From: francis@ircam.fr (Joseph Francis)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.french
Subject: Re: L'homosexualite en France
Date: 12 Oct 92 14:37:40 GMT
Distribution: soc.culture.french,soc.motss
Organization: IRCAM, Paris (France)

In article <41506@imag.imag.fr> maffray@imag.fr (Frederic Maffray) writes:
>
>In article <92276.192759BM9028A@auvm.american.edu> BM9028A@auvm.american.edu (Brent J. Markley) writes:
>>Bonjour,
>>
>>     Je suis un americain homosexuel qui s'interesse a la homosexualite en
>>France.  Je cherche un/une francais(e) avec qui je peux correspondre pour me
...
>For some reason France seems to have the reputation of being
>an open-minded nation, but I think that in several domains
>this is hardly deserved.  Homosexuality is one of them.  In
>general it is a taboo topic, which when raised elicits
>mostly embarrassment, giggles or lousy jokes, or the kind of
>Neanderthal arrogance recently displayed by Michel Fougeres
>in response to your posting.

I'm not au courant to what Michel Fougeres displayed in a Neanderthal
manner in a recent posting, however enticing the idee of
Neanderthalism may be, but I would like to comment on a few points
raised by Fred. In my time in France, I've never seen embarassment,
giggles, lousy jokes, or Neanderthal arrogance displayed a propos
homosexuality. I don't pursue an 'in your face' agenda of my own
gaynes, but it really can't be a secret, I believe that those who know
me will agree. Perhaps I live in a shell, but for the most part I've
seen homosexuality faced with total indifference. It is relatively
simple to be called a name in the US, walking in the street in a gay
area (much less to be punched, I suppose) but I have never, ever, been
called a name from a passer-by in France, and there has been rich
opportunity, and I know quite well what I would be called if I were.

I must point out that W.R.T. homosexuality, all in all, English,
German, Dutch, and American gays who felt persecuted simply went there
and lived their lives in relative happiness. They weren't adulated, or
talked about in the heterosexual mainstream (for the most part), but
they weren't pursued. This is history, and as good or as bad as France
is supposed to be for gays (I find it second only to the Netherlands
in pleasantness for that dimension, and I've lived in 10-odd countries
around the world) you simply can't deny that they do, for individuals,
have a long history of tolerance for the non-normative.

>Of course you may be able to find people who will assure you
>that some of their best friends are gay, but it will hardly
>go any further than that.

I have French friends, women and men, who prefer the company of gays
and lesbians because they are more open, interesting, and generally
smarter and dynamic than their equivalent betrothed, bechilded, and
bedridden heterosexual counterparts. This isn't the 70's, and the
French, being on the whole (perhaps I speak for Paris) a bit better
educated than Americans, seem to have a better grasp of gay and
lesbian roles in culture. Remember, a tremendous amount of France, and
her vaunted culture, is created, controlled, and elaborated by gays
and lesbians, and everyone knows that. Period.

>Faggots and dykes, "perverts" or
>mere "asocials" are expected to remain discreet (since as
>everybody knows it is only because some of them speak too
>much that they are so hated). Your typically American
>attitude of friendly, nonchalant outness is very unFrench.

Heterosexuals are supposed to be discreet in France also. The public
exposure of the infidelities of Presidential candidates is met more
with distaste from this aspect than genuine interest. Does the French
public dote on the pecadillos of Mitterand?

>People are satisfied with just not hearing at all about
>homosexuality, even less so *from* lesbian or gay persons
>speaking up in their own name.

Except in the heterosexual popular media lately, for instance, I've
seen articles on topics as different as: Dick Sargent's and Elizabeth
Mongomery's appearance in the LA gay pride parade, an article called
"True Friends"; reportage on the campaign to recognize gay marriage;
Gay rights struggles in the Isle of Man; etc.

>While only a minority of the population is blatantly
>homophobic, the majority just does not care to be informed
>and clueless heterocentrism is the norm. Certainly
>soc.culture.french does not counter-exemplify that.

I just don't see the same France.

>Historically it may be correctly pointed out that Republican
>French law does not explicitly persecute homosexuality, but
>this says little of the actual situation. French culture is
>still pervaded by the Catholic worldview and principles
>("good mores", family values, obedience to authority, etc.).

Needless to say, the Catholic church itself, in France, has a long
documented history of homosexuality within its ranks, and though it is
"pro-family", that doesn't follow into persecution of homosexuals. I
would tend to agree that any Church-oriented country would be
antagonistic in essence, but this is a country that rejected the pope.

>"Abnormal" people may be tolerated, but more because this
>enables the soi-disant Enlightened elite to admire itself
>being tolerant rather than out of genuine interest and
>empathy for alternate or different subcultures. This is the
>case for gay culture as much as for ethnic cultures.

That's quite a lot to say without concