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TJLC IS REAL: Carefully-Chosen” Words and Public Opinion

Or, Another Installment in:

Weeesi Liveblogs “London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885-1914″ by Matt Cook and Flails Continuously Because Reasons

(Previous posts here, here, here, and here. I’m also tagging with “london and the culture of homosexuality” but apparently tracked tags are no longer a thing so idk.)

Let’s talk about words.

Mark Gatiss revealed the title of the previously-untitled shspesh at the MCM London Comic Con panel a few weeks ago.

“The. Abominable. Bride.”

Many people quickly realised the connection to “Ricoletti of the club foot and his abominable wife“ in The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual, the same story in which Watson refers to himself as Bohemian, a word we’ve already explored as being connected to queer culture around the turn of the century in London.

So, who is the abominable bride? What’s so abominable? And why use the word abominable in the first place?

What’s the significance of the word abominable?

The Buggery Act of 1533 “codified sodomy into secular law as “the detestable and abominable vice of buggery”,  which remained a capital offence until the Offences Against the Person Act was enacted in 1861.

@skulls-and-tea and @wellthengameover also talked about the use of the word abominable in the Offences Against the Person Act of 1861 and a possible connection to a (gross indecency) trial taking place in TAB.

As we’ve established, during the late-Victorian era it was clearly against the law to engage in homosexual activity. Various laws and amendments meant any homosexual activity – at all – was illegal in both public and private spaces. The Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 recriminalised (male) homosexuality due in part to Section 11, the Labouchere Amendment, which read:

”Any male person who, in public or private, commits, or is party to the commission of, or procures the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency with another male person, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour, and being convicted thereof shall be liable at the discretion of the court to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding two years, with or without hard labour.”

(Both Oscar Wilde and Alan Turing were convicted and sentenced under Section 11. It was only repealed in part in 1967 and stayed on the statute books until 2003. That is truly abominable.)

Now the word “male” was explicitly written into the law. Male homosexuality in particular was outlawed. Additional legislation, such as a clause in the Vagrancy Law Amendment Act of 1898, caused one man to despair that “an alleged smile or wink or look may cause an arrest.” Behaviour that was not even explicitly sexual was under suspicion. Being in a certain place at a certain time with a certain person looking a certain way was often cause for interrogation, arrest, and imprisonment. In other words, Cook says, “the police did not arrest because sexual acts had actually been committed but on the basis of a judgment they had made about the propensity of an individual to commit them.” This sent a message to the wider public and the homosexual subculture as to the “expectations of private conduct and public behaviour”, although essentially, even private behaviour was subject to the law.

Statistics on arrests, persecutions, and imprisonments were collected during this time and show fluctuations due to the enactments of these legal provisions. Accordingly, “details of homosexual crime appeared more frequently in the newspapers…significantly increasing exposure” to the public with consistent (often literally daily) reminders of the perils of engaging in homosexual activity. As much as we love a good scandal today, the same could be said for the late 19th century, as newspapers competed to ramp up their coverage of the latest major trial whilst still “communicat[ing] cogent moral messages to a massive readership”.

As a result, the average London newspaper reader was bombarded with conflicting information, a strange combination of “here’s the scoop on these two men who got it on” but also “this stuff is horrible and how dare you be interested in it.”

Except, newspapers didn’t just use “horrible” to describe these cases of homosexuality.

They used the word abominable.

The word abominable was used to describe 1) the physical places that men would have sex and 2) the actual act of homosexual sex itself.

One of the most well-known cases of this time was the 1889 Cleveland Street Scandal, which involved a homosexual male brothel in London. Newspapers such as Reynolds called the Cleveland House an “abominable institution” and referred to the “abominable orgies of Cleveland Street” in its coverage of the case.

The use of the word “abominable” had important implications here, because essentially newspapers couldn’t actually say what the actual sexual acts were. The newspaper reader had to fill in the details based upon how the circumstances were described and readers had to deduce what was meant by reading subtext in the reporting. Cook explains:

“The newspaper reader often had to gather clues from details of place and appearance in order to discern the crime, which was often not made clear. Whilst the courts heard descriptions of sexual acts, the newspapers referred to ‘gross indecency’ or ‘unnatural’, ‘infamous’ or ‘unnameable’ offences.”

Since these same types of descriptors were used repeatedly, readers were gradually able to pick up on these clues. This resulted in an “increasingly clear sense of what in fact was being spoken about” and actually started to engender some sympathy for the homosexual on trial…and sort of…homosexuals, all together.

Wait. What?

A month after Oscar Wilde’s trial and conviction, Reynolds (that same newspaper that loved the word “abominable”) published a more “measured” editorial and a series of letters from readers that expressed support for Wilde. One woman even signed hers “A woman who believes in Oscar Wilde.”

(Remind of you anything?)

