Requeering Oscar Wilde
March 29, 2025 2:43 PM Subscribe
Ellmann saw Wilde’s shift from female to male lovers as a ‘reorientation’. I would argue that a more accurate term to describe Wilde’s sexuality was that he was bisexual. Interviewed in Marjorie Garber’s Vice Versa (1995), the academic Jonathan Dollimore reflected similarly: ‘My feeling about Oscar Wilde is that he was certainly bisexual, and there is a sense in which I do deplore that representation of Wilde as living entirely in bad faith in relation to his wife.’ However, gay theorists have resisted this more complex and nuanced examination of Wilde’s sexuality. Take these words from the queer theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, interviewed in Outweek magazine in 1991: ‘I’m not sure that because there are people who identify as bisexual there is a bisexual identity …’ The interviewer goes on to summarise that: ‘In questioning whether bisexuality is a potent identity, Sedgwick points to historical figures the gay and lesbian community claims as lesbian and gay (Cole Porter, Eleanor Roosevelt, Virginia Woolf, Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde) – who would actually be classified as bisexual,’ to which Sedgwick concludes: ‘But the gay and lesbian movement isn’t interested in drawing that line.’
It's certainly possible that Oscar Wilde was bisexual! I don't think we can know for certain, especially as he can no longer speak for himself.
But I think multiple of the arguments this essay makes are pretty flawed.
Most glaringly, there is this:
Wilde married Constance Lloyd in 1884, a year before ‘acts of gross indecency’ were criminalised in the UK. It is hard, therefore, to argue that he felt forced to marry to conceal his gay leanings.
Hmm, I wonder if there were any other forms of social censure, heteronormative dynamics, or shaming of same-sex desires that might have been happening in the 1880s that would create social pressure for Wilde to conceal those gay leanings? Or is the essay seriously claiming that it was only this one particular law that mattered?
And then this:
However, in an interview with The Advocate magazine in 2008, Holland asserted that his grandfather married for love, and that his sexuality was complex: ‘If it was a black-and-white story of Oscar just being homosexual from the year one and concealing it and finally coming to terms with it, it would make a much less interesting story,’ concluding that, as a gay icon, Wilde is ‘flawed’.
As if queer people's family members never misrepresent their sexuality or gender! Again, it's certainly possible that Holland is right and that Oscar Wilde is bisexual. But it's also possible that Holland is emotionally invested in believing that his grandparents' marriage was not a lie.
Again and again, the essay naively accepts these sorts of evidence as obviously and simply true. Oscar Wilde wrote that he was thrilled to have a child and marriage was amazing! His mother-in-law remarked on how good of chemistry he had with his wife! He and his soon-to-be wife exchange telegrams multiple times!!!
These sorts of things have happened in many relationships, some of which were closeted gay men carefully and skillfully maintaining the persona they needed to maintain to be safe and some of which were bisexual men authentically describing and engaging in romantic relationships with women. Which of these was happening with Oscar Wilde? I don't think we can know with certainty.
I think there's as much shaping of a preferred narrative (and related political posturing) in labeling Oscar Wilde as bisexual as there is in labeling him gay. But of course writing an essay that says, "The story might be more complicated than we think, we can't really know for sure" is unlikely to generate much attention.
posted by overglow at 3:33 PM on March 29 [15 favorites]
But I think multiple of the arguments this essay makes are pretty flawed.
Most glaringly, there is this:
Wilde married Constance Lloyd in 1884, a year before ‘acts of gross indecency’ were criminalised in the UK. It is hard, therefore, to argue that he felt forced to marry to conceal his gay leanings.
Hmm, I wonder if there were any other forms of social censure, heteronormative dynamics, or shaming of same-sex desires that might have been happening in the 1880s that would create social pressure for Wilde to conceal those gay leanings? Or is the essay seriously claiming that it was only this one particular law that mattered?
And then this:
However, in an interview with The Advocate magazine in 2008, Holland asserted that his grandfather married for love, and that his sexuality was complex: ‘If it was a black-and-white story of Oscar just being homosexual from the year one and concealing it and finally coming to terms with it, it would make a much less interesting story,’ concluding that, as a gay icon, Wilde is ‘flawed’.
As if queer people's family members never misrepresent their sexuality or gender! Again, it's certainly possible that Holland is right and that Oscar Wilde is bisexual. But it's also possible that Holland is emotionally invested in believing that his grandparents' marriage was not a lie.
