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To me it seems certain that in the United States, even if the basis for sexual misery still exists, the
interest in friendship has become very important: one doesn't enter a relationship simply in order to
be able to consummate it sexually, which happens very easily. But towards friendship people are
very polarized. How can a relational system be reached through sexual practices? Is it possible to
create a homosexual mode of life?
This notion of a mode of life seems important to me. Will it require the introduction of a
diversification different from the ones due to social class, differences in profession and culture, a
diversification which would also be a form of relationship and which would be a "way of life"? A way
of life can be shared among individuals of different age, status and social activity. It can yield
intense relations not resembling those that are institutionalized. It seems to me that a way of life
can yield a culture and an ethics. To be "gay," I think, is not to identify with the psychological traits
and the visible masks of the homosexual, but to try to define and develop a way of life.
Isn't it a myth to say: here we are enjoying the first fruits of a socialization between different
classes, ages and countries?
Yes, like the great myth of saying: there will no longer be any difference between homo- and
heterosexuality. Moreover, I think that it's one of the reasons that homosexuality presents a
problem today. Many sexual liberation movements project this idea of "liberating yourself from the
hideous constraints that weigh upon you." Yet the affirmation that to be a homosexual is, for a
man, to love another man this search for a way of life runs counter to the ideology of the sexual
liberation movements of the '60s. It's in this sense that the mustached "clones" are significant It's a
way of responding: "Don't worry; the more one is liberated, the less one will love women, the less
one will founder in this poly-sexuality where there are no longer any differences between the two."
It's not at all the idea of a great community fusion.
Homosexuality is an historic occasion to re-open affective and relational virtualities, not so much
through the intrinsic qualities of the homosexual, but due to the biases against the position he
occupies; in a certain sense diagonal lines that he can trace in the social fabric permit him to make
these virtualities visible.
Women might object: what do men together have to win compared to the relations between a man
and a woman or between two women?
There is a book that just appeared in the U.S. on friendships between women. The affection and
passion between women is well-documented. In the preface the author states that she began with
the idea of unearthing homosexual relationships but she perceived that not only were these
relationships not always present but it was uninteresting whether relationships could be called
homosexual or not. And by letting the relationship manifest itself as it appeared in words and
gestures, other very essential things also appeared: dense, bright, marvelous loves and affections
or very dark and sad loves. The book shows the extent to which woman's body has played a great
role, and the importance of physical contact between women: women do each other's hair, help
each other with make-up, dress each other. Women have had access to the bodies of other
women: they put their arms around each other, kiss each other. Man's body has been forbidden to
other men in a much more drastic way. If it's true that life between women was tolerated, it's only in
certain periods and since the 19th century that life between men not only was tolerated but
rigorously necessary: very simply during war.
And equally in prison camps. You had soldiers and young officers who spent months and even
years together. During WWI men lived together completely, one on top of another, and for them it
was nothing at all, insofar as death was present and finally the devotion to one another and the
services rendered were sanctioned by the play of life and death. And apart from several remarks
on camaraderie, the brotherhood of spirit, and some very partial observations, what do we know
about the emotional uproars and storms of feeling that took place in those times? One can wonder
how, in these absurd and grotesque wars and infernal massacres, the men managed to hold on in
spite of everything. Through some emotional fabric no doubt. I don't mean that it was because they
were each other's lovers that they continued to fight. But honor, courage, not losing face, sacrifice,
leaving the trench with the captain all that implied a very intense emotional tie. It's not to say: "...
Ah, there you have homosexuality!" I detest that kind of reasoning. But no doubt you have there
one of the conditions, not the only one, that has permitted this infernal life where for weeks guys [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]