Insult and the Making of the Gay Self

by Didier Eribon

  Gide’s and Symonds’s texts unquestionably bear the mark of an intolerable misogyny, but we should remember that their apologia for masculine camaraderie never leaves the realm of ideological fantasy or of grandiose oratory about culture. They should be read not as architects of authentic social projects, but as writers pro√ering discourses intended to legitimate certain relations between men. The texts of the German masculinist homosexual theorists, on the other hand, were violently antifeminist and were meant to help establish a concrete political program having to do with the elevation of masculine sociability as a principle of social regeneration.

  Friedländer was obsessed by the idea that the feminine influence on culture was a menace to civilization, and he called upon masculine and martial friendship to help restore the moral strength and devotion to sacrifice on which the state should be based.π He died in 1908, but in the 1910s and 1920s discourses that mixed together ultranationalism, militarism, antisemitism, and homoeroticism proliferated in this sector of the homosexual movement.

  Certain partisans of these discourses would find themselves close to National Socialism, in which they perceived the realization of the Männerbund they had been dreaming of.

  Hasty generalizations are not helpful. There is no reason to think that there was a self-evident link between certain ways of thinking about homosexuality and fascism or Nazism. One finds a great deal of heterogeneity within the ‘‘masculinist’’ current: conservatives, anarchists, socialists, ultra-nationalists all coexisted in the same journals—notably in Brand’s Der Eigene.

  Brand understood that homosexuals had every reason to fear Nazism. Indeed, when in 1928 he sent out a questionnaire to di√erent political parties asking them to state their positions about homosexuality, the National Socialist Party was quite clear: they brutally condemned homosexuality on the grounds that the public interest had to come before private ones. (This is one of the major recurring themes in homophobic discourse. It can still be heard

  ‘‘ p r e o c c u pat i o n w i t h h o m o s e x ua l i t y ’’

  ≤≥∑

  today, even from the most ‘‘liberal’’ and ‘‘progressive’’ representatives of homophobia.) The response to Brand was the first public position announced by the National Socialist Party: it stated that homosexuality was incompatible with the prosperity of the German people.∫ This would not stop Brand from writing in 1932 that such public declarations contradicted the true reality of the historical foundations of Nazism, yet he would keep his distance from the Nazi movement. The same cannot be said of all the people who collaborated at his journal.Ω

  Finally we should note that this masculinist homosexual current was fond of extolling the ‘‘image of man’’ more or less as it was found in Winckelmann’s writings on Greek sculpture.∞≠ The very same image was endorsed by prefascist and fascist movements. It seems both paradoxical and troubling that Winckelmann could have served both to provide a justification for people who were striving to create a homosexual discourse—be it Pater (!) or Friedländer—and for those who, in the 1930s, would use this canon of male beauty in an e√ort to annihilate anything that might in their eyes damage the

  ‘‘health of the race,’’ any seed of dissolution in the social body—Jews, homosexuals, and so on.

  Hirschfeld, we should not forget, represented the most important current of the homosexual movement, one diametrically opposed to the masculinist tendency. He was Jewish and was denounced as such by both the masculinist homosexuals and by Nazi agents. Hirschfeld’s Scientific-Humanitarian Committee was firmly situated on the left and actively engaged alongside the feminist movement.∞∞ Hirschfeld was a socialist, and on November 10, 1918, he would stand up and speak at an assembly of several thousand people to celebrate the arrival of the republic and of democracy shortly before monar-chist o≈cers would open fire on the crowd. As a Jew and a homosexual, it is easy to understand why he was a target for the Nazis. From the 1920s

  onward, his lectures were brutally disrupted (by gunshots and fistfights, with people in the audience seriously wounded). He was attacked several times by militant Nazis, and on one occasion in Munich in 1920 was so violently beaten that his assailants left him for dead. In May 1933, his institute was attacked and ruined by Nazi assault troops and his library was burned. Hirschfeld was in Switzerland at that moment. He did not return to Germany and so managed to escape the terrible fate that would have awaited him along with thousands of other homosexuals—sent to camps wearing a pink triangle.

