Wilde's Argument - Sarah McKinley

Sarah McKinley
Blog Post #1 - Wilde

      Wilde appeals to historical great minds' representation of and participation in same-sex intimacy to legitimize contemporary same-sex intimacy in the minds of his accusers. He uses elevated artists like Michelangelo and Shakespeare and philosophers like Plato in his rhetoric to articulate not only that same-sex intimacy is natural, but also socially beneficial (I am recalling our class discussion related to capitalism) and perhaps an element of the creative process. He removes desire from same-sex intimacy in the minds of his accusers and instead paints it as intellectual, noble, and even platonic. Wilde presents a problematic, yet necessary given his delicate position, defense of same-sex intimacy that calls the dominant culture perverse for misunderstanding and sexualizing something that Wilde asserts is not sexual. He turns the prosecution's argument on its head. He calls same-sex intimate relationships “spiritual,” appealing to religious values of the culture.

     A strategy Wilde uses to desexualize same-sex intimacy in this context is to recall an image of Greek pederasty and to rename instances of contemporary same-sex intimacy as pederastic. “It is intellectual, and it repeatedly exists between an elder and a younger man, when the elder man has intellect, and the younger man has all the joy, hope and glamour of life before him,” he says. He justifies his own deviant sexuality to the dominant culture as something grounded in apprenticeship rather than desire. This is of course problematic but also brilliant to appeal to a sensibility that elevates Greek culture. It denies reality, but also resists apology.