Cook explains what happened this way:

“[George] Ives, [a friend of Wilde’s and a gay man] detected ‘a change in the ethical atmosphere’ after the trials and four months later noted that ‘the change in public feeling, if one may judge from the gossip in the clubs etc., is truly wonderful; men very hostile a few months ago, now admit this or that, and seem truly on the road to reason.’ Whilst club gossip is not a sufficient gauge of public opinion, the trials clearly did not simply reaffirm prevailing attitudes about homosexual activity. They also provoked dialogue and, Ives suggested, some change of heart.”

Ives later records his joy at a magistrate using the words “senselessness” and “cruelty” to describe sentences given to homosexual men instead of “abominable.”

Clearly, “some change of heart” does not mean “everything was fine”, nor does it imply that all (or even the far majority of) Londoners held these opinions.

But…

Popular newspapers like Reynolds used very particular words – words chosen with care – in their coverage….

They relied heavily on subtext and their readers’ ability to pick up on clues…

They had the power to (and did) publish some readers’ support for homosexual men…

…which, at least in one (gay) man’s view, resulted in a ”change in public feeling” and perhaps even “provoked dialogue.”

What else is currently working against “prevailing attitudes” about the depiction of homosexuality in culture?

Oh.

I’m in a part of the book (London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885-1914) where Cook is talking about the beginnings of sexology and the study of homosexuality. Many early books published on these topics included detailed sexual case studies. One of the most well-known was Psychopathia Sexualis: eine Klinisch-Forensische Studie (Sexual Psychopathy: A Clinical-Forensic Study) by Richard von Krafft-Ebing. As an example, Cook outlines one of Krafft-Ebing’s case studies of a young (homosexual) man:

“The patient went to university in ‘the city’ at nineteen and began to be dandified…

Originally posted by mostlybenedict

…He wore striking cravats…

Originally posted by vavriba

…and shirts that were low cut…

Originally posted by sparklingwaterbabie

…forced his feet into narrow shoes…

Originally posted by jesse-goat-221b

…and curled his hair in a remarkable way…

Originally posted by see-but-do-not-observe

…He abstained from sex for some time by using cocaine…

Originally posted by elusivist

…and living in the country…

Originally posted by mostlybenedict

…before being arrested for having sex with a man just outside the city walls.”

Originally posted by theperksofbeingawanderluster

I’ll leave you to your deductions.

um

The book (London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885-1914 by Matt Cook) is covering the study of “erotic anthropology” and very early versions of sex toys and…

…there’s a thing…

…some men liked to use…

…called…

…an anal violin.

I’ll let you fire up good ol’ Google for some visuals there.

And a description of how it is “played”.

Let’s just say….well, yeah. I think it’s pretty obvious the possibilities for a 19th century gay man who, you know, plays the violin.

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8) Gay graffiti worth writing about in your memoirs
 

In London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885-1914, Matt Cook discusses places in London that were highly associated with homosexual subculture, largely based on locations that various homosexual writers (including Oscar Wilde) referenced in their work during this time. This is essentially like compiling a list of certain spots that were known to be Very Gay.

One of these writers, John Addington Symonds, was working on his Memoirs in about 1889, right around the time of the Cleveland Street Scandal. In one passage, Symonds writes about seeing a “a rude graffito” which he described as:

“an emblematic diagram of phallic meeting, glued together gushing”

and accompanied with the words…

“prick to prick so sweet”

Symonds helpfully notes that this graffiti was “scrawled on a wall ‘in the sordid streets’ just to the west of Regent’s Park”.

Come again?

He further clarifies it was located between his home near Paddington Station and Regent’s Park.

Let’s take a look at a map.

Here’s the area:

Oh, what do I spot in the middle there?

Symonds was a real guy who saw this real graffiti somewhere in this real area during this time and actually wrote about it in his memoirs.

9) Cabs were helpful, Gothic romance was queer, literary gay subtext was criminal evidence, the male-on-male gaze was a stand-in for sex, and idealised male nudes were all the rage
 

Another Update

I’m nearing the end of the book, dear friends. London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885-1914 by Matt Cook has served us well, and I have a few long meta/posts planned. In the meantime, here’s more goodies:

1) The homosexual subculture of late-Victorian London flourished when men were able to move quickly and anonymously through the city in order to meet and socialise (and have sex). Men who were the most successful had the money to pay for cabs.

2) Gothic romance was queer; Dracula was undoubtedly very queer. For more on just how queer, check out @heimishtheidealhusband​‘s incredible meta Ghost Stories are Gay Stories.

3) The gay subtext in Oscar Wilde’s writing was actually used against him in his trials. The Picture of Dorian Gray was perceived by opposing counsel to be “calculated to subvert morality and encourage unnatural vice”. Other literature that was deemed to be questionable was highly scrutinized. This is my personal conjecture, but I feel it entirely reasonable that ACD/his editor/his publisher would be a little worried about his stuff coming off a too gay, hence  moustaches (and Mary).

