The Pursuit of Laughter Read online

  Most people, after reading Dr Clifford Allen’s book, would be convinced that a change in the law such as that recommended by the Wolfenden Committee should be made without delay.

  A few months after the report was published Lord Pakenham [Lord Longford] raised the matter in the House of Lords. Of course, according to the Christian religion homosexuals are living in sin. In theory all sexual intercourse is sinful unless it has the object of begetting a child; thus while heterosexuality is generally sinful, homosexuality is always so. The exception was only made because the emphasis on chastity in the Early Church was such that at one time there was a danger that the sect might die out for want of children to carry it on, while the lustful pagans multiplied themselves. Dr Allen is not concerned with sin; in the House of Lords debate, however, the concept of sin was given due weight. Lord Pakenham, a Catholic convert, said he spoke as a Christian. In addition, no less than four Anglican bishops took part in the debate, though true to their Protestant tradition, they did not all agree. Although Lord Pakenham and the Archbishop of Canterbury, while deploring the sin, bravely agreed with the Wolfenden Committee that homosexual behaviour between consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offence, they set the tone of sin-consciousness which gives this debate so unrealistic an air.

  And, of course, in this context ‘sin’ is completely irrelevant. A decision to equate sin with crime would turn most people—who regularly commit several of the deadly sins; greed, sloth, anger, for example—into criminals. The House of Lords itself would dwindle away, nearly all the Peers would be locked up, until only the Bishops remained; and they would have little time for Parliament as they would probably be pressed into service as extra turnkeys by that other sinless group, the prison warders.

  This was an occasion when the House of Lords might have been expected to show its alleged worth as an independent body not subject to the pressure of constituents, with, as we are so often told, experts in every field giving their services to the community. The only experts in evidence on December 4th last year were the sin experts. Where were the doctors and psychiatrists, the scientists, humanists, philosophers and historians? If they were present, they did not speak.

  Three Peers made reasonable, commonsensical speeches—Lords Brabazon, Huntingdon and Lothian. For some of the other speeches—though the debate may have been ‘as good as a play,’ as was said at the time—it is difficult to find any excuse: ignorant, prejudiced, spiteful, stupid. An element of farce was introduced by the Bishop of Rochester with his account of Oxford and Cambridge sodomy clubs. Did he, or did he not, say that members of these clubs shamelessly wore a club tie? According to the newspapers the following day he did say so, but the tie does not figure in Hansard. A friend of mine who was listening to the debate in the public gallery surrounded by consenting adults, who were there in force to hear their doom pronounced, says that they looked self-consciously at their own and one another’s ties during the Bishop’s speech. (Another friend said: Oh, I know that tie; it’s black with a narrow pale blue stripe.) But tie or no tie, the Bishop became quite eloquent at the thought of these ‘plague spots,’ where ‘men were sucked in and held on to, [as] it were, by an octopus of corruption.’

  Lord Huntingdon made the point, later in the debate, that ‘extravagant denunciations in the most virulent terms of homosexuality…. (are)… invariably the result of suppressed homosexual tendencies. Many of these people, much to their credit, have suppressed these tendencies; but they boil over in abuse of homosexuality.’ This remark of his nettled the next Bishop to speak, and in full flood of rhetoric—‘agony of soul and degradation of spirit,’ etc.—he said crossly: ‘If the noble Earl Lord Huntingdon thinks that that is an expression of suppressed homosexuality he may go on thinking.’

  So much for the Lords and their debate. It seems strange that those Peers who are themselves consenting adults did not trouble to go down to Parliament and divide the House. They would have had plenty of support. Perhaps they feared the police. Whatever the reason, they stayed at home; the cowardly Government, who had set up the Wolfenden Committee, was panicked by the ‘popular’ press and decided to let things slide; the motion was withdrawn.

  The controversy died down, but the problem remains. Can the doctors help? Undoubtedly they can, but reading Dr Allen’s book it is impossible not to be struck by the complexity of the subject. For example, in dealing with the causes of homosexuality he gives four main attitudes which, in his opinion, may produce it. They are: 1—Hostility to the mother. 2—Excessive affection for the mother. 3—Hostility to the father. 4—Affection for the father, when the father does not show sufficient heterosexual traits. (Possibly that father was one of the ‘cures’?) There is not much help there for parents who are anxious that their sons and daughters should grow up heterosexual.

  There are so many exceptions to rules in this difficult matter. Most people know homosexuals who belong to the classic category of the rather nervous only child brought up by a doting widowed mother, but the writer can think straight away of four different cases of happy, large, united families in which one brother has grown up homosexual while the other brothers and sisters have not. Why should this be so? As Lord Brahazon said: ‘One day, when we know more about sex, we may bring happiness to many. But do not think that that is going to be easy…’

  Meanwhile it should be possible, in a civilised community, to live and let live. Four main points occur to the reader of Dr Clifford Allen’s book:

  1 Homosexuality is not ‘catching,’ like an infectious or contagious disease.

  2 In the many countries where homosexual adults may behave as they wish in private there is no more homosexuality than in the few countries where such behaviour is a criminal offence.

