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Flaunting Manliness: Republican Masculinity, Virilised Homosexuality and the Desirable Male Body

Flaunting Manliness: Republican Masculinity, Virilised Homosexuality and the Desirable Male Body Flaunting Manliness: Republican Masculinity, Virilised Homosexuality and the Desirable Male Body Fae Brauer "France", declared the Third Republic's demographer, Jacques Bertillon, "is plagued by the crimes of Onan and sins against nature." Effeminacy, waning virility and both "perverse" and "inverse" sexual practices had all wrought, Bertillon reported to the Depopulation Commission, a national crisis. They had caused the French birth rate to lag dangerously behind that of other countries, particularly the newly-formed German empire. They had produced a deep-seated paranoia that, in the succinct words of Alain Corbin, "the virile member would not rise at the appropriate moment." To promote republican masculinity and redress the depopulation crisis, Bertillon, supported by some five hundred French natality leagues, heroised fathers of large families as selfless "manly" patriots. Bachelors were reviled as their opposite: selfish, unpatriotic "inverts", the term most commonly used for homosexuals, tainted by ona­ nism, sodomy and unmanly effeminacy. Following Ambroise Tardieu's survey, "inverts" were not just effeminate and unmanly but somatically stigmatised with "pointy penises" and "flaccid" rather than "bulging buttocks". Spurred on by the outcome ofthe Oscar Wilde Trials, natality leagues lobbied vehemently for prosecution of any public mani­ festation of "inversion", particularly in the nation's decadent http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art Taylor & Francis

Flaunting Manliness: Republican Masculinity, Virilised Homosexuality and the Desirable Male Body

Brauer, Fae
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art , Volume 6 (1): 19 – Jan 1, 2005
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19 pages

Flaunting Manliness: Republican Masculinity, Virilised Homosexuality and the Desirable Male Body

Abstract

Flaunting Manliness: Republican Masculinity, Virilised Homosexuality and the Desirable Male Body Fae Brauer "France", declared the Third Republic's demographer, Jacques Bertillon, "is plagued by the crimes of Onan and sins against nature." Effeminacy, waning virility and both "perverse" and "inverse" sexual practices had all wrought, Bertillon reported to the Depopulation Commission, a national crisis. They had caused the French birth rate to lag...
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Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Copyright
© 2005 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC
ISSN
2203-1871
eISSN
1443-4318
DOI
10.1080/14434318.2005.11432751
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Flaunting Manliness: Republican Masculinity, Virilised Homosexuality and the Desirable Male Body Fae Brauer "France", declared the Third Republic's demographer, Jacques Bertillon, "is plagued by the crimes of Onan and sins against nature." Effeminacy, waning virility and both "perverse" and "inverse" sexual practices had all wrought, Bertillon reported to the Depopulation Commission, a national crisis. They had caused the French birth rate to lag dangerously behind that of other countries, particularly the newly-formed German empire. They had produced a deep-seated paranoia that, in the succinct words of Alain Corbin, "the virile member would not rise at the appropriate moment." To promote republican masculinity and redress the depopulation crisis, Bertillon, supported by some five hundred French natality leagues, heroised fathers of large families as selfless "manly" patriots. Bachelors were reviled as their opposite: selfish, unpatriotic "inverts", the term most commonly used for homosexuals, tainted by ona­ nism, sodomy and unmanly effeminacy. Following Ambroise Tardieu's survey, "inverts" were not just effeminate and unmanly but somatically stigmatised with "pointy penises" and "flaccid" rather than "bulging buttocks". Spurred on by the outcome ofthe Oscar Wilde Trials, natality leagues lobbied vehemently for prosecution of any public mani­ festation of "inversion", particularly in the nation's decadent

Journal

Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art – Taylor & Francis

Published: Jan 1, 2005

References

  • Une Révolution anatomique, L'Écorché mort et l'Écorché vivant
  • Annales de l'unisexualité
  • Man's desire was…the tranquil peace of the gymnasium