2013/04/24
Gross Indecency
A
week or so back I posted an article on the states which still had medieval
sodomy laws, some explicitly targeting gay sex, others which criminalized
anything but heterosexual acts done in the missionary position. In 1885 Queen Victoria signed into law an act
punishing "gross indecency." The act was intended for those
activities in which male homosexuals might engage. (When told that it
overlooked homosexual acts by women, the queen said: "Women don't do that
sort of thing.") In its wording, it
also could apply to oral or anal sex between heterosexual men and women. The act remained on the books in Britain
until 1967, long enough to cast its baleful penumbra over the tragic death of
Alan Turing, who was forced to undergo chemical castration in 1952 in
"treatment" for his homosexuality, as an alternative to prison. Singapore used the act as the basis for its
Section 377 of the penal code, which prohibited "carnal intercourse
against the order of nature." In 2007 the section was modified, most of it
struck down, but Section 377A left in place, the section which makes the
offense apply exclusively to gays.
Wild
Rice is currently staging Oscar Wilde's The
Importance of Being Earnest. Wilde
was the first, and most famous victim, of Britain's indecency act, and with a
current case challenging 377A wending its way through the courts, they are also
offering a staged reading of Gross
Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde.
In
February, 1895 Oscar Wilde was the UK's most celebrated living writer, author
of poetry, philosophy, the classic (and controversial) novel The Picture Of Dorian Gray, and of four
hit plays, two of which were simultaneously selling out in London's West
End. By May Wilde was utterly ruined:
hugely in debt, all his possessions seized and sold, his wife and sons gone
(they would change their names, and he would never see them again), his shows
closed, his name cursed, and himself serving two years hard labour.
Gross
Indecency tells the story of how that happened, using transcripts from the
trials, and other materials including Wilde's works, and letters and
autobiographies by the principals. It's
a powerful piece, though the structure keeps some of the strongest elements
from proper expression. In brief, Wilde
struck up a friendship with a young lord, Alfred Douglas, whose father was the
8th Marquess of Queensberry (forever linked to the rules governing
boxing). The Marquess seems to have been
an ogre of the sort that made "the Nobility" an oxymoron. The father decided Wilde was a bad influence
on young Lord Alfred, and a series of escalating encounters culminated with his
leaving his calling card at Wilde's club, addressed to Wilde the "posing
somdomite" (sic).
Wilde
sued for libel, the suit being heard at the beginning of April, just a little
over a month after the insult. Initially
the Marquess contended that while he was not accusing Wilde of actually being
gay, he felt justified in claiming Wilde "posed" as gay. But to bolster his defense, he hired
detectives who dug up three "rent boys" who would testify that they
had engaged in sexual activity with Wilde.
Once Wilde's attorney realized this, he advised his client to drop the
suit, rather than continue and perhaps face criminal charges.
Unfortunately,
after stipulating for the defense, Wilde now was obligated to pay all costs,
and the court ordered him held without bail to face criminal charges under the
indecency act. Three weeks later (his
home and belongings having already been seized for auction, and his plays
closed) Wilde was tried. The first trial resulted in a hung jury, but a few
days later he was retried, the government bringing out their heaviest guns, and
was duly convicted and sentenced to two years’ hard labour.
There
are some fascinating undercurrents to all this, elements the play only hints
at. First, what exactly did it mean in
Victorian England to "pose as a sodomite?" Wilde was an arch and witty man. His last words were "either those
curtains go, or I do." Today we
might say: "Aha, excessive interest in interior decoration - the man is
obviously gay!" But in 1895 gay men
were not “out," so there was no paradigm from which, rightly or wrongly,
someone might be accused of "acting gay." Indeed, neither Wilde's attorney, nor his
best friend, suspected he was gay until events outed him. Which makes the Marquess's accusation
extraordinary: how is it that he
possessed gaydar? Gavin Yap plays Lord
Alfred Douglas as a self-centred lad (likely spot on for a 24-year old English
lord in 1895) who, whatever his feelings for Wilde, is more interested in
pursuing the case as a means of striking at his father. Also there is the
hinted at, but not explicated political motive for the prosecution. The party then in power is rumoured to
contain many practicing homosexuals. (As
an aside, I have always been amused by phrase "practicing
homosexuals." It isn't like they
are planning to take their act to Carnegie Hall.) By prosecuting Wilde they are
covering their tracks. (This reminds me
of many of today's Republicans.)
Ivan
Heng's Oscar Wilde is a tragic figure.
He seems to have initiated the first trial with a bit of hubris. Wilde
famously told US Customs, when asked if he had anything to declare: "Only
my genius." With a similar
attitude, it seems not to have occurred to him that he could possibly lose his
suit. At the same time he was doing it
for Douglas, his feelings for the young man of a purer strain than those
offered in reciprocation. Afterward,
things took on a life of their own. Between the second and third trials Wilde
was granted bail, and was encouraged by all sides to flee England. It was hinted that even the prosecution
really would rather he. Instead, he chose to stay and fight to save what he
might of his honour, knowing it was hopeless, but perhaps not believing that he
would really be jailed.
When
I was four or five, The Ballad Of Reading
Gaol was one of the books my father used to read me at bedtime.
“Yet each
man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.
Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.”
My
father didn’t tell me the backstory, and that the “coward with a kiss” was
Douglas, whom Wilde felt had caused his incarceration, and then abandoned
him. At five, I don’t think I would have
grasped it, but even at five I understood from these words what a soul
destroying place prison was.
A
soul-destroying prison need not be a physical place. Over the past fifty years I have watched
friends struggle with their sexuality, afraid to reveal that they were
gay. I can think of at least four, men
in their sixties and seventies who have lived an apparently sexless life,
rather than come out. (Of course they
might have secret sex lives, and since they aren’t out, might not be gay, but I
would bet on both of my suspicions.) I
find that terribly sad, a lifetime’s happiness wasted, times four. While no one expects prosecution these days
under indecency laws, their existence helps maintain the painful status
quo. There is a wide generation gap in
perceptions of gays, with younger people accepting, while their elders remain
bound by their prejudices. Politically,
the most common excuse is that “people aren’t ready.” I heard those same excuses in the
nineteen-seventies, when the question was whether to hire Blacks; I lived in a
lily white suburb of Chicago, and the people my bosses feared weren’t ready,
were our customers. They were right:
some of our customers weren’t ready. But
they learned, and it was time they did.
The mild discomfort they experienced was not comparable to the major
harm we would have done by catering to their prejudices.
Oscar
Wilde expressed a philosophy that today seems quaint and naïve. He believed that the highest goal was to
create art, for the purpose of expressing beauty. That this would ennoble us, and only this
would save us. When he realized what
they were doing to him, he asked why, since he had “hurt no one;” why were they
trying to hurt him? Quaint and naïve? Perhaps.
But it has been one hundred and eighteen years since he was sentenced,
almost to the day. And today, this very
evening, in a few minutes, the curtain will rise on The Importance Of Being Earnest, right here in Singapore. He is immortal, while the men who “hurt him”
are forgotten, or if remembered at all, reviled.
There
are a few more performances of Earnest, and one more reading this Sunday of Gross
Indecency. I encourage my friends to see
either, or both. Let’s do our part to
keep the curtain rising on Wilde, while lowering it on indecent indecency laws.
