Same-sex Desire Research Articles

Oscar Wilde’s Trials as a Haunting Presence: An Approach to the Role of Fantasy in Contemporary Neo-Victorian Novels Depicting Same-Sex Romance Between Men

The main aim of this essay is to assess the impact of Oscar Wilde’s trials on neo-Victorian representations of same-sex desire between men. Throughout the text, I argue that the consequences of Wilde’s imprisonment have become a haunting presence that still pervades how male sexual dissidence is represented in neo-Victorian novels. The works examined in this essay are therefore considered differently than those which portray sapphic relationships or other forms of non-heterosexual desires. Ultimately, I argue that a new trend within neo-Victorianism, in which fantasy elements are intertwined with queer desire among men, could offer a new way of portraying same-sex desire between men; this new portrayal could be more in compliance with the political, cultural, and social agenda of neo-Victorianism. Through a brief analysis of Natasha Pulley’s The Watchmaker of Filigree Street and a more in-depth exploration of Freya Marske’s A Marvellous Light, I conclude that fantasy may—if the writer wishes it—allow a portrayal of queer desire that overcomes many of the traumatising and haunting obstacles which resulted from Wilde’s plight.

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825–1895): A 200-Year Jubilee with Pitfalls

For the opponents of the sexual reform movement, he was the father of all evil; for the proponents of the decriminalization of same-sex desire, he paved the way for objective research. With the term “Urning”, he gave homosexuals an anthropological dignity. The Hanoverian lawyer Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825–1895) was notorious during his lifetime and at times esteemed after his death, but it was not until the 1990s that he became the secret hero of sexual emancipation and sexual history/historiography. Streets and squares were named after him, but his life’s work was also often instrumentalized.

From Lavender Menace to Queer Nation: the transformation of lesbian identity in the baby boom era

Women of the early baby boom years in the U.S. came out into an environment in which same-sex desire was stigmatized and criminalized. For working-class lesbians, the bar scene provided an environment in which women could find companionship and a way to live a life decoupled from traditional heterosexual roles. For middle class women, bar life was fraught with legal and social risk, and some–mostly white–women worked to establish a more “socially acceptable” communal life through organizations such as the Daughters of Bilitis. As the women’s movement flourished in the late 1960s and 1970s, women born in the early years of the baby boom (1946–1950) created distinctive lesbian feminist cultures and identities. In contrast to early baby boomers, women born at the tail end of the baby boom (1960–1964) came out in a vastly different cultural context. Second-wave feminism had already peaked, the AIDS epidemic and debates about sexuality changed the context for lesbian identity and activism, and organizing by women of color created the development of an intersectional view of lesbian identity and activism. Through an analysis of feminist magazines, newsletters, and texts of the late 1960s through the 1990s, this paper explores the cultural contexts through which radical lesbian feminist identities arose and, for a period, flourished in the U.S. By the end of the 1980s and 1990s, as second-wave feminism declined, lesbian feminist identity shifted. Over the last decades of the twentieth century, new queer forms of identification emerged, coupled with a decline of lesbian identification among younger people. I argue that these new forms represent both continuity and disruption with earlier forms of lesbian identification.

Challenging the local logics of oppression in times of post-colonial amnesia – a study of Ugandan LGBT+ activism in digital media spaces

ABSTRACT Against the backdrop of an increasingly repressive environment, the study explores to what degree five established LGBT+ organizations use self-controlled digital spaces, Twitter and Facebook, during one month in 2022 to expose and challenge constructs that rationalize oppression of Ugandan LGBT+. The analysis revealed that digital media spaces were not used to challenge the local logics of oppression or contemporary processes sustaining oppression. Instead, spaces, often displaying a conspicuously uniform Western sexual rights language, focused on providing digital services and/or notification of offline services to the community and promoting the individual organization. The adoption of Western sexual rights campaign language, including using LGBT+ as identity labels to communicate Ugandan same-sex desires and gender identities, could be explained by the community’s dependency on international resources. The study’s contribution lies in its astute reminder – that the realization of digital spaces’ emancipatory potential is dependent on the political economy of the activists' context.

