an obsessive assault to promote chastity, discourage masturbation and define lines of acceptability generally.
Though I have used the word 'homosexual' throughout the course of this essay so far, it is important for us to identify the origins of its definition, otherwise this argument will fail to acknowledge the importance in developing a vocabulary, and our contemporary definition of 'gay identity seen within pre-existing frames of reference' are in a sense, anachronistically applied. Indeed, the exploration into linguistic representation reveals a myriad of labels as Matt Cook explains:
“...so we get mollies, sodomites, inverts, mary-annes, homosexuals, queens, trade, gays and queers. These labels were not synonymous though and each represents a different understanding of identity and desire.”6
Though many of these terms bear obvious derogatory and vilifying connotations, we can see the history of homosexual identity elucidated in the evolution of vocabulary. With regards to the fact that I have used the word 'homosexual' throughout this essay, it is important to consider that it was not a term in popular use until much later one; in was in fact first introduced in 1869, in the early correspondences of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, the first openly homosexual activist and less known Karl Maria Kertbeny, the latter coining the terms 'homosexual' and 'heterosexual'.7
Aside from understanding homosexual desire as an act of wickedness therefore rightfully punishable by law, deviant sexual abnormalities were also explained as a manifestation of hereditary degeneration.
Where Darwin's theory of evolution introduced the idea of a hierarchal classification of human beings, the works of Cesare Lombroso extended this approach in suggesting that criminals were 'biological atavisms'-throwbacks to an earlier stage of evolution-who were incapable of functioning adequately in the modern world.8Richard Von Krafft-Ebing's work entitled 'Psychopathia Sexualis' presented a equally moralistic view in that monogamous sex for the purposes of procreation was the desirable norm, and anything outside of this description was essentially 'perverse' and 'deviant', a point from which Krafft-Ebing would later argue as a means to decriminalise
homosexuality.
However, public understandings of homosexual behaviour were derived (if not from personal experience) not necessarily from scientific publications, but from the portrayal of homosexual characters in the press, where investigative journalism sought to delve into the public lives of others for the sake of enticing readers with a scandalous slant on 'truth'. The most distinctive traits identified of these sub cultures was the culture of effeminacy and transvestism, as exemplified in the trials of Ernest Boulton and Frederick Park, otherwise known as 'Fanny' and 'Stella' in 1877; two middle-class, respectable young men arrested after leaving the Strand Theatre dressed as women, and subsequently tried on the grounds of conspiring to commit sodomy. This very public imitation of women went directly against the accepted norms in society which upheld a clear separation of gender distinctions. The trial fell apart after no physical evidence of sodomy could be proved; yet it is utterly obvious from reading the court transcripts how there is a unfamiliarity within the medical and legal bodies as to how they were to regard with male homosexuality, or indeed what it actually was, as the Attorney General observed:
“It must be a matter of rare occurrence in this country at least for any person to be discovered who has the propensity for the practises which are imputed to them.”9 When the courts were eventually enlightened with the existence of Tardieu's compilation of cases regarding sodomy for the purposes of legal proof, it provoked a reaction of disdain rather than a desire to broaden the scientific approaches to such cases. Such an incident indicates that various literature and sexologist authors already established in the Continent, for example Moureau, Nordau and Westphal to name but a few of the earlier thinkers failed to influence British analysis on perversions because of the overwhelming moral offences it provoked. Furthermore, the Victorian discourse in categorising homosexual behaviour was more a reflection of the society which chose to provide those definitions as opposed to anything concerning the nature of same sex desires, as it arguably is for any historical period.
