Is There a Link Between “Art” and Homosexuality?

For a few days now, Pakistan’s social media has been bustling in reaction to the recent news of Ali Sethi, a famous Pakistani singer, having married Salman Toor, a Pakistani painter based in the US.

As noted by the Indian DailyO, the rumors surrounding this wedding, which were later denied by Sethi, had triggered what they described as an avalanche of “orthodox” reactions.

We thus read:

• The rumoured wedding highlights the inherent homophobia in the Pakistani society.

 

• Pakistan, a country whose law is broadly based on the sharia, punishes homosexuality with a prison sentence ranging from 2 years to life.

 

• Ali Sethi, celebrated for his musical prowess and numerous chartbusters, is the son of public figures Najam Sethi and Jugnu Mohsin, and the brother of actress Mira Sethi.

In 2013, PEW Research found that only 2% of the Pakistanis surveyed agreed with the proposition, “homosexuality should be accepted by society,” alongside Tunisia. This was the second lowest among the surveyed countries. The lowest among the countries was Nigeria, with only 1% agreeing with the proposition. So what this Indian writer describes above as “the inherent homophobia in the Pakistani society” may actually not be an attempt at sensationalism.

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We can look beyond the specific case of Sethi and ask the question:

Why are there so many homosexual artists?

Mind you, this isn’t a phenomenon that is exclusive to left-liberal activists, as we also see self-styled right-wing ideologues with homosexual tendencies, including Japan’s Yukio Mishima and France’s Henry de Montherlant.

Dominique Fernandez is one of France’s most respected (and oldest) contemporary writers. As someone who himself infuses LGBTQ+ themes in his novels, he has also authored a whole trilogy of essays, penned over three decades, on the overrepresentation of homosexuals in “culture,” from Ancient Greece to modern times: Le Rapt de Ganymède (1989); L’Amour qui ose dire son nom (2001); Amants d’Apollon (2015).

France in particular seems to have a tendency to birth a lot of these homosexual intellectuals-activists, including André Gide, often considered the greatest French writer of the last century, who has an entire book, Corydon (1924), dedicated to not only defending homosexuality but also pederasty (the sexual relationship between an adult man and a boy), which Gide himself personally practiced in colonial North Africa.

Many other celebrated figures can also be mentioned, such as the likes of Marcel Proust and Jean Genet, to name just a few.

Some famed French writers like Hervé Guibert and Guillaume Dustan authored so-called autofiction, with much of their literary output being about their homosexual tendencies (both, of course, died of AIDS, a disease which is infamous for its homophobic tendencies).

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Many right-wing French writers are also open homosexuals, including Renaud Camus, the man who theorized “The Great Replacement” (Le Grand Remplacement)—the idea that native Europeans are being purposely replaced through mass immigration.

Camus, in the 1970s, prior to becoming a right-wing ideologue, was one of the first French novelists to incorporate LGBTQ+ themes in his work so unapologetically, while, in the process, also showcasing his “adventures” with North African men and his particular fondness for very young men (Camus was a friend of the late Tony Duvert, who is considered to be the apologist for adult-child relationships in France’s intellectual circles).

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But none of this really answers the central question:

Is there a link between art and homosexuality, to the extent that even artists or writers that may be “conservative” on virtually all other societal issues still struggle with it?

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We could say that “art” in the modern secular West is not only about individualism but mainly subjectivity. From a metaphysical perspective, subjectivity empowers the lower self and everything it embodies in terms of passions, which, of course, includes sexual urges. And with modern individualism being vehemently opposed to any form of tradition—including traditional gender dynamics—, the best way to weaponize one’s subjectivism is to “experiment” with counter-normative sexuality.

In his book, Art and Homosexuality: A History of Ideas, American academic Christopher Reed demonstrates that the link between homosexuality and the modern artist traces back to British writer Oscar Wilde and his aestheticism, especially in his famous novel, Dorian Gray.

He thus writes on pp.96-97:

Journalists condemned the book as “unmanly,” “effeminate,” and of only “medicolegal” interest. In the novel, Dorian Gray’s mysterious vices include nonsexual crimes involving drugs and forgery as he ruins the reputations of both men and women. Nevertheless, and despite the fact that Gray rejects—and finally murders—the male artist who might have redeemed him because he offered “a friendship so coloured by romance,” the prosecution of Wilde and his writings seemed finally to reveal homosexuality as the secret for which art is the symptom.

 

[…]

 

There were long-term effects as well. By linking modern aesthetics to an identity labeled as a pathology both by and of the literate bourgeoisie, the Wilde trials contributed powerfully to the often-noted rupture at this period between British avant-garde art and progressive class politics (so powerfully that Wilde is often asserted to have been apolitical despite the revolutionary sentiments expressed in writings like his “The Soul of Man Under Socialism”). A second long-term effect of the trials was to make Aestheticism the “look” of homosexuality, and thus a touchstone in the emergence of gay subcultures for decades to come. These effects were directly related to the rising importance of the mass media, which quickly transmitted new ideas to readers worldwide.

Homosexuality thus becomes a sort of forced aestheticism for the artist. It’s the best way to act and come across as subversive, to feel and be seen as creative and original. Not only is it deviance, but, in a civilization privileging individualism and subjectivism, it is also a statement.

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We can also note that, since there are now new sexual identities that are even more subversive than homosexuality, some of these right-wing homosexuals can now openly talk about their homosexual tendencies (whereas the likes of Mishima and Montherlant were more reserved), a notable case being that of Jack Donovan (a figure once associated with the alt-right) and his “neo-tribalism.”

We read, for example, in a 2017 article about gay alt-righters, white supremacists, and more:

In his book The Homo and the Negro, O’Meara says that gay white men represent the best of what Western culture has to offer because of their “intelligence” and “beauty,” and that “Negroes” represent the worst, being incapable of “achievement.” Donovan calls women “whores” and “bitches,” and, when a questioner on Reddit asked him his views of the Holocaust, responded, “What is this Holocaust thing? I’m drawing a blank.”

It seems that, for the sake of its individualism and subjectivism, the postmodern West is experimenting with sexuality to such a great degree that mere homosexuality is actually becoming conservative.

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