Again and again, the essay naively accepts these sorts of evidence as obviously and simply true. Oscar Wilde wrote that he was thrilled to have a child and marriage was amazing! His mother-in-law remarked on how good of chemistry he had with his wife! He and his soon-to-be wife exchange telegrams multiple times!!!
These sorts of things have happened in many relationships, some of which were closeted gay men carefully and skillfully maintaining the persona they needed to maintain to be safe and some of which were bisexual men authentically describing and engaging in romantic relationships with women. Which of these was happening with Oscar Wilde? I don't think we can know with certainty.
I think there's as much shaping of a preferred narrative (and related political posturing) in labeling Oscar Wilde as bisexual as there is in labeling him gay. But of course writing an essay that says, "The story might be more complicated than we think, we can't really know for sure" is unlikely to generate much attention.
posted by overglow at 3:33 PM on March 29 [15 favorites]
I am a Walt Whitman expert currently mid-way through a deep dive into issues of Whitman's sexuality, and I think it is vanishingly unlikely that he was bisexual rather than what we would call gay.
posted by Well I never at 3:44 PM on March 29 [9 favorites]
posted by Well I never at 3:44 PM on March 29 [9 favorites]
Overall, I liked the article. The author shows a good understanding of the historical moment of Wilde's trial—it's fascinating stuff, Addington Symonds and Havelock Ellis et al—and, I think, of Wilde's life. I have no objection to suggestions that Wilde was bisexual, based on what I know about his life, which is that I've read more Wilde biographies than most people probably have, as well as a smattering of scholarship.
posted by Well I never at 3:49 PM on March 29 [4 favorites]
posted by Well I never at 3:49 PM on March 29 [4 favorites]
The idea that there is any need to assign a correct identity to Wilde is emblematic of the whole problem, the historical moment he was living through, the mania for diagnosis, classification, control. When we take on an identity, it isn't because the identity is true, it's because we're making an accommodation between ourselves and a world that cannot stop scrutinizing difference. It's less a label and more a map of our navigation around dangerous shores.
To my mind, the essay throws Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick under the bus a bit, and as I was a bi english major in the 90s, that simply will not do. She's making a more interesting point than the essay gives her credit for: "To the degree that the lesbian and gay movement says people who are bisexual aren't part of this movement, then to that degree a bisexual identity would become more distinct, more necessary, more meaningful." That is, identity is born from conflict and the creation of boundaries.
(BY THE WAY, jesus christ, the piece mentions Outweek so I went and looked at their archive online to get the above quote, and if you need a hit of gay magazine nostalgia, holy shit, I'm about to cry just scrolling around and looking at the ads.)
What I'm saying is that we shouldn't try to find the correct thing to call Wilde; we should step back and realize that our naming of Wilde is a political act, an act of control, not an innocent uncovering of the truth, not a diagnosis. We may want him to be something different than we were told he is. (In the modern era, for instance, we might want to focus more on the ages of his chosen partners, which the essay very lightly touches on, but does not seem to want to dwell on.)
posted by mittens at 3:56 PM on March 29 [78 favorites]
To my mind, the essay throws Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick under the bus a bit, and as I was a bi english major in the 90s, that simply will not do. She's making a more interesting point than the essay gives her credit for: "To the degree that the lesbian and gay movement says people who are bisexual aren't part of this movement, then to that degree a bisexual identity would become more distinct, more necessary, more meaningful." That is, identity is born from conflict and the creation of boundaries.
(BY THE WAY, jesus christ, the piece mentions Outweek so I went and looked at their archive online to get the above quote, and if you need a hit of gay magazine nostalgia, holy shit, I'm about to cry just scrolling around and looking at the ads.)
What I'm saying is that we shouldn't try to find the correct thing to call Wilde; we should step back and realize that our naming of Wilde is a political act, an act of control, not an innocent uncovering of the truth, not a diagnosis. We may want him to be something different than we were told he is. (In the modern era, for instance, we might want to focus more on the ages of his chosen partners, which the essay very lightly touches on, but does not seem to want to dwell on.)
posted by mittens at 3:56 PM on March 29 [78 favorites]
(oh also, not to abuse the edit window, but the essay mentions tom crewe, and if you haven't read his the new life you absolutely should.)
posted by mittens at 3:58 PM on March 29
posted by mittens at 3:58 PM on March 29
"To the degree that the lesbian and gay movement says people who are bisexual aren't part of this movement, then to that degree a bisexual identity would become more distinct, more necessary, more meaningful."
As a bisexual, "would become" is Sedgwick having some serious blinders. It is meaningful because gay and lesbian people do tell us that we aren't part of the movement, in all sorts of subtle ways, every fucking day.