  ≤≥∏

  i n s u lt a n d t h e m a k i n g o f t h e g ay s e l f It is worth emphasizing once again that nothing in Gide’s or Proust’s discourse would implicate them in what happened in Germany. If there are resemblances between the writings of Gide and of the German masculinists, even sometimes striking ones, this does not mean that there is any ideological or political kinship between them. Nonetheless, we should emphasize that the representations of homosexuality that Gide and Proust strove to put forth turned around a central point: its relation to issues of masculinity and femininity. Whatever fundamental di√erences in emphasis there may be

  between Gide’s carefully crafted apologetics and Proust’s elaborate entomological project, the two writers have one thing in common: they both perpetuate homophobic values, notably the valorization of masculinity. In the essay opening Cities of the Plain ( Sodome et Gomorrhe) Proust himself also gives the impression of being disgusted as he describes homosexuals in whom ‘‘the woman is not only inwardly united to the man but hideously visible, convulsed as they are by a hysterical spasm. . . .’’ For Proust, as we have seen, homosexuals are, at least in theory, women who desire men. But when this interior reality rises too clearly to the surface, when a ‘‘shrill laugh . . . set their knees and their hands trembling,’’ the spectacle becomes simply revolting, and those responsible for producing that spectacle are rejected by other homosexuals who have ‘‘sought to e√ace’’ those ‘‘special marks.’’∞≤

  Proust, we know, not only took great care to hide his homosexuality, he was also quite sensitive around the issue of e√eminacy.∞≥ In May 1908, just at the moment he was beginning to think about his project regarding the ‘‘race of aunties,’’ he complained to his friend Emmanual Bibesco that Bibesco had joked in front of someone Proust didn’t know about Proust’s ‘‘salaïsme,’’ a word they used between them to designate homosexuality. In October of the same year, he complains in letters to Georges de Lauris and to Louis d’Albufera about ‘‘all the inept calumnies that people have accused me of in the past.’’∞∂ We shouldn’t forget that in 1897, Proust challenged Jean Lorrain to a duel after Lorrain, openly and even ostentatiously homosexual himself, had slipped into an article on Proust’s Les Plaisirs et les jours a reference to Proust’s relationship with Lucien Daudet. The two adversaries met, pistols in hand, in the woods of Meudon, where each fired into the air to be sure not to hurt the other.∞∑ Yet Proust seems to have retained throughout his life a feeling of great pride regarding the way he carried o√ this bit of ridiculous theater.

  When, twenty-three years later, the critic Paul Souday, writing in Le Temps in

  ‘‘ p r e o c c u pat i o n w i t h h o m o s e x ua l i t y ’’

  ≤≥π

  1920, accused Proust of snobbery and of being feminine, Proust reacted violently. Doubtless he would not be justified in accusing the critic of any malicious intent, wrote Proust in a letter to Souday. Yet he reproached him for o√ering cover for anyone else who, given that Proust was just about to

  ‘‘speak of Sodom’’ in Cities of the Plain ( Sodome et Gomorrhe), would feel no hesitation about making the same accusation out of more disagreeable ul-terior motives. Proust reminded Souday of his glorious duel: ‘‘From ‘feminine’ to ‘e√eminate’ is only one short step. Those who served me as seconds in my duel will tell you whether I have the softness of e√eminates.’’∞∏

  On the other hand, we know from other sources
—from stories Gide

  tells—that Proust enjoyed discussing his homosexuality with those he knew shared his tastes and his practices. In his Journal, Gide describes an evening spent with Proust in May 1921, noting that ‘‘far from denying or hiding his uranism, he exhibits it, and I could almost say boasts of it.’’ From Gide’s pen comes the surprising portrait of a Proust who (while in Cities of the Plain making fun of those ‘‘inverts’’ who ‘‘regard homosexuality as the appurte-nance of genius’’ and wish to claim all the great names of history, art, and literature for the club) is insistent about his claim that Baudelaire was a practicing homosexual.∞π

  A similar phenomenon can be observed in the way in which, after making fun of homosexuals who, having at first believed themselves to be alone in the world, gradually convince themselves that everyone is like them and that the ‘‘normal’’ man is the exception, Proust then reproduced this attitude in his novel. For by the end of it, the reader has learned that nearly everyone belongs to that ‘‘accursed race.’’ Homosexuality seems to have thrived as the pages go by to such an extent that it retrospectively invades the entire novel, comes to give it its overall color, and without a doubt provides it with one of its most fundamental meanings.