We are queer and the struggle is here! Visibility at the intersection of LGBT+ rights, post-coloniality, and development cooperation in Uganda

This article unpacks different meanings of visibility and adds to a more complex and nuanced understanding of visibility and its role in LGBT + activism in Uganda, a widely discussed case of political homophobia. Public visibility has a central, although contested, role here. The study aims to explore how visibility is understood and navigated by local LGBT + activists, unaffiliated people with same-sex desires, as well as international development partners. Interviews conducted in Kampala from December 2021–January 2022 reveal different and complex narratives surrounding visibility. Local unaffiliated individuals and activists agreed on the importance of making the LGBT + rights struggle more visible. This, however, did not translate into a wish to “come out” themselves. International development actors expressed a need for caution regarding their own visibility, mindful that explicit and visual support may generate accusations of neo-imperialism.

A war against the natural order: Joseph Nicolosi, Reparative Therapy, and the Christian Right.

This article situates Joseph Nicolosi's first book, Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality, in historical context. Nicolosi, a Catholic clinical psychologist, was one of the most vocal practitioners of sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE) from the early 1990s until his death in 2017, and in these decades, the Christian Right became a key supporter of SOCE. In this article, I argue that two features of Nicolosi's book appealed to the Christian Right. First, Nicolosi relied on psychoanalytic thought to pathologize not only same-sex sexual desires but also poor parenting. The use of psychoanalytic thought was of particular interest to conservative Christians who believed that American fathers had forfeited their role as strong patriarchs. Second, Nicolosi's approach to therapy, which included changing one's dress and mannerisms and assertiveness training, stressed that same-sex desires could be eliminated through behavioral reconditioning. Nicolosi's psychological eclecticism, a common feature for mental health practitioners at the end of the twentieth century, has not been emphasized in prior scholarship on reparative therapy. Importantly, the psychological eclecticism practiced by Nicolosi became common within the Christian Right after the publication of Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality. By offering a close reading of Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality, this article demonstrates the interrelationship between one of the core texts of the ex-gay movement and the psychological and religious thought of the Christian Right at the turn of the twenty-first century. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

No Strangers: Older Gay Men in the Films of Ventura Pons

In a career spanning more than five decades Catalan filmmaker Ventura Pons (Barcelona, 1945) has directed over 30 films. His eclectic filmography does not easily fit categories or labels of any kind, including queer cinema. However, the frequent presence of gay male characters and same-sex desire in his films is significant, especially given the advanced age of a very high proportion of those men. Pons’ camera does not shy away from presenting their bodies as both desirable and desiring, older bodies that don’t hide away from the camera. Starting with a re-reading of Amic/Amat (1998) from the perspective of aging studies, the article focuses on key examples of older gay and queer men in his work, with special emphasis on films that Pons directed in his sixties (Forasters (2008), A la deriva (2009), Mil cretins (2010)). It identifies recurring themes and tropes in this context, such as cross-dressing, memory or inheritance and finds that the filmmaker’s interest in queer memory is closely linked to arguably the main preoccupation of his work: the cultural history of Catalonia.

Uncovering same-sex desire in fin-de-siècle advertising

Uncovering same-sex desire in fin-de-siècle advertising

LGBT+ mainstreaming on strictly come dancing: Queering the norms of ballroom dancing

This paper proposes that LGBT+ mainstreaming on reality television programme Strictly Come Dancing creates space for audience demand for radical, authentic representations of same-sex desire and intimacy, both of which challenges normative representations of ballroom dancing. Integrating concepts of normativity and authenticity explored in existing scholarship, I argue against the encountering through a defensive stance, of reality TV’s normalization of queer narratives to promote authentic, inclusive representation. Focusing on dance-themed British reality TV programme for family entertainment, I draw on a queer reading of 285 newspaper articles on Strictly Come Dancing’s same-sex dance partnerships and 35 interviews with LGBT+ equality dancers in the United Kingdom, to conclude that active engagement with mechanisms of normalization can open up spaces for a reclamation of queer representation in its authenticity. The article makes a contribution to media and cultural studies and queer television scholarship through a troubling of anti-normativity, proposing a working with normativity to achieve queer inclusivity.

From amorous histories to sexual histories: rethinking male love narrative in Ming and Qing dynasties and the discourse on homosexuality in modern China

