Perversion the Social Relation

i66Michael P. BiblerThe extent to which homo-ness pushes Nat toward insurrection becomesmost evident in the particular manner in which he tries to buildand justify his revolution. But if we are to accept the power of Nat'sexperience of homo-ness with Willis, Styron's novel shows that weshouldn't rush into assuming that homosexuality offers this model forsocial transformation consistently, as though same-sex relations wouldalways mean the same thing between men or between women everytime. Just as, for Nat, the specific hierarchies of race, class, and genderenable his experience of sameness with another black male slave,they will also enable or restrict the experience and significance of sexualsameness depending on the identities of those involved. Indeed, Styron'snovel makes it perfectly clear that not every expression of same-sexdesire is also an example of homo-ness. In contrast to Nat's sexual encounterwith Willis, and just a few pages after it, the novel provides animage of same-sex relations that incorporates the significantly differentpattern of domination and submission. In the scene, Nat begins his accountof his life with his new master, the Reverend Eppes, by describingthe way that Eppes blatantly tries to "ravish" him (239). Riding on thebuggy away from Turner's plantation, Eppes strikes up a religious discoursewith Nat to disguise his more sinister proposition that Nat shouldsubmit to Eppes sexually. Eppes claims that King Solomon made it clearin the Bible that women are "whores" who always cause the downfalls ofmen; then he infers that since the Scripture also identifies men as "good"and "beautiful," sexual contact between men must be acceptable andsafe in comparison (236-37). Then, after a pause, Eppes stops the buggy,puts a hand on Nat's thigh, and tries more directly to seduce Nat bygetting him to verify the myth of black men's larger penises: "I hear tellyour average nigger boy's got a member on him inch or so longer'n ordinary.That right, boy?" (238). In this simple question, Eppes reassertsthe social difference between himself and Nat by invoking several otheraxes of difference—race ("nigger"), physiology (a penis "longer'n ordinary"),age ("boy"), and mental capability (also the infantilizing "boy").Proving that he is neither an emasculated deviant nor a hopeless submissive,Nat resists this advance, and the frustrated Eppes ends the encounterwith a remark that further puts Nat "in his place" as a slave:"You goin' to mind me, boy?" (238). Eppes focuses his sexual desire forNat on the idea of Nat's difference, eroticizing his racial difference to thepoint of obsessing about the size of his penis while also getting a thrill