unspeakablevice:

I love this question because this is my life and what I think about all the time. Sorry if my answer is a bit rambly. I’ve just been real remiss in answering asks lately and I want to answer this while I have the time! Also, I won’t really be talking about the Restoration period much. Frankly, it’s just not my area! However, I can go on quite a bit about queerness and the French Revolution.

As for attitudes concerning sexuality (particularly in the queer sense) during the French Revolution….Well, okay. Initially when I started reading about all of this I thought it was a time of comparative liberation due to the decriminalization of sodomy (among other things) in the 1791 Constitution. I kept reading that France was the first European nation to “decriminalize homosexuality”. I kept seeing all this highly homosocial imagery particularly between men.

However I quickly realized this wasn’t some rainbow explosion of a queer utopia. I realized that decriminalizing sodomy had a lot more to do with just eliminating that punishment in general for personal/private ‘behaviors’ (inspired by Enlightenment philosophy) than any specific liberation for those who practiced sodomy.

With regards to male same-sex sexuality some philosophers/politicians during the French Revolution did entertain a more ~open-minded! perspective. For example, Anacharsis Cloots argued against the punishment of same-sex sexual acts, and argued for the potential benefits and normalcy of same-sex love. Condorcet argues against sodomy being considered a crime. However you also see a lot of condemnation, too. Marat thought intimacy between men was a “indecent love” the should be “left in the shadows”. However, rather than be punished violently for crimes those guilty should be condemned to “petites maisons”.

There are unabashedly queer images abundant during the Revolution. Just not necessarily friendly ones. Portrayals of queer sexuality from what I’ve encountered were….often a mockery. There were a proliferation of pamphlets during the French Revolution that treated same-sex sexuality (between men, and between women) as a joke, really. Some of these pamphlets were pornographic in nature, but more concerning themselves with making a political point about the sexual order than titilation. There was a satiric pamphlet called Les Enfants de Sodome that lampooned revolutionary efforts toward liberty and equality, detailing that sodomites now wanted their rights, too. It was seen as a laugh riot, as backwards, and as not beneficial toward society.

With regards to female same-sex sexuality, this was also viewed as sometimes funny, but also perverse. Females who engaged in such behavior (according to these depictions) were generally just greedy and overly sexed and becoming too masculine (overpowering sexual desire was of course seen as more masculine). These ‘tribades’ turned to women because they had an excess of sexual desire. You can see this in portrayals of Marie Antoinette in pornographic pamphlets, depictions of her as a tribade, sleeping around, etc. You see a lot of connection between female same-sex sexuality and aristocracy. These ‘masculine’ women were seen as worse even than male sodomites.

As for male same-sex sexuality you get some links with aristocracy, as well as some references to ‘Italian ways’ and France becoming ‘more Italian’. Because being into the same sex was not ~French~. The ideal French national identity that was forming during this time was not supposed to be into the same sex. Reproduction was very much tied into growing nationalism of the time, and therefore sexuality. Intense homosociality courtesy of fraternité = good. Same-sex sexuality = bad, that’s too much!!1!11

More and more during the Revolution mockery and critique and depiction of same-sex eroticism becomes a focus, significantly more so than say anal sex between men and women. It’s all about social anxiety. It’s all about shame and worries about self control.

Now for actual people (rather than representations of people) and how people perceived them for their queerness and/or perceived queerness. One example is the Marquis de Villette (that Enfants de Sodome pamphlet I mentioned earlier lampooned him by suggesting that he wrote the pamphlet— he did not) who actually Cloots defended. Not everybody defended him, though. Accusations of his same-sex proclivities were used to drag his reputation through the mud, and they were referenced frequently in popular depictions. This reputation followed Villette for years.

For example:
http://unspeakablevice.tumblr.com/post/102658475441/the-captions-read-le-peintre-amoureux-de-son

Anyway all in all, the Revolution was a period of shifting models of power, dominance, identity, difference…changes in the political and sexual order.

Just like any other time in history, there isn’t ~one narrative of sexuality~. There are lots. You do see interesting representations that certainly can be read as queer that are not mockery. Still, their queerness can be debated. The imagery of Jacques-Louis David’s work (and the work of other artists in his studio, such as Girodet) can be placed firmly in that debate. Are these images a celebration of socially appropriate fraternité? Or do they wink toward more? I’m thinking particularly of Girodet’s The Sleep of Endymion, and his depictions (as well as others’ depictions during the period) of Apollo and Hyacinth. Apollo and Hyacinth are staples in homoerotic and homosocial imagery, and some argue that as you move further toward the modern period artists knew exactly what they were hinting at in depicting these two in certain ways. There’s a lot more I can say about this but, how about a picture?

Okay, that’s all I’ve got time to type up for now!

Good sources for everything I just mentioned:

• Homosexuality in Modern France, edited by Jeffrey Merrick and Bryant T. Ragan (for queer things)
• The Family Romance of the French Revolution, by Lynn Hunt (for social anxieties and the sexual order)
• Emulation, by Thomas Crow (for art and a few queer things, lots of David and Girodet)
• my blog (hahahhaha this isn’t meant to be sassy, more just a shameless plug! check out my tags on all this stuff!)