  Their correspondence from the year 1914 clearly shows that Gide and

  Proust were both convinced that their own and the other’s literary project were inextricably tied to their desire to write about same-sex love in their books. Even the shape they wished to give to their projects and the aesthetic innovations to which they aspired can only be understood in relation to this shared desire. For example, in March 1914, Proust writes to Gide to tell him that he is ‘‘enviously captivated and overjoyed’’ by his reading of Gide’s The Vatican Cellars ( Les Caves du Vatican).∞∫ He adds, ‘‘in the creation of Cadio [ sic], no one has been objective with that much perversity since Balzac and Splendeurs et misères. ’’∞Ω A few days later he writes again to ask if ‘‘all Cadio’s

  ≤≥∫

  i n s u lt a n d t h e m a k i n g o f t h e g ay s e l f

  ‘uncles’ are ‘aunties.’ ’’≤≠ For his part, Gide would write, after reading the passages of Proust’s novel that were published in the Nouvelle Revue Française that the portrayal of Charlus is ‘‘simply marvellous.’’≤∞ Proust in reply undertakes to explain the character he has created: ‘‘I was trying to portray the homosexual who is fascinated by virility because he is, without realizing it, a Woman. I do not pretend to claim that this is the only kind of homosexual.

  But it is certainly an interesting kind, and one which, I believe, has not been described previously. Like any homosexual, moreover, he is di√erent from other men, in some ways worse and in others infinitely better.’’≤≤ Gide then replies: ‘‘M. de Charlus makes for an admirable portrait. But by painting it you have contributed to the confusion that is ordinarily made between the homosexual and the invert. For people will not grant the kind of distinctions that you lay out in your letter. Charlus is only an individual, but he will be taken as typical. He will give rise to generalizations.’’≤≥ As Michael Lucey has aptly put it: ‘‘Their claims on literary posterity, their claims to be working within and to be advancing the tradition of the European novel rely in part on their innovative use of sexuality, and reciprocally, they intend their aesthetic success to legitimize their representation of that sexuality.’’≤∂

  It is, of course, di≈cult not to agree with J. E. Rivers when he analyzes Proust’s way of presenting homosexuality in his work as the manifestation of a certain self-hatred and a hatred of people like him. Proust describes much the same phenomenon in the case of his characters. Such a hatred is finally not that di√erent from the hatred demonstrated by Gide in all the texts in which he goes out of his way to demonstrate his di√erence from the inverts.

  Still, whatever precautions they took, both of them consciously and deliberately participated in the bringing into discourse of homosexuality mentioned by Roger Martin du Gard. Despite all their forms of prudence and their forms of controlled audacity, despite their fears of being associated with certain things from which they wished to distinguish themselves, Proust and Gide became the names around which (in France at least) debates concerning homosexuality became focused. One the one hand, there were virulent attacks upon the visibility of homosexuality Gide and Proust helped enable; on the other hand, they became reference points for a collective consciousness.

  This becomes clear in 1926, when the journal Les Marges publishes a questionnaire concerning ‘‘homosexuality in literature.’’ After Gide’s The Counterfeiters appeared in 1925, Paul Souday (the same critic at Le Temps whom Proust had dealt with) declared in exasperation, ‘‘This is becoming unbearable.’’ He reminds his readers that ‘‘progress happens through a process of di√erentia-

  ‘‘ p r e o c c u pat i o n w i t h h o m o s e x ua l i t y ’’

  ≤≥Ω

  tion’’ and asserts that ‘‘this time things have gone far enough.’’ Eugène Montfort, the founding editor of Les Marges thereupon decides to send out a questionnaire to a number of writers, asking them if in their opinion the

  ‘‘preoccupation with homosexuality’’ has grown since the war ended. The questionnaire also asks if, in their opinion, this literary evolution might have an influence on people’s behavior, and if it might be ‘‘damaging to art.’’≤∑

  Henri Barbusse is content simply to send a brief reply that denounces the

  ‘‘social and moral decadence of a certain part of contemporary society.’’ He calls for a proletarian revolution that will do away with all that (20–21). Other respondents take more account of the actual questions the journal has asked.