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:03 PM on March 29 [16 favorites]
As a bisexual, "would become" is Sedgwick having some serious blinders. It is meaningful because gay and lesbian people do tell us that we aren't part of the movement, in all sorts of subtle ways, every fucking day.
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:03 PM on March 29 [16 favorites]
When we take on an identity, it isn't because the identity is true, it's because we're making an accommodation between ourselves and a world that cannot stop scrutinizing difference. It's less a label and more a map of our navigation around dangerous shores.
Flagged as fantastic, mittens.
posted by eirias at 6:08 PM on March 29 [9 favorites]
Flagged as fantastic, mittens.
posted by eirias at 6:08 PM on March 29 [9 favorites]
I’m fairly conflicted about this. Bisexual erasure is a thing, but our ideas about sexuality are just that — our ideas. Ideas about what it was to be gay, lesbian, trans, etc fucking etc have changed dramatically in 10-15 years. People under their mid-40s, unless they are very into LGBTQ+ history, have no idea what the early 90s were like and how queer people thought about themselves and each other, and the 1890s were an entirely different world. The progressive people in 1890s England had a class gloss on their understanding of sexuality, with working class perverts and upper class inverts in a way that’s hard to parse these days, and they were only dimly grasping towards an idea that homosexuality was something you were rather than something you did. And yet, somehow, men sill loved and fucked men and women still loved and fucked women, regardless of the cultural framework.
Arguing about whether a person in the 19th C was gay, bisexual, or any other category is both kind of useless and (I think) a bit disrespectful to that person, who has no opportunity to self-identify. On the other hand, if we can’t claim people from the past as our own, we will never have any history at all.
So, I dunno; you pay your money and you take your chance.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:19 PM on March 29 [22 favorites]
Arguing about whether a person in the 19th C was gay, bisexual, or any other category is both kind of useless and (I think) a bit disrespectful to that person, who has no opportunity to self-identify. On the other hand, if we can’t claim people from the past as our own, we will never have any history at all.
So, I dunno; you pay your money and you take your chance.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:19 PM on March 29 [22 favorites]
People call human patterns of sexual preference a spectrum, but I don't think many of us take that metaphor as seriously as we should.
We divide the visible spectrum of sunlight we see into six or seven distinct colors, but the energy distribution of wavelengths of sunlight across that spectrum are perfectly smooth and without discontinuity, and the distinct colors we see are imposed by a combination of our underlying physiology and our overlying cultures.
posted by jamjam at 6:32 PM on March 29 [11 favorites]
We divide the visible spectrum of sunlight we see into six or seven distinct colors, but the energy distribution of wavelengths of sunlight across that spectrum are perfectly smooth and without discontinuity, and the distinct colors we see are imposed by a combination of our underlying physiology and our overlying cultures.
posted by jamjam at 6:32 PM on March 29 [11 favorites]
mittens, I really appreciate your comment. I've been doing a lot of thinking about labels, the ones we choose and the ones we don't, and the uses we put them to, especially as I've been doing work on queernesses of the 19th century. I recently read the book Queer Callings: Untimely Notes on Names and Desires by Mark D. Jordan, and found it a really useful meditation on the subject.
posted by Well I never at 10:13 PM on March 29 [3 favorites]
posted by Well I never at 10:13 PM on March 29 [3 favorites]
I am a Walt Whitman expert currently mid-way through a deep dive into issues of Whitman's sexuality
Random aside, but the name of my great-great-grandfather's first cousin (my first cousin, 4x removed) appears in Whitman's notebooks from his time in Washington, DC, around 1871-72, along with the name of a restaurant; said cousin was then about 20 years old, and just returned to civilian life after a stint as a bugler in the 5th US Cavalry on the Plains. He was arrested at about the same time and described in the newspaper as "a well-dressed young man who hangs around the YMCA." That certainly has implications; based on the little I know I suspect that this cousin may have also bisexual (he married twice and had two children).
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 12:07 AM on March 30 [11 favorites]
Random aside, but the name of my great-great-grandfather's first cousin (my first cousin, 4x removed) appears in Whitman's notebooks from his time in Washington, DC, around 1871-72, along with the name of a restaurant; said cousin was then about 20 years old, and just returned to civilian life after a stint as a bugler in the 5th US Cavalry on the Plains. He was arrested at about the same time and described in the newspaper as "a well-dressed young man who hangs around the YMCA." That certainly has implications; based on the little I know I suspect that this cousin may have also bisexual (he married twice and had two children).