5) While still we’re talking about literature, remember John Addington Symonds? The guy who saw some dick graffiti on his walk home and thought it so memorable that he wrote about it in his Memoirs? He used the male-on-male gaze as a “key erotic modus operandi” in his writing and employed it almost “to stand in for sex”.

Cook notes that “fleeting exchanged glances” were becoming “key to ideas of modern homosexual identity.”

*coughs out a lung*

Originally posted by william-scott

(It was hard to pick a gif but this is sort of the ultimate. Also: not so fleeting.)

5) Ancient Greece and all things Hellenic were all the rage, as was collecting photography/statues of the idealised male nude. Homosexual men would hang out in the statue gallery of the British Museum to, you know, appreciate the… art.

Like, this kind of art?

Every Great Cause Has Martyrs

The trailer for TAB includes some interesting words:

SHERLOCK: Every great cause has martyrs. Every war has suicide missions and make no mistake, this is war.

Words are important. Words tell us everything.

In London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885-1914, Cook discusses the perspectives of homosexual men and their personal relationships to homosexual identity. The language in the TAB trailer echoes the language that these men routinely used to describe their struggle for legitimacy.

Some men, like Edward Carpenter, “looked at homosexuality as part of a wider vision of social renewal and reform” and used their writing as a tool to work towards changing the status quo.

Other men, such as George Ives, “developed a much more combative stance in his evolving politics and in the language he used“ in his writing (both private and public) in terms of agitating for change in the way that homosexuality was understood.

What kind of language?

Ives “envisaged a dichotomy” between “them” and “Us”.

Ives referred to:

• “the battle”
• “the fight”
• “traitors”
• “the cause”
• and “workers for the cause”

Here’s something really interesting:

In the 1890s, Ives formed a private group called the Order of the Chaerona:

“an exclusive and secretive support and pressure group composed of men who drew on Hellenism to understand and legitimise their desires. The affiliation and the ritual that cemented it constituted a protective and quasi-Masonic bond based specifically on sexual preference. It formed an invisible boundary between ‘them’ and ‘Us’ and sustained an exclusive fraternity and virtual safe space in the city for Ives and his fellow members.”

The name of the group came from the Battle of Chaerona in 338BC, after the Theban bands of Greek men who fought “alongside their male lovers and were revered for their bravery” until they fell to the Romans. Ives “imagined his own fight for legitimacy in terms of martial force, persistence and bravery.”

It was extremely ritualistic and used codes and symbols in its ceremonies.

Remind you of anything? [x]

I’m not saying that the Order of the Chaerona used hoods and fire in their rituals; I’ve no idea the specifics of what they did other than what Cook describes in the book and what can be found about the group online. However, we see what appears to be a secret society engaged in a ritualistic activity in the TAB trailer.

Interesting, that.

Many of the gay men who joined this group were rather wealthy and powerful. Ives also wanted to recruit men of the working classes but found this to be difficult. He noted in his diary that the “rich and powerful had the scope to act without the same threat of legal action” that might be held against men without the security of money and connections:

“The helpless and the wage earners dare not, must not, move or speak unless they wish for martyrdoms.”

Another book I’ve been perusing, London in the 1890s: A Cultural History by Karl Beckson, captures additional use of this language.

You might have guessed it.

Oscar Wilde told Ives in March of 1898:

“Yes, I have no doubt we shall win, but the road is long, and red with monstrous martyrdoms.”

Did Victorian-Era Gay Men Think Sherlock Holmes Was Gay?

Something I’ve often wondered about is whether or not there is any documentation that any contemporaries of the Sherlock Holmes stories in any way thought them to be gay. What I mean is: did any homosexual men read the stories and understand the characterisation/subtext to imply, if not johnlock vibes, at least homosexuality, not least for the character of Sherlock Holmes himself?

I have come to the end of the book London and the Culture of the Homosexuality, 1885-1914 by Matt Cook and it seems he’s saved a lovely bit for last.

My new fave George Ives (I’ve written about him in other posts) kept meticulous journals, much of which informed Cook’s work. Ives routinely engaged in self-examination against the stereotypes of homosexuals newly outlined by sexologists and found himself similar in some ways and different in others, both of which he carefully recorded in his diaries. He noted his “keen aesthetic sense” and “lack of taut muscle”, among other things.

In March 1901, Ives records in his diary that he considers himself to be:

 “the Sherlock Holmes of a 1000 little peculiarities”

Here we have a man who identified as homosexual relating to a character who he may have recognised to be homosexual as well. Ives definitely doesn’t write “yeah I’m gay and I know Holmes is gay too” but I think it’s interesting that he would have included this little comparison in alongside his descriptions of whether or not he matches the “gay profile”.
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12) The closest thing I’ve ever written to a personal TJLC manifesto