  3 Children and young people of both sexes must be protected by the law, and under the Wolfenden proposals the penalties for offences connected with juveniles are even more severe than at present.

  4 Dr Allen considers that a traumatic experience in early childhood is usually the cause of homosexuality. If this is so, bearing in mind the behaviour of the segregated rats, it might be well to consider whether the English public school system is not designed to confirm and accentuate any such tendency at the adolescent stage.

  As this article goes to press, a letter signed by (among others) Lord Attlee and Bertrand Russell has appeared in The Times (7 March 1958). They ask that the Government should introduce legislation at an early date to give effect to the reform recommended by the Wolfenden Committee, that homosexual acts between consenting adults in private should no longer be a criminal offence.

  Perhaps the Government will now summon up its courage and do as they demand. Courage is required, and not only on account of the unpredictable reactions of constituents. A further letter to The Times, signed by Sir Charles Taylor, MP, consists of the verses from the Bible describing what happened to the Cities of the Plain.

  If the law is changed, and (as Sir Charles Taylor seems to imply) English cities are consequently fired and brimstoned, it will seem to many people extremely unjust that they should be singled out for this treatment while the rest of the world, which never had the law, goes merrily turning round in the usual way. Sir Charles Taylor, as a Member of Parliament, has, of course, a duty to point to the risks involved, and in so doing he has earned the gratitude of those who had overlooked this dangerous aspect of the case. Nevertheless, it is to be hoped that the Government will, ultimately, consider it a risk worth taking.

  Homosexuality: Its Nature, Causation and Treatment, Allen, C. (1958)

  Louche Lounging in the Far East

  This extravagant Feydeau-like farce is by an Englishman who has lived in Japan for many years, teaching English literature at a Tokyo university. It is not only that rarity, a really funny book, it also gives insights which must be valuable to hundreds of puzzled Europeans, losing their way in a vast city where they can neither speak nor understand the language, or read the writing. To be lost in Toky
o is to be truly lost.

  Mrs Field, unattached and 50, has come to teach English poetry at the university. Her colleague in the faculty, Matthew, is a homosexual with a live-in Japanese boyfriend, but his adventures outside the harmony of his tiny flat are fraught with difficulty. His ideal, when seeking sex, would be to melt into the crowd, an impossibility where every Westerner sticks out like a sore thumb. He dreads being recognized by any Japanese from the university, and hides in the gloaming at the back of a cinema where others foregather for the same purpose.

  Mrs Field’s instinct is to confine what is louche in her life to her flat, so small that there is scarcely room for the actors in the dramas. When she is not explaining T.S. Eliot to her students, or being asked searching questions about the meaning behind Lady Windermere’s Fan by one of the professors, she nevertheless manages to have a lot of quiet fun in her own way.

  In Tokyo, the place of the red light district is taken by a skyscraper called Queen of Hearts. On each floor are two night clubs, catering for everything human lust or human oddity can desire. One of the clubs is Mr Lady. Tired businessmen, after a harrowing day on the telephone to America or Europe, turn in there to relax. They undress, don an elaborate kimono, and sit back while an expert in maquillage paints their faces and puts kohl round their eyes.

  In the soft light surrounded by mirrors the client is transformed into a desirable houri; wherever he looks he sees this lovely creature. After a happy half hour of narcissism, the expert takes away every trace of make-up. Off comes the kimono, he puts on his Western-style business suit, and, totally contented, takes the train home to his wife. Mrs Field’s charming lover is a bank clerk young enough to be her son. She is slightly jealous and disillusioned when she discovers that he supplements his salary by working one evening a week at Queen of Hearts. She cannot resist going to have a look.

  Club New Love caters for lonely middle-aged women. They are entertained at small tables by young gigolos, who give them a bottle of wine and a turn on the dance floor to old-fashioned music. Mrs Field leaves, after a very expensive half hour. She opens the door of Mr Lady, where there is also no sex; the idea of both clubs is to make their clients feel happy.

  When Matthew hears what Sylvia Field has done, looking in on Mr Lady, he is incensed. ‘It was wrong, because men, especially Japanese men, don’t like to be seen in drag wearing make-up’, he tells her. Perhaps he is right, and tweedy English ladies dressed for a point-to-point are better off at home. After the hilarious experience of the mysterious Orient, Mrs Field leaves.

  One of the best comic writers, John Haylock excels also in the authenticity of his atmosphere and background.

  Uneasy Relations, Haylock, J. Evening Standard (1993)

  Nothing Queer about Hitler

  Dr Johnson defines the word bugger in his dictionary as ‘a term of endearment among sailors.’ Nevertheless, when the dictionary appeared in 1755, and for another two centuries, homosexuality was not only a sin, but also a crime, with terrible punishments attached to its commission. These ranged from the stake in the eighteenth century to hard labour a hundred years ago, as poor Oscar Wilde could testify.

  Although Dr Johnson mentions sailors, who are cooped up together for months, the fact that sailors traditionally have a wife in every port contradicts the assumption that they are particularly at risk—is it a risk? Probably most people now would deny both crime and sin. We are lucky enough to live in a permissive society, which, if it means anything, means each individual, man or woman, can choose a partner without having to fear either the law or the blame of contemporaries. In theory, at any rate.