  Gérard Bauer speaks of a ‘‘fashion’’ that has been spreading for the past few years and mentions the ‘‘victorious and liberated homosexuality thanks in part to the talent of Marcel Proust.’’ He adds:

  Marcel Proust has been a kind of Messiah for this small people and has, through his genius, liberated them from slavery. It is not that his work preaches on behalf of homosexuality, but it provides it with titles of nobility. He was the first in the contemporary modern world to approach the problem head on, and to speak of it without embarrassment

  or reticence. He opened the way for those who had not yet dared to set out. The case of M. Gide stands out as an example of these hesitations.

  They are apparent throughout the series of prefaces to Corydon, a book it would have been better for his reputation not to have published.

  For Bauer, ‘‘contagious homosexuality in literature begins with Marcel Proust.’’ Further, ‘‘there is no doubt that this intellectual preoccupation has subsequently had an influence on people’s behavior’’ (21–22).

  Henriette Charasson also finds that ‘‘this preoccupation has developed at an outrageous rate since the war, and this is quite vexatious.’’ She attributes this ‘‘obsession to the desire of certain people to market themselves, whatever the cost, for we know there will always be a public for disgusting books, and also to the desire of others to create a scandal and to be talked about.’’

  For Charasson as well, ‘‘the excessive intrusion of characters who are inverts into literature, and especially into the novel, could well have an influence on people’s behavior by publicizing certain anomalies, and by allowing minds to become accustomed to them. The theater and the novel shape people’s behavior and have an influence on the generation that follows’’ (28–29).

  For his part, Louis Martin-Chau≈er responds that ‘‘there is no doubt that homosexuality has become a fashionable literary theme since the war. There

  ≤∂≠

  i n s u lt a n d t h e m a k i n g o f t h e g ay s e l f is also no doubt that since the war the damages due to homosexuality have increased. It is easy to understand that the war contributed a great deal to the development of this vice, a most odious one, totally contrary to nature.’’ He continues by noting that once �
��‘a vice has become widespread enough to a√ect society and customs and to become a characteristic of a given moment, it legitimately becomes part of literature. Literature cannot ignore it. . . . Yet literature also has no right to alter it either. Literature is meant to depict, to produce knowledge, to judge (though without it being necessary that this judgment be expressed), so if it chooses to depict a vice, the vice should be depicted as vicious, and literature should castigate and denounce it.’’ But what do we see?

  Exactly the opposite. We are not inundated by literature that is against homosexuality, we are inundated by homosexual literature. Better, by a literature of homosexuals. Here we see that behavior has preceded

  literary expression. We are surrounded by inverts who no longer bother to hide themselves. There was only one audacity waiting to be taken up: writing about it. Marcel Proust has, by the example of his work, incited Sodom to display its unnatural pleasures in the novel. Others have

  followed his example without realizing that this was only a detail in his work . . . which, even if it does not think of homosexuality as a vice, at least does not make a virtue out of it, but simply a kind of behavior toward which the analyst directs an attentively penetrating but nonetheless serene gaze.

  Martin-Chau≈er is struck not so much by the ‘‘depiction of homosex-

  uality’’ o√ered by literature, but rather by the a≈rmation of what he calls the

  ‘‘homosexual spirit’’ that is increasingly present in that literature. How could one not imagine that this would have real consequences? ‘‘Literature always has an influence on behavior. Homosexual literature, born out of the development of homosexuality, contributes to the further spread of homosexuality because it depicts it with a certain complacency’’ (41–42).

  More pragmatically (if also more hypocritically) François Mauriac also deplores that things have gotten so far out of hand and worries that we might be on the verge of an expansion of homosexual literature, for ‘‘many writers will give way to the attraction of these regions that have been out of bounds for so long, ones they would not have dared be the first to enter.’’