I guess it depends on whether you're interested in homosexuality in literature or the "modern" homosexual themes, which I believe comes from the homosexual individual in relation to an intolerant society. I don't know if Plato would be what you're looking for in that regard, but beyond the Brokeback Mountain novella I would suggest William S. Burroughs.
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One out of every three people you know is gay? You must know a hell of a number of gay people.Originally Posted by JBI
What? Are you saying that 100% of the Greeks were gay? That sentence has to be the silliest thing I've heard you say.but when you think of it - by today's definition, essentially all the Greeks were, the majority of the Romans, tons of the Victorians, and a great deal in the Renaissance too.
Half those people are conjectured to be gay. There's no proof. This is all post modern hog wash politically driven absurdity.- The figure you provided doesn't really make much sense in the context - for some reason, homosexuality and literature, particularly poetry, have been very connected - Shakespeare, for instance, if we are to take the youth from the sonnets as a person, rather than a fiction, Plato, Tennyson perhaps, Hart Crane, Virgil certainly, Sophocles definitely, etc.
DH lawrence said a hell of a lot of silly things. The very end of that is psycho babble: "whether he admits it or not."I believe D. H. Lawrence made a remark in the like of "I should like to know why nearly every man that approaches greatness tends to homosexuality, whether he admits it or not…"
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I found the Brokeback Mountain film to be almost exploitative and simplistic in its portrayal of homosexual relationships, I can't speak for Proulx's short story, which I've heard good things about.
Since most of the texts mentioned above are using the terms "homosexual" and "gay" anachronistically, I'll give you a few books that explore actual homosexual issues.
Stone Butch Blues
Dancer in the Dance by Andrew Holleran
The Swimming-Pool Libraries by Allan Hollinghurst
Faggots by Larry Kramer
The Sluts by Dennis Cooper
Frisk by Dennis Cooper
The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer
Hollinghurst and Holleran are kind of boring, in my opinion, but they appeal to a more "literary-minded" crowd. My favorite I Faggots, which I've mentioned before. It has received its share of criticism for glorifying open sex, but the end of the book resolves that issue. Confessions is one of the only three books in my lifetime that have made me cry.
I'm no expert on ancient Greek culture, but bisexuality and homosexuality was quite popular during those times.
Speculation of Shakespeare and Socrates homosexuality have been around for centuries and has nothing to do with the advent of postmodernism. It has merely been more wide-spread accepted because of recent cultural changes.Half those people are conjectured to be gay. There's no proof. This is all post modern hog wash politically driven absurdity.
And of course there's no proof in cases like Shakespeare or Socrates. But I don't think that their sexual orientation should be such a big deal. One can interpret the 'Fair Youth' in the Sonnets to be homoerotic or hetroerotic, it doesn't make any difference, they're still beautiful poems.
Btw, I'm not just talking about you Virgil when I say this, but I hate how the term "postmodern" is thrown around so freely. Just like "deconstructionism" it is a widely known term which is misused in so many different ways.
Last edited by DanielBenoit; 11-19-2009 at 11:08 PM.
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Gay doesn't have to mean strictly homosexual males, it is just used that way popularly. I think it's acceptable to apply "gay" to all homosexuals, but it can cause confusion with the more popular sense of the word. Anyway, I usually prefer to talk about queer lit, to be inclusive of topics of gender identity and bisexuality as well, which can be difficult to separate from gay or lesbian issues.
Edit: Ya anyone of the Violet Quill group (Holleran, White, Picano) would be a good choice for exploring gay literature.
Edit2: I just keep coming back, I had to comment on Faggots. Kramer is just too brilliant, I don't think he was glorifying that mindless sex in anyway at all. I find the book highly critical of the seeming emotional vacuum of the community. Most of the criticism I've seen directed against Kramer has been towards some perceived hostility towards the community, he is usually accused of being a homophobic gay. After all, Faggots was removed from the shelves of gay bookstores for being too critical of gays.
Last edited by OrphanPip; 11-19-2009 at 11:23 PM.
Well, let me ask you and everyone, is homosexuality a born (probably genetic thing) as claimed by almost all homosexuals or is it a choice? If it's genetic, then there is probably a constant percentage (the 2-8% cited) of people who are gay across time and cultures. If it's a choice then that percentage can be anything. Unless you or anyone want to dispute what most homosexuals say and what I hear from scientifically minded people, it's not a choice. It's fixed and innate. So why would any culture have a substantially different percentage of gays?
LET THERE BE LIGHT
"Love follows knowledge." – St. Catherine of Siena
My literature blog: http://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/
I am not saying all the Greeks were gay, I am just saying, how we define gay, and how culture defines sexuality must be taken into account - under the purely physical definition, I would say anybody who practices pederasty (on either end) was gay or bisexual if they did so willingly, which, in the context of the Ancient Greeks, was pretty much all of them as it was normal, and in fact, the thing to do back then.One out of every three people you know is gay? You must know a hell of a number of gay people.
What? Are you saying that 100% of the Greeks were gay? That sentence has to be the silliest thing I've heard you say.
