Toward Stonewall: Homosexuality and Society in the Modern Western World

392 Pages·2003·1.565 MB·English

by  Nicholas C. Edsall

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NICHOLAS C. EDSALL
Toward Stonewall
HOMOSEXUALITY AND SOCIETY
IN THE MODERN WESTERN WORLD
University of Virginia Press | Charlottesville & London
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Toward Stonewall
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NICHOLAS C. EDSALL
Toward Stonewall
HOMOSEXUALITY AND SOCIETY
IN THE MODERN WESTERN WORLD
University of Virginia Press | Charlottesville & London
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University of Virginia Press
©2003bytheRectorandVisitorsoftheUniversityof Virginia
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
First published 2003
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Edsall, Nicholas C.
Toward Stonewall : homosexuality and society in the mod-
ern western world / Nicholas C. Edsall.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn0-8139-2211-9 (alk. paper)
1. Homosexuality—Europe, Western—History.
2. Homosexuality—United States—History. 3. Marginality,
Social—Europe, Western—History. 4. Marginality,
Social—United States—History. 5. Subculture—Europe,
Western—History. 6. Subculture—United States—
History. I. Title: Homosexuality and society in the modern
western world. II. Title.
hq76.3 .e37 2003
306.76(cid:2)6(cid:2)094—dc21
2002155966
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To My Students
and
In Memory of
Gerald Trett
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Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Part 1 Making a Subculture
1 Origins 3
2 Patterns of Repression 17
3 Sodomy and the Enlightenment 33
4 Europe Divided 47
5 Conclusion to Part 1 61
Part 2 Defining a Subculture
6 Pioneers: The United States 69
7 Pioneers: Germany 85
8 Pioneers: England 100
9 Wilde 110
10 Degeneracy and Atavism 127
11 Purity and Impurity 137
12 The Cult of Youth 153
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13 Forster and Gide 167
14 Conclusion to Part 2 183
Part 3 Organizing a Subculture
15 Between the Wars 195
16 The Making of a Lesbian Subculture 220
17 Homosexuality and Psychiatry 241
18 False Starts and New Beginnings 249
19 Reaction 276
20 Outsiders Abroad and at Home 300
21 From Wolfenden to Stonewall 314
22 Conclusion to Part 3 334
Notes 337
Selected Bibliography 353
Index 365
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Preface
As the sheer volume of writings on gay and lesbian his-
tory has grown in recent years, so too has the need for works of synthesis,
pulling together this widely scattered and often not readily available material.
What follows is just such a work, aimed at a general audience both within and,
it is hoped, beyond the gay and lesbian community.
It is only recently that homosexuals and homosexual subcultures have
joined the ranks of previously neglected or underreported minorities and
subordinate groups as subjects for dispassionate study by historians and other
social scientists. Few subjects are more divisive or raise issues as disquieting
as the nature of sexuality and the meaning of gender identity. What is more,
homosexuality is controversial not only in and of itself but for the light it
throws on society at large, often from unexpected and disturbing angles. By
showing how subordinate groups accommodate themselves to their subordi-
nation, often at terrible psychic cost to themselves, it reveals just what soci-
ety’s demands and expectations are; by showing whether, in what way, and
how successfully they challenge their subordination, it reveals just how open
society is to change; by showing the way society treats weak or unpopular
groups, it reveals a true measure of the distance between society’s professed
and actual values; and by showing society’s willingness to employ scapegoats
and which groups it chooses for that role, it reveals the nature and level of so-
cial anxiety. That tense relationship, at least as much as the internal develop-
ment of homosexual subcultures, is the subject of what follows. Indeed, nei-
ther is comprehensible without the other.
Homosexuality also raises in an acute form the vexed question where
the boundary should be drawn between the public and the private. Although
nothing is more personal, more intimate, than an individual’s choice of a sex-
ual partner, whether for the night or for life, that choice is often far from pri-
vate. All sorts of social institutions regard it as too important a matter to be
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