Homoeroticism
Homoeroticism refers to same-sex love and desire, most especially as it is depicted or manifested in the
visual arts and
literature. It can also be found in performative forms; from theatre to the theatricality of uniformed movements (e.g.: the
Wandervogel and
Gemeinschaft der Eigenen). Homoeroticism thus differs from the interpersonal homoerotic; because homoeroticism is a set of artistic and performative traditions, in which such feelings can be embodied in culture and thus expressed into the wider society.
The term homoerotic (and its companion term lesboerotic) carries with it the weight of modern classifications of love and desire that did not necessarily exist in previous eras.
Homosexuality as we know it today was not codified and pathologized until the mid-20th century. Prior to that time, it was common for men and women to spend a great deal of time in the company of their own sex. As a result, close associations between members of the same sex formed, most notably in the "romantic friendships" documented in the letters and papers of 18th- and 19th- century men and women. These romantic friendships, which may or may not have included genital sex, were characterized by passionate emotional attachments and what modern thinkers would consider homoerotic overtones.
Such
eroticism in art is usually subtle and contains some 'emotional charge'; which, in the arts, is the main factor that distinguishes it from explicit
pornography featuring genitals & sex acts. Thus, it can often evade
censorship by the state. Yet homoerotic material can ultimately be more potent than pornography, since some further act of imagination is often required in order to make it explicitly arousing.
Post-
Stonewall critics sometimes detect homoeroticism in artworks, even when the original artist would probably have denied the presence of such a theme. It may, however, still be valid to label the work as part of the tradition of homoeroticism; since the work may have been arousing for the
homosexual portion of its audience, and an influence on future artistic production.
Such fine art is necessarily
figurative.
Male-male
Male-male examples, in the visual fine arts, range through history:
Ancient Greek vase art;
Roman wine goblets (
The Warren Cup); the Italian
Renaissance (such as
Agnolo Bronzino,
Caravaggio), through to the many
19th Century history paintings of classical characters such as
Hyacinth,
Ganymede and
Narcissus; the work of late 19th century artists (such as
Thomas Eakins,
Eugene Jansson,
Henry Scott Tuke and
Magnus Enckell); through to the modern work of fine artists such as
Paul Cadmus and
Gilbert & George.
Fine art photographers such as
David Hockney,
Will McBride,
Robert Mapplethorpe,
Pierre et Gilles,
Bernard Faucon,
Anthony Goicolea have also made a strong contribution, Mapplethorpe and McBride being notably in breaking down barriers of gallery censorship and braving legal challenges.
Female-female
Female-female examples are most historically noticeable in the narrative arts: the archaic lyrics of
Sappho;
The Songs of Bilitis; novels such as those of
Christa Winsloe,
Colette,
Radclyffe Hall, and
Jane Rule, and films such as
Madchen in Uniform. More recently, lesbian homoeroticism has flowered in photography and the writing of authors such as
Pat Califia and
Jeanette Winterson.
Female homoerotic art by lesbian artists has often been less culturally prominent than the presentation of lesbian eroticism by non-lesbians and for a primarily non-lesbian audience. In the west, this can be seen as long ago as the 1872 novel
Carmilla, and is also seen in cinema in such popular movies as
Emmanuelle,
The Hunger,
Showgirls, and most of all in
pornography. In the east, lesbianism is the subject of the
manga subgenre
shojo-ai.
In many western texts, lesbians are presented as intensely sexual but also predatory and dangerous (the characters are often vampires) and the primacy of heterosexuality is usually re-asserted at the story's end. This shows the difference between homoeroticism as a product of the wider culture and homosexual art produced by gay men and women.
There is also a strong tradition of homoeroticism in
poetry. In the male-male tradition, one might cite erotic poems by major poets such as
Abu Nuwas,
Hafez,
Walt Whitman,
Federico García Lorca,
Fernando Pessoa and
Allen Ginsberg.
Lord Alfred Tennyson wrote a book-length poem titled
In Memoriam dedicated to the memory of his male friend, A.H. Hallam.
Elisar von Kupffer's
Lieblingminne und Freundesliebe in der Weltlitteratur (
1900) and
Edward Carpenter's
Ioläus: An Anthology of Friendship (
1902) were the first known notable attempts at homoerotic anthologies since
The Greek Anthology. Since then, many anthologies have been published.
In the female-female tradition, one might cite erotic poems by major poets such as
Sappho, "
Michael Field", and
Maureen Duffy.