Half those people are conjectured to be gay. There's no proof. This is all post modern hog wash politically driven absurdity.
DH lawrence said a hell of a lot of silly things. The very end of that is psycho babble: "whether he admits it or not."
Would I call them all gay? No, as I think the whole notion of "gay" or even "homosexual" is pretty much a Abrahamic construction built around a Judaic understanding of sodomy as a sin worthy of death.
Quote me that all homosexuals say this - perhaps most in the US where you draw your other statistics from. There has never been any conclusive evidence to prove homosexuality is biological, and I would bet that even if there were, which I doubt there ever will be, it would only be applicable to a fraction of those who identify as homosexual anyway.
Well my words were confusing, let me clarify. Greek culture was probably less represive of homosexuality than other cultures (again, I'm no expert, I don't know for sure), and thus the homoeroticism is more open in their works. Homosexuality has existed throughout all cultures and times, it's just seems that the Greeks didn't have to hide it as much. One could say the same thing about todays society: Why is there such a substantial amount of gay literautre today? Because society has become more tolerant.
The Moments of Dominion
That happen on the Soul
And leave it with a Discontent
Too exquisite — to tell —
-Emily Dickinson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVW8GCnr9-I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckGIvr6WVw4
Conclusive is a tough thing to do with any human behavior, especially when it's likely a combination of genetic and environmental. However, the evidence supports a genetic component with an important environmental effect. Homosexual males are statistically more likely to have older siblings and be born later in a mother's life, this supports an evolutionary argument based on kin-selection for a propensity for "strong" homosexuality. There is huge evolutionary advantage to sexual malleability in social animals, which is why homosexual behavior is probably so common amongst all primates.
edit: Lesbianism isn't as well understood by biologist, but the predominant theory is that it arises out of group bonding behavior we see in chimps and bonobo.
There always has been a substantial amount of homosexual literature - I'm telling you, when you question it, things get close to 30% of major Western authors easily. Of course, that would vary between whose list one uses for "great literature" - mine is particularly poetry heavy, so perhaps that means something, but even as canonical a poet as King David was, I would think, at least bisexual - he said himself that his love for Yonatan was greater than any mans for a woman, so are we to argue with that?
If you want proof in Plato, check out the begining of Protagoras.
The Moments of Dominion
That happen on the Soul
And leave it with a Discontent
Too exquisite — to tell —
-Emily Dickinson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVW8GCnr9-I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckGIvr6WVw4
Or Symposium.
30% is certainly a vast overstatement... and comments about rampant homosexuality among Greeks, Romans, and Renaissance writers may also be exaggerations. Homosexuality and Bi-sexuality may have been more openly accepted... but I doubt that this resulted in a much greater occurrence, any more than the recognition of homosexual marriage will lead to a vast rush to gay marriage by heterosexuals who suddenly realize, "Gee, I coulda had a guy!"
Still there are more than a few homosexuals in literature (and the arts in general): Garcia-Lorca, Whitman, Hart Crane, Thomas Mann, Jean Cocteau, Jean Genet, etc... There are also more than a few instances of bisexuality: Wilde, Rimbaud, Verlaine, etc... It may just be possible that the arts have long been one of the most tolerant areas of society and as such they have represented something of a safe haven. Still, I do find that I agree somewhat with Virgil that suggestions that the sexuality of Shakespeare, Virgil, Plato, Woolf, Dickinson, etc... are clearly known is a blatant falsehood (owing much to wishful thinking among the contemporary gay community and gay theorists/critics). Hell, we even have scholars who argue that Jesus was gay when (like Socrates and even Homer) we can't even be certain that he even existed beyond a literary character. Personally, I find the notion of discovering proof of an authors sexuality from his or her writings as problematic as any Freudian attempt to uncover the personality of the artist solely upon the basis of the art.
Personally, when it comes to Shakespeare's sexuality I like Anthony Burgess' novel, Nothing Like the Sun, in which he imagines the Bard thinking he had knocked up an older Anne Hathaway leading to a shotgun wedding and his eventual abandoning her for a career in the theater where he becomes involved in a gay relationship with a young aristocrat and later with a woman of African descent while his wife carries on having affairs with his brothers Edmund and Richard (who were the true fathers of his supposed children) and thus leading to his choice of Edmund and Richard as two of his greatest villains. How's that for a plot?
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I understand that gay doesn't strictly mean homosexual male. I simply meant that "homosexual" was a term created only rather recently, and its definition has altered drastically from its original usage.
Somebody mentioned Orlando by Virginia Woolf, which is a queer lit book, but it was a real slog for me to finish. I mean, I was actually close to skimming the last third of the book because I was so bored with it. What other queer lit would you recommend?
And I agree that the criticism leveled against Kramer is unwarranted. Most of the reviews I've read of Faggots talk about his unrealistic depiction of free and unchecked sex. Funnily enough, his other works have gotten him in trouble for being "conservative gay," like the main character of his play The Normal Heart. It's really a shame because I think Kramer pretty much has the right idea when it comes to most gay issues.
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