Looking at a photo from the performance it’s hard not to see what they were implying about the characters. Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta Patience was entirely dedicated to making fun of the effeminate aesthetes. They were mocked constantly in the press, both affectionately and not-so-affectionately. Dressing in knee-breeches and flowers - most famously green carnations - they made beauty the object of their lives and their art. The Aesthetes of the late 19th century were a prime example of Victorian camp. Their dress and mannerisms are stereotypical depictions of the Aesthetes. A promotional photo for Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience. Another stereotype was “camp” behavior, which many gay men used for practical reasons: they could use effeminate mannerisms, fashions, and expressions, then write them off as wry humor rather than actual expressions of homosexuality. Even many innocent-seeming adjectives implied homosexuality: earnest, languid, sterile.
Others stereotypes seem inexplicable (crooked fingers, carnations). Some of these stereotypes have persisted to the modern day (limp wrists, lisps, “musical” young men).
#Oscar wilde gay voice code#
Writers and artists used stereotypical traits to code certain characters as homosexuals. In Victorian England, there were a number of styles, interests, and other traits associated with homosexuality, as there are today. As far as law enforcement statistics go, the 20th century would prove to be far more oppressive. Despite these laws, actual charges were very rare in fact, there was no significant increase in the number of sodomy charges throughout the entire 19th century in England. Oscar Wilde would eventually be tried under the Labouchere Amendment in 1894. The 1885 Labouchere Amendment changed that by also criminalizing “gross indecency” - meaning all male-male sex acts besides sodomy. (Sodomy was defined as anal intercourse.) However, sodomy laws were difficult to enforce. The legal system was more oppressive: in the early half of the 19th century sodomy carried the death penalty, and in the latter half it carried a life sentence. The text of the 1885 Labouchere Amendment. The condemnation of gay people and gay novels in the press was merely the rage of a small minority of rich conservatives who could afford to voice their opinions. Silence, loneliness, and shame were the most common oppressive forces among gay men and women, who for the most part could only suppress their sexuality.
Because homosexuality was such a taboo topic in public discourse, outright homophobia was less common than curiosity or indifference.
Overall, public opinion on homosexuality in Victorian England was not as hateful as one might assume. Novels with coded homoerotic themes like The Picture of Dorian Gray flew off the shelves, even as major booksellers refused to stock them. Nevertheless, it was a popular subject in fiction. Everybody knew it happened but couldn’t directly refer to it in polite society or in newspapers. Sex between men in Victorian England was an open secret.
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