ABSTRACT “Amorous histories” represent an unofficial historical tradition that once served as a legitimate mechanism for narrating same-sex desire in Chinese culture. This tradition not only celebrated love (qing) but also explored obsession (pi) within the Chinese context. This article reexamines the erotic arts, including notes and erotic fictions, that constituted the narrative mechanism of amorous histories to rethink the intricate stance of both praise and critique towards male love during the Ming and Qing dynasties. The analysis reveals how these texts repeatedly employed a narrative tactic of combining enticement and moral suasion to represent male love. While legitimizing male love, these representations were simultaneously regulated by the moral norms of official histories. However, during the late Qing and early Republican era, the tradition of amorous histories began to wane and eventually gave way to the emergence of pathological narratives under the guise of “sexual histories” in modern China. Within the discourse of sexual histories, the tradition of praising qing and pi was substituted by Western-influenced “the science of sexuality,” which pathologized same-sex desire. This article traces the changes in the meaning of “pi,” which underwent a phase of non-pathologized development in Ming and Qing dynasties, before being pathologized by May 4th literati. Finally, this article analyses the impact of the replacement of amorous histories with pathologized sexual histories on the debates over homosexuality between Hu Qiuyuan and Yang Youtian in modern China. It shows how changes in historical narratives influenced early twentieth century perceptions of same-sex desire.

What’s identity got to do with it? The social life of sexual identity in the Netherlands

Same-sex erotic desire, or same-sex orientation, has become commonly understood and expressed through the notion of sexual identity. This article takes an intergenerational perspective to study the genealogy of sexual identity in the Netherlands. The authors explore how queer people perceive their feelings of same-sex desire and whether or not they come to understand their erotic desire in terms of sexual classifications. Their research shows that when discourses on gender and sexuality shift, the way people make sense of their erotic desire takes different forms. It appears that people’s lived reality is messier than the notion of sexual identity presumes.

“Talk About Complications!”: Surrealism’s Trouble with Women

Abstract: This article approaches the ‘problem’ of woman in Surrealism indirectly by way of a consideration of same-sex desire and sexual difference. For all its celebration of ‘woman’, the surrealist movement initially struggled to accommodate the experience of the feminine, which functioned primarily as a figure of difference. Indeed, the heightened affirmation of sexual difference served a dual function: it not only helped negotiate the threat of same-sex desire within the homosocial context of the surrealist group, but it also reinforced the insistent imagining of the female body as a series of fetishistic part-objects. This would have important implications on the status of women artists and writers, serving to marginalize female agency and experience. The implications of this hypothesis are explored through an analysis of the treatment of desire in the work of Max Ernst and Claude Cahun.

Reminiscences of Kothas: Exploring Spatial Intimacies in Ruth Vanita’s Memory of Light

This paper aims to study the representation of same-sex desire in Ruth Vanita’s Memory of Light (2020) and analyze how the socio-spatial dynamics of the kotha helps to reconstruct female-to-female intimacy and convey a different idea of community and a sense of belonging in history. The novel, which traces the relationship between two courtesans, is also a recreation of the pre-modern Lucknow and its vibrant kothas with distinct architectural features. Beyond its overt function of entertaining the male patrons, the kothas as all-female establishments also served as a space of security and intimacy for women. The paper outlines the politics of situating same-sex desire in the historical backdrop of pre-colonial era. It uses concepts from Feminist Theory, Cultural Geography and Memory Studies, to examine the importance of kothas as a material and an ideological space, in facilitating discourses on gender variance, intimacy, and friendship that entered the cultural production of the time. In particular, the analysis intends to emphasize the frequent entanglement between the spatial features and women’s intimate practices as a distinct way of articulating same-sex desire that dissolves the binary understanding of hetero/homosexuality. Therefore, by insisting on the remembrance of kothas, the paper delineates how the ‘memory of places’ carves out two functions in the context of lesbian politics. On the one hand, it generates a ‘symbolic continuum’ to the history of women loving women to reframe postcolonial categorical understanding of ‘lesbian’ in contemporary times, and on the other, by infusing strategic use of metafictional elements, it emerges as a subversive mode of narrating stories of same-sex love while negotiating with the historical erasure of spaces of female-to female desire.

Peter Tuesday Hughes: Forgotten Pioneer of the Gay Gothic

Vincent Virga’s Gaywyck (1980) has enjoyed sustained critical and commercial interest due to the claim that it is the first Gothic novel to depict unambiguous same-sex romance. While enthusiasm for Gaywyck is warranted, there is an earlier ‘gay Gothic’ novel which should be recognized as the first. Peter Tuesday Hughes’s Gay Nights at Maldelangue (1969) is a literary fantasia of same-sex desire and classic gothic storytelling. Published shortly after the Stonewall Uprising, it is also among the first creative interactions with the gay liberation movement of the late 1960s. Although Hughes wrote at least thirty-two novels, was a critical success and top seller for his publisher, he is largely forgotten today – to the extent that we do not know whether he is alive or even if that is his real name.

