In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

MALE = FEMALE
(GENDER TROUBLE)
The license to speak about sexual practices that diverge from the biological
need for reproduction depends on a certain perspective from which
they appear as anomalies. As male homosexuality becomes an increasingly
popular topic, the premise underlying the discussion holds that love
between men blurs the distinction between Male and Female, which is
viewed as natural. A favorite emblem for male forms of Gender Trouble
is the bullfighter, whose confrontation with the untamed forces of nature
paradoxically conjoins the traditionally male value of physical prowess
and the traditionally female attribute of physical inferiority. [see
Bullfighting, Male vs. Female] Despite the complexity of this emblem,
the popular imagination stereotypically-and obsessively-represents
homosexual men as effeminate. In Ramon del Valle-lncIan's novel Tirano
Banderas, a homosexual character-Spain's ambassador to a small Latin
American republic-is constructed via the simple logic of replacing supposedly
male attributes with their female opposites: "The most excellent
Senor Don Mariano Isabel Cristino Queralt y Roca de Togores, Baron
of Benicarles and Grand Master of Ronda, had the voice of a whore and
the gait of a ballerina. Eye-catching, big, unusual, highly skilled at whispering
and gossip, he was naturally mellifluous. He spoke through his
nose like a Frenchman, and beneath his fleshy eyelids there was a touch
of perverse literature. He was a useless and pompous figure, a literary
snob, a dilettante in decadent literary circIes, celebrating the rituals and
glories of French meter" (Valle-lncIan, 29). [see Dancing, Authenticity
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