Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Insult and the making of the gay self

2005; Association of College and Research Libraries; Volume: 42; Issue: 05 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5860/choice.42-2877

1943-5975

Didier Éribon,

Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism

M. de Charlus did not care to go about with M. de Vaugoubert.For the latter, his monocle stuck in his eye, would keep looking round at every passing youth.What was worse, shedding all restraint when he was with M. de Charlus, he adopted a form of speech which the Baron detested.He referred to everything male in the feminine, and, being intensely stupid, imagined this pleasantry to be extremely witty, and was continually in fits of laughter.As at the same time he attached enormous importance to his position in the diplomatic service, these deplorable sniggering exhibitions in the street were constantly interrupted by sudden fits of terror at the simultaneous appearance of some society person or, worse still, of some civil servant.''That little telegraph messenger,'' he said, nudging the scowling Baron with his elbow, ''I used to know her, but she's turned respectable, the wretch!Oh! that messenger from the Galeries Lafayette, what a dream!Good God, there's the head of the Commercial Department.I hope he didn't notice anything.He's quite capable of mentioning it to the Minister, who would put me on the retired list, all the more so because it appears he's one himself.''∞ How can one not recognize, in this scene written nearly a century ago and so precisely linked to the time of its writing (by, for example, the reference to the ''telegraph messenger''), something that might just as well be taking place today, a scene that perhaps many gay people will have experienced, or whose equivalent they will have witnessed?How many of them speak in the feminine, about themselves or about boys passed on the street, yet police