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 12:07 AM on March 30 [11 favorites]
Simone de Beauvoir turnned up when I googled about mittens' comment
All of us here will be remembered far worse for our far greater sin. lol
posted by jeffburdges at 3:10 AM on March 30 [3 favorites]
All of us here will be remembered far worse for our far greater sin. lol
posted by jeffburdges at 3:10 AM on March 30 [3 favorites]
Mittens I’m keeping your comment about labels *forever*. Fantastic.
posted by aesop at 4:16 AM on March 30 [3 favorites]
posted by aesop at 4:16 AM on March 30 [3 favorites]
There is one thing about Wilde's sexuality that I'm quite certain of: if we were to resurrect Wilde and ask him his orientation today, he would (I'm sorry) refuse to give a straight answer. The man was just too wonderfully mischievous.
posted by Kitten as a cat at 5:51 AM on March 30 [7 favorites]
posted by Kitten as a cat at 5:51 AM on March 30 [7 favorites]
I'm 103% heterovanilla, just who I am, not homophobia. So, coming from a place of no direct experience, why is it that so many gay people are hostile or dismissive toward bi people? Like, weirdly hostile. I know tons of gay people, I'm like whatever, have fun being you, but I can think of probably a dozen times where these otherwise fine and open-minded people got a bug up their butt about bi people. I'm like I like women, you like dudes, she likes'em both, what's the difference? And yeah, trying to pin modern labels on anyone before about 1950 is an exercise in futility.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 7:11 AM on March 30 [3 favorites]
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 7:11 AM on March 30 [3 favorites]
As a bi person I find myself politely excusing myself from a lot of discourse around my sexuality, not because it’s useless but because it can often seem hopelessly tethered to our specific time and place, and therefore more like news than anything more substantial.
@mittens your post put words to that feeling for me, and was loving and thoughtful too. Much appreciated.
posted by mathjus at 7:46 AM on March 30 [2 favorites]
@mittens your post put words to that feeling for me, and was loving and thoughtful too. Much appreciated.
posted by mathjus at 7:46 AM on March 30 [2 favorites]
I think ultimately the issue is that so much about identity is political, and determined by the age in which we live.
I'm old enough that I remember when people started coming up with, or at least really *pushing* the "Born This Way" thing, and it got a *lot* of traction - it was one of the things that really seemed to eventually make a mark in a lot of more intolerant communities, the idea that people couldn't *help* their sexuality, it was just inborn and forever, and you couldn't blame them for it, it is just who they *are*. And to a certain extent that helped stop the horrors of like, conversion therapy and such...
And at the same time, I know that sexuality is a spectrum, and I have a Gen Z kid, and I've been learning a lot from them about how they see sexuality, and realizing that a lot of it, for a lot of queer people, *is* fluid. And some people are bisexual, or demisexual, or pansexual, and that it's more than people think, and that those numbers expanded the more that kids felt like they weren't betraying anyone by going back and forth.
And also like as I get older I know that so much of sexuality is also hormones, and love, and how we feel about *ourselves* at any given moment. It's so much less about bodies, the older I get. Just as when I was younger I thought that people who cheated on their spouses must not love them, I now understand that people can separate love and sex, I now also wonder if people sometimes can separate different kinds of sexual love. Maybe Wilde, and maybe others, separated out kind of that all-consuming passionate sexual love, and kind of...companionate sexual love.
But also: who makes us feel good about ourselves? I don't think it's a coincidence that Wilde was involved with significantly younger men at a time when he himself was conflicted about aging - by one argument, perhaps an attempt perhaps to prove to himself that he was still young and attractive, that life hadn't passed him by, that he hadn't missed out by not being brave enough earlier - by another argument, perhaps the age at which he stopped aging. I don't think there lacks enough evidence that Wilde liked women - one of the things that makes his plays so popular is that his understanding of and genuine affection for women really shines through them.
But also; the idea that you can have different kinds of sexual love or that you can choose the kind of sexual love you engage with threatens, I think, queerness so much because many people have been just begged by family members to accept less, to just accept a friend, that there's been almost this huge counter-reaction. It's what created gay men being absolutely misogynistic back in the 90s, with incredibly awful terms for female genitalia and women overall - "see, we hate them, we could never be with them, now let us alone to be with each other."
