Perversion the Social Relation

"As If Set Free into Another Land" 163the rifts between communities. Of course, this model is Utopian, andStyron's construction of Nat's rebellion ultimately fails to account forand resolve the web of complications involved in building a new formof social equality based on the highly subjective concept of sameness.Yet even in Nat's, and by extension, Styron's, failures, the text neverthelessoffers a profound example of the ways that same-sex desire andhomosexual relations can possess this remarkable structural potentialfor resisting the dominant networks of social power in favor of a muchmore equitable alternative.Homo-ness, Freedom, and BaptismOccupying a place in the text that is almost precisely central, Nat'shomosexual encounter with Willis marks a momentous transition inNat's life. Reflecting on the encounter later, Nat claims that it felt likea "promontory" on the way toward both the salvation of "the distanthills of the Lord" and the "astonishing abyss" and "howling winds" ofwarfare, murder, and revolt. 9 Although the scene is hardly the only causefor Nat's movement toward rebellion, Styron positions this brief homosexualencounter within Nat's confession as the seminal moment, as itwere, that begins Nat's treacherous path to the uprising he organizesyears later. In what begins as a very idyllic scene, Nat and Willis arefishing one Sunday when Willis pricks his fingerand curses, "fuckin'Jesus!" Ever religious, Nat takes offense and "so swiftly that I hardlyknew what I was doing I rapped him sharply across the lips, drawinga tiny runnel of blood" (204). Nat's blow hurts Willis emotionally, ofcourse, and Nat, realizing what he has done, suddenly feels "a pang ofguilt and pain at my anger, a rush of pity . . . mingled with a hungrytenderness that stirred me in a way I had never known." He reaches upto wipe away the blood on Willis's lip, and the two end up making love:"I reached up ... pulling him near with the feel of his shoulders slipperybeneath my hand, and then we somehow fell on each other, veryclose, soft and comfortable in a sprawl like babies; beneath my exploringfingershis hot skin throbbed and pulsed like the throat of a pigeon,and I heard him sigh in a faraway voice, and then for a long moment asif set free into another land we did with our hands together what, before,I had done alone. Never had I known that human fleshcould be