Emily Dickinson addressed a number of poems and letters with homoerotic overtones to her sister-in-law Susan Huntington Gilbert. The letters between
Virginia Woolf and
Vita Sackville-West, two well-known members of the
Bloomsbury Group, are full of homoerotic overtones characterized by this excerpt from Vita's letter to Virginia: "I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia [...] It is incredible to me how essential you have become [...] I shan't make you love me anymore by I shan't make you love me any the more by giving myself away like this --But oh my dear, I can't be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that." (January 21, 1926)
Most notable are positive portrayals of homoerotic feelings in relationships, made at feature length and for theatrical exhibition, and made by those who are same-sex oriented. Successful examples would be:
Mädchen in Uniform, Germany (1931);
The Leather Boys, UK (1964);
The Naked Civil Servant, UK (1975);
My Beautiful Laundrette, UK (1985);
Maurice, UK (1985);
Summer Vacation 1999, Japan, 1988; , US, New Zealand and Germany, (2003); and most recently
Brokeback Mountain, US (2005). Also of note is the feature-length
BBC adaptation of
Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, UK (1989).
See:
List of lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender-related films.
Homoeroticism has been a strong undercurrent in much
Romantic and
Neo-Romantic visual art. The Romantic emphasis on beauty, perfect love and friendship, pastoral idylls, other-worldy transcendence, the truth & validity of one's inner life, the dynamic outsider hero, and romantic death, all made the Romantic mode especially attractive. There was the added attraction of being able to use a coded
symbolism to reveal a work as homoerotic only to those "in the know" about the sort of codes being used.
Some historians have suggested that the suppression of Romanticism in the art world, after about
1920 (in favour of
modernist,
socialist realist art and
abstract expressionism), was partly a
homophobic act.
Classical & Medieval literature:* Murray & Roscoe.
Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature. (1997).
* J.W. Wright.
Homoeroticism in Classical Arabic Literature (1997).
*
Rictor Norton.
The Homosexual Literary Tradition. (1974). (Greek, Roman & Elizabethan England).
Literature after 1850:*
David Leavitt.
Pages Passed from Hand to Hand : The Hidden Tradition of Homosexual Literature in English from 1748 to 1914. (1998).
* Timothy d'Arch Smith.
Love In Earnest; some notes on the lives and writings of English 'Uranian' poets from 1889 to 1930. (1970).
* Mark Lilly.
Gay Men's Literature in the Twentieth Century. (1993).
* Patricia Juliana Smith.
Lesbian Panic: Homoeroticism in Modern British Women's Fiction. (1997).
* Gregory Woods.
Articulate Flesh - male homoeroticism and modern poetry. (1989). (USA poets).
* Vita Sackville-West. Louise De Salvo, Mitchell A. Leaska, editors.
Vita Sackville-West The Letters of Vita Sackville-West to Virginia Woolf (1985)
* Virginia Woolf.
Congenial Spirits: The Selected Letters of Virginia Woolf Joanne Trautmann Banks, editor. (Harcourt Brace, 1991)
Visual Arts:* Jonathan Weinberg.
Male Desire: The Homoerotic in American Art (2005).
* James M. Saslow.
Pictures and Passions: A History of Homosexuality in the Visual Arts. (1999).
* Allen Ellenzweig.
The Homoerotic Photograph: Male Images, Delacroix to Mapplethorpe. (1992).
* Thomas Waugh.
Hard to Imagine: Gay Male Eroticism in Photography and Film from Their Beginnings to Stonewall. (1996).
* Emmanuel Cooper.
The Sexual Perspective: Homosexuality and Art in the Last 100 Years in the West. (1994).
* Claude J. Summers (editor).
The Queer Encyclopedia of the Visual Arts. (2004).
* Harmony Hammond.
Lesbian Art in America: A Contemporary History. (2000). (Post-1968 only)
* Laura Doan.
Fashioning Sapphism: The Origins of a Modern English Lesbian Culture. (2001). (Post-WW1 in England)
*
homosocial*
Sex in advertising*
Slash fiction*
Uranian poetry*
Shōnen-ai*
gay art magazine Articles about contemporary gay art today*
Homoerotic art of the World*
IMDB link to homoerotic keywords in film and TV*
The personal site and art galleries of the Ukrainian homoerotic artist/photographer Ukrainito - the first openly gay artist in the history of his nation*
Androphile project - Homoerotic art and culture from past cultures*
Androphile Project - Multi-cultural collection of ancient homoerotic art