The Promise of Double Living. Understanding Young People with Same-Sex Desires in Contemporary Kampala

ABSTRACT Ugandan urban same-sex desiring individuals frequently encounter and navigate competing understandings of sexuality and sexual identity. Western essentialist understanding of sexual identity introduced by international development partners and transnational LGBT+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bi- and Transsexual) activism, as well as media, offer an alternative to Ugandan non-essentialist and fluid subject positions. This article seeks to understand how young individuals with same-sex -desires in Kampala navigate tensions between Western and local understandings concerning sexuality. We have interviewed 24 young individuals with same-sex desires (unaffiliated and individuals working in LGBT+ organizations) and asked how they approach their sexuality and experiences living with same-sex desires in contemporary Kampala. The results reveal how interview participants engaged in a complex navigation between local community expectations, their own same-sex desires, and embeddedness in a global LGBT+ culture. Although the participants engaged in what Westerners would label as a “double life,” the article problematizes the prescriptive norms of authenticity and “coming out.” The conclusion is that the fluid vs essentialist dichotomy is too simplistic to be helpful when trying to understand the lives and aspirations of young people with same-sex desires.

Queer Mapping as Decolonial Praxis

Queer Mapping as Decolonial Praxis

Expanding the Map of Sapphic Modernism(s)

Abstract Although sapphic modernism is a phenomenon thoroughly examined in Western European cultures, the history of East European sapphic writings remains a relatively neglected area, both in global lesbian and queer studies and in local histories. This article is devoted to nineteenth-century Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian literature. It outlines the complicated emergence of local queer studies and draws attention to the position of women's writing within it. It also discusses the tools provided by intersectional, transnational approaches. Combined with the extensive knowledge of global lesbian studies, these methods allow for the exploration of local histories of queer women writing, particularly from the Russian Empire's territories. This article highlights intersections between same-sex desire's literary expressibility and the writers’ affiliation within the same imperial structure, which forced different strategies of sapphic expressions to emerge from this intersection. To illustrate those strategies, the article discusses examples provided by Narcyza Żmichowska, Lesya Ukrainka, and Lydia Zinovieva-Annibal.

Between Holy Church and Holy Human Rights

Abstract This article considers the experiences of Romanian men and women who expressed same-sex desire immediately following the collapse of Nicolae Ceaușescu's regime in 1989 until Romania's accession to the European Union in 2007. Drawing from the Adrian Newell Păun Queer Archives, this research puts at its forefront the voices of queer individuals to shine a light on the hardships of living as a sexual minority in the repressive environment of Romania in the 1990s. This research follows the broader framework of decolonizing Eastern European queer history by giving members of the LGBTQ+ community their rightful voices to tell the story of their plight and their perspectives in a country where they experienced widespread homophobia, transphobia, and discrimination. Through firsthand accounts, this article additionally exemplifies how queer individuals were able to survive hardship, to find their voices within their own community, and to begin experiencing and expressing themselves as a sexual minority.

Poe, Queerness, and the End of Time

Poe, Queerness, and the End of Time

IS THERE A TEMPLATE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISM? – A STUDY OF UGANDAN LGBT+ ORGANIZATIONS’ DIGITAL SPACES

Albeit criminalization against same-sex desires is a remnant of the British colonialization, the 2009 Anti-homosexuality Bill, catapulted Ugandan state-sponsored homophobia into the international spotlight. The ensuing battle over the Bill between on one hand, local and international human rights defenders including Northern development partners and transnational conservative and religious norm entrepreneurs in partnership with local religious and political elites, on the other; highlighted that domestic identity and sexual politics are no longer local affairs. Through a qualitative directed content analysis, the study explore to what degree six established Ugandan LGBT+ organizations engage with international norm entrepreneurs’ attempts to influence Ugandan social mores on non-heteronormative sexuality and non-conforming gender identities, in their self-controlled digital spaces - websites and Facebook- during January 2022. With few exceptions, digital spaces displayed a conspicuous uniform human rights advocacy rhetoric, where same-sex desires and gender identities are presented in essentialist terms as in LGBT+ and universal sexual rights, as opposed to sexual desires and gender identities as embedded and realized in a unique social contexts, that at least in the Ugandan context historically has include significant pluralism and multi-positionality. LGBT+ organizations’ did not discuss the impact of waves of international norm entrepreneurs’ attempts to define and influence the struggle for equal rights, and subsequent potential re-colonialization of Ugandan understandings of sexual desires outside the heteronormative model and non-conforming gender identities. The level of rhetorical uniformity could suggests the existence of a latent template for activism, which could be an unintended consequence of dependency on international funding.