  But we also live in an age which seems to rate sex more highly, and of more general interest, than any other activity so that we have biographies of writers, artists, politicians, footballers, or royal personages, in which the whole emphasis is upon their sexual adventures or mis-adventure, to the near-exclusion of their talents or the interest attaching to their exalted rank.

  The murder of a very popular and charismatic Dutch politician, which caused deep sorrow in his native city of Rotterdam and was followed by a spectacular funeral with thousands of mourners, hundreds of wreaths, and dozens of white limousines, in fact the funeral of a beloved star, such as we in England have also seen examples in recent years, has led the newspapers to wonder why this man, Pim Fortuyn, should have evoked such enormous popular grief at his death. Scorning the obvious reason, that he was a politician who looked as if he might do something for them and for his country which other politicians were failing to do, and that therefore the people loved and trusted him and wanted to show their feelings in the only way they knew how, which was much too simple a truth, the media rushed to suggest it must be something to do with sex, the all-important, the only reason for anything. Because he was on the right in politics there must be a link with homosexuality. Pim Fortuyn’s own brother—said to have been his favourite brother—made a statement: ‘I wish to make it absolutely clear, that my brother was never a right-wing extremist.’

  However, to be to the right of centre connotes the dread word Fascist, in this case particularly inept. A book published recently tries to make Hitler into a homosexual—the link is soon forged. Hitler committed terrible crimes. He was certainly not homosexual. What his sexual inclinations may have been remains a mystery. Perhaps they were not very important in his life. But such a simple explanation won’t do. In a world where sex is king, we cannot allow anyone, let alone anyone famous, not to have been actuated in an important way by sex. It would be too dull, too lacking in the dubious joys experienced by the voyeur.

  The whole of Europe, at the present time, is nervous about the number of immigrants coming to our continent. What Pim Fortuyn said is what most people think. France, England, Germany, Holland, Belgium, all the rich countries have a problem, which can and should be shared, and if possible a solution found, by Europe as a whole. Henry Kissinger said: ‘If I want Europe, who do I call?’ Who indeed. Perhaps, if he had lived, Pim Fortuyn might have been the man who could unite Europe and make a reality of it.

  What remains certain is that as long as the human race exists, so will sexual tastes differ. How could it be otherwise? What is important is to live and let live. Nobody should be tolerant about cruelty, but at least we can be tolerant about sex.

  Spectator 2002

  The Marquis de Sade

  Many people like porn, and nearly everyone has heard of Sade, whose novels banned for about 150 years are now available in paperback.

  Sade’s taste, and the theme of his books, was flagellation and sodomy. Born in 1740, his was an extremely dangerous taste, because the penalty in eighteenth-century France for the crime of sodomy was death. Beating was another matter, and if he had confined himself to prostitutes, and paid them well, there might have been no trouble. But Paris brothels would not admit the little Marquis; he did too much damage.

  Sade was an aristocrat with powerful relations; his aunts were abbesses, his uncle an abbé, his father a soldier and diplomat. He went to school at the Jesuit college Louis-le-Grand, married a girl of good family by whom he had three children, and he owned several châteaux in Provence. Yet because of his perverse tastes, he spent the best years of his life in prisons and fortresses all over France. Fatal to him was his love of orgies; one of the girls or boys who had taken part invariably gave him away, either to the police, or to his inexorable mother-in-law, who wanted him locked up to avoid further scandals for her daughter and grandchildren. It was she who got a lettre de cachet* from the King; once incarcerated, and a trial refused, there was no chance of release. His wife did her best for him, and she wrote endless letters to the authorities, to no avail.

  The worst of his dungeons was Vincennes, dark and cold, where his health deteriorated and his eyes failed in the gloom. Ten years passed, and he was transferred to the Bastille; his cell was in a tower, and it was there that he wrote his fantasies. He based his stories on a few facts, and used his fevered imagination for th
e rest.

  In July 1789 he saw from his cell there was a demonstration outside the prison and improvising a megaphone he shouted to the crowd below to break in and deliver the prisoners. On the 14 July the mob did storm the Bastille, killing the Governor and freeing the seven prisoners; but Sade had been moved. He was soon released, and by a strange quirk of fate became a revolutionary judge, who had to try his hated parents-in-law for the new crime of being aristocrats. Showing that he was not, after all, a bad old fellow, he acquitted them.

  His freedom did not last long. He was imprisoned again because of his obscene books. As Donald Thomas points out in his well-written and well-researched book, the monster Marquis goes to such extremes in his novels that sometimes his readers are more inclined to laugh than anything else. Even Swinburne, whose tastes were similar, was convulsed with mirth when reading Justine aloud to Rossetti. Laughter is the deadly enemy of eroticism.

  Sade spent his last years in the relative comfort of Charenton lunatic asylum. Was he mad? Donald Thomas shows there was no evidence to convict him of crimes. He was wildly eccentric, and, as they say, his own worst enemy. Today, he would make a fortune. He was born too soon.