The trials of Oscar Wilde in 1895, begin initially as a criminal libel trial prompted by a reaction to the father of Wilde's lover (Lord Alfred Douglas), the Marquess of Queensbury who had accused the author and socialite of being a sodomite. Wilde's sexuality was unexpectedly called under scrutiny as the defence presented eventually resulting in Wilde's tragic and very public fate of a two year imprisonment has been credited, most significantly by Michel Foucault, who I will refer to in greater detail later on in my essay. With emergence of homosexual social identity, sodomites and inverts defined themselves in the character of Wilde; the trials received much attention in the press, with Wilde as the centre of ridicule and he was considered extremely effeminate, excessive and extravagant. In spite of how many came to regard Wilde as an utterly ridiculous and confusing fellow, Foucault has stressed the relevance of this in that other homosexual men were influenced out of this particular context during the late 19th century as served as a category of knowledge, rather than a discovered identity. However, rather than focusing on these trials as a central point of my argument I would like to focus more on other areas, and I feel it is important to refer back to a central point reiterated through the works of Jonathan Dollimore, whereby there was a historical shift in the conceptualising of homosexuality from a behaviour to an identity, stating:
'In the nineteenth century a major and specifically "scientific" branch of this development comes to construct homosexuality as primarily a congenital abnormality rather than, as before, a sinful and evil practice'.10
In spite of this ever-growing abundance of medical literature offered as a means to rationalise same-sex desires within the realms of scientific categories, no objective or unbiased terminology existed, as commented upon by John Addington Symonds, who was a homosexual, in 1891:
“The accomplished languages of Europe in the nineteenth century supply no terms for this persistent feature of human psychology without importing some implication of disgust, disgrace or vituperation.”11
'Sexual Inversion' co-authored by Symonds and sexologist Havelock Ellis in 1897, has been recognised as a pioneering piece of British research into the studies of human sexuality, and a product of their attempts to redress this failure. Their argument proposed that homosexual desires could be traced back to the animal kingdom thereby providing a natural pre-existence and that it was congenital as opposed to a vice or beyond legal or moral proscriptions:
“It can scarcely be said that the consciousness of this attitude of society is favourable to the invert's attainment of a fairly sane and well-balanced attitude...we all regard homosexuality with absolute and unmitigated disgust. We have been taught to venerate Alexander the Great, Epaminondas, Socrates and other antique heroes; but they are safely buried in the remote past and do not affect our scorn of homosexuality in the present.” 12
By defining homosexuality without the moral or legal classifications, what they labelled as 'inversion' as a definition of same sex behaviour radicalised an intellectual dimension to the understanding of sexuality without moral restraints, but from a biological perspective it was considered as an abnormality because of its statistical minority. In addition, Ellis and Symonds paid particular attention in providing historical examples of great men and women in history as sexual inverts as an advocation for the decriminalisation of homosexuality, as they criticised moral hypocrisy of Victorian conservatism.
One fundamental conflict between the various means to identify homosexuality as an identity during the last few decades, has been dominated between essentialists and constructionists. The essentialist position holds that through an innate predisposition there always has been and always will be a certain proportion of the population who are homosexual; it is a position stressing historical continuity which implies that the homosexuals have always existed, but lacked the significantly acknowledgment from wider society. The constructivist position claims that homosexuality, far from constituting an 'essential' part of the physical or psychological make-up of individuals engaged in homosexual acts was really just an invention, or rather a construction, of the late 19th century society. Michel Foucault's theories outlined in 'The History of Sexuality: Volume One' (1978) provided the groundwork to this established field in social history by introducing this constructionist interpretation. Foucault argues that the open discussions on sexuality in modern Western culture during the nineteenth century created new classifications of sexual categories were formed, as well as establishing the modern conception of sexuality as a form of identity in itself. Foucault attributed the medical, psychological and psychiatric categories as a influential source codification; another crucial dimension of his argument was a critique of sexual repression, choosing to argue the 'repression hypothesis' whereby the 'homosexual' now grew from a constructed category of knowledge offered by this awareness of self.
“Homosexuality appeared as one of the forms of sexuality when it was transposed from the practise of sodomy onto a kind of interior androgyny, a hermaphrodism of the soul. The sodomite had been a temporary aberration; the homosexual was now a species...it was everywhere present in him; at the root of his actions. ”13
The suggestion that sexuality is a historical construction has led historical perspectives to develop understandings on sexual identity as part the wider moral and social contexts of Victorian era. The works of Jeffrey Weeks, David Halperin and Mary McIntosh do assert Foucault's theories essential to the deconstruction of the perpetuation of sexuality as an axiomatic social structure and the recent origins behind a homosexual identity, but crucially they have the explored the mechanisms of historical change within the wider frames of gender, class, race as well as focusing on state regulation as opposed to social oppression. Shifting conceptions on homosexuality and the sub-cultures of the metropolis enlightens a new consideration of culture, society and identity. The works of Matt Houlbrook and Seth Koven examine the possibilities to explore and embrace new forms of identity as well as anonymity within a previously unfelt social order introduced through urbanisation. The city created a pool of potential partners, friends and associates, and offered the space to congregate or seek security from those they came to identify with; a stark contrast to the isolated vulnerability of localised communities. In contrast, the opportunities offered were also subject to the controls of municipal authority in a time where the criminalisation of homosexual activity relied on a negative and damaging portrayal of a minority. Seth Koven's recent publication, 'Slumming: sexual and social politics in Victorian London' elucidates a history of cross-class sympathies and and same-sex desire in the poorest areas of the city. Focusing on the 1896 Pall Mall Gazette publication of a series of articles entitled 'A Night in The Workhouse' exemplified a new mode of investigative, incognito approach to journalism written by journalist James Greenwood. His chronicles offered an insight into the degrading conditions of Lambeth Workhouse that would fascinate readers with its constant undertones of homoerotism. Greenwood's language through deepens the exposure of cross-class fascinations with the underclass, associating extreme poverty amongst men as a form of sexual deviance in itself and also reminds us of a point earlier addressed, where the original Lambouchere Amendment was prompted by a desire to punish and prevent male prostitution and homosexual activity in general exposed by Greenwood's article.
Matt Houlbrook's work has alternatively unveiled an ambiguous definition of queer identity by addressing a broader context. Understanding the impact of London's public parks and streets with specific areas marked out as popular haunts draws from a myriad of personal sources such as the letters of men like Cyril. L could exclaim in private company, “I have only been queer since I came to London about two years ago”.14 Cyril's interactions and experiences were testament to the networks created by gay men to forge access to public and commercial sociability and unlike previous urban perspectives, Houlbrook gives equal attention to those who considered themselves "normal" but nonetheless acted on their desires to have sex with men,have friends that understood them, and to form meaningful relationships.
*
““Men cried in the city. Men were afraid lonely, guilty and isolated. Men were arrested and imprisoned, attacked and blackmailed. Men took their own lives in the city. Queer lives were braced by these common and contradictory experiences, taking shape with a persistent tension between pleasure and desire.”15
Matt Haulbrook's quote illustrates quite plainly here the potential consequences or senarios one could experience as a gay man in the late nineteenth century; succinct clarifying how the lives and experiences of gay men were irrevocably and intimately linked to their relationship with the metropolis. For many, the Victorian era witnessed an move towards ending sexual reservation; an epoch to usher in a new discourse free of sexual repression, and one that crucially granted a rhetoric to those wanting to speak upon the matters of one's sexual desires without fear of retribution. In this essay, I have argued a preference for the influence of medical categorisation, rather than legislative influence as premise of Victorian conceptualisation of homosexuality, yet the works inspired by Foucault have certainly offered us deeper and more compelling insights by mapping the progress of queer identity within the context of British modernity. The explanation offered here by Gayle Rubin is as equally illustrative and significant as Matt Houlbrook's understanding homosexual identity, but does so in order to express the relationship between identity and context:
“The realms of sexuality has its own internal politics, inequities and modes of oppression. As with other aspects of human behaviour, the concrete institutional forms of sexuality at any given time and place are products of human activity...they are imbued with conflicts of interest and political manoeuvring, both deliberate and incidental. In that sense, sex is always politic. But there are also historical periods in which sexuality is more sharply contested and more overtly politicised.”16
Through the course of my research, I have discovered that there is an unbounded and ever-growing wealth of the studies, theories, contributions and approaches (I regret to admit that there are many more elements of this argument and notable characters/events that I had not been able to elaborate on or include, such as Hellenism, Westphal, Magnus Hirschfeld, George Cecil Ives, the influence of middle-class liberals such as the Bloomsbury group to name but a few) which seek to elucidate what was once an inchoate understanding of sexual and social history. Those who experienced homosexual desires sought an understanding of themselves in the dominating images of sexual difference, from which one can argue that the Victorian period offered up its conclusive characteristics to serve as a framework, consequently as a means of influencing contemporary definitions of homosexuality.