I don't know. I long for a time in which people can just be and do whatever they want to be, and love whoever they want to love, without worrying about what they are saying by doing so. When we can ask these questions. But that definitely isn't this time. Maybe not for the next twenty years. It's interesting seeing scholarship like this because it already feels dated, like a message from the past.
posted by FutureExpatCorb at 8:27 AM on March 30 [9 favorites]
I'm old enough that I remember when people started coming up with, or at least really *pushing* the "Born This Way" thing, and it got a *lot* of traction - it was one of the things that really seemed to eventually make a mark in a lot of more intolerant communities, the idea that people couldn't *help* their sexuality, it was just inborn and forever, and you couldn't blame them for it, it is just who they *are*. And to a certain extent that helped stop the horrors of like, conversion therapy and such...
And at the same time, I know that sexuality is a spectrum, and I have a Gen Z kid, and I've been learning a lot from them about how they see sexuality, and realizing that a lot of it, for a lot of queer people, *is* fluid. And some people are bisexual, or demisexual, or pansexual, and that it's more than people think, and that those numbers expanded the more that kids felt like they weren't betraying anyone by going back and forth.
And also like as I get older I know that so much of sexuality is also hormones, and love, and how we feel about *ourselves* at any given moment. It's so much less about bodies, the older I get. Just as when I was younger I thought that people who cheated on their spouses must not love them, I now understand that people can separate love and sex, I now also wonder if people sometimes can separate different kinds of sexual love. Maybe Wilde, and maybe others, separated out kind of that all-consuming passionate sexual love, and kind of...companionate sexual love.
But also: who makes us feel good about ourselves? I don't think it's a coincidence that Wilde was involved with significantly younger men at a time when he himself was conflicted about aging - by one argument, perhaps an attempt perhaps to prove to himself that he was still young and attractive, that life hadn't passed him by, that he hadn't missed out by not being brave enough earlier - by another argument, perhaps the age at which he stopped aging. I don't think there lacks enough evidence that Wilde liked women - one of the things that makes his plays so popular is that his understanding of and genuine affection for women really shines through them.
But also; the idea that you can have different kinds of sexual love or that you can choose the kind of sexual love you engage with threatens, I think, queerness so much because many people have been just begged by family members to accept less, to just accept a friend, that there's been almost this huge counter-reaction. It's what created gay men being absolutely misogynistic back in the 90s, with incredibly awful terms for female genitalia and women overall - "see, we hate them, we could never be with them, now let us alone to be with each other."
I don't know. I long for a time in which people can just be and do whatever they want to be, and love whoever they want to love, without worrying about what they are saying by doing so. When we can ask these questions. But that definitely isn't this time. Maybe not for the next twenty years. It's interesting seeing scholarship like this because it already feels dated, like a message from the past.
posted by FutureExpatCorb at 8:27 AM on March 30 [9 favorites]
why is it that so many gay people are hostile or dismissive toward bi people?
It may have something to do with what's sometimes referred to as "bisexual privilege" or "straight passing", the idea that bisexual people in heterosexual relationships can pass themselves off as straight. Lots of bi people have pushed back against this, e.g. these posts on bi.org and Medium.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:27 AM on March 30
It may have something to do with what's sometimes referred to as "bisexual privilege" or "straight passing", the idea that bisexual people in heterosexual relationships can pass themselves off as straight. Lots of bi people have pushed back against this, e.g. these posts on bi.org and Medium.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:27 AM on March 30
In the current political climate, it's frustrating to read the claim that:
I like this more nuanced take on the concept of straight passing privilege because it acknowledges many things, including the suffering of queer people in apparently heterosexual relationships, the invisibilizing of bisexual people, the real differences in exposure to harassment and violence (which includes more facets of identity, i.e. race and culture), and the layers of safety and belonging, all of which are real and important things!
posted by overglow at 12:27 PM on March 30 [4 favorites]
The only “privilege” we have in straight passing relationships is that we don’t face abuse when holding hands with or kissing our partner in publicAs if queer people in same-sex relationships are not worried about losing legal recognition of their marriages! As if queer people in same-sex relationships don't face additional obstacles and prejudice while attempting to adopt children! As if queer people in same-sex relationships don't have to research which countries and areas it's safe to travel to!
I like this more nuanced take on the concept of straight passing privilege because it acknowledges many things, including the suffering of queer people in apparently heterosexual relationships, the invisibilizing of bisexual people, the real differences in exposure to harassment and violence (which includes more facets of identity, i.e. race and culture), and the layers of safety and belonging, all of which are real and important things!
posted by overglow at 12:27 PM on March 30 [4 favorites]
Criticism of bi-erasure will always be punching down.
posted by groda at 2:45 PM on March 31 [4 favorites]
posted by groda at 2:45 PM on March 31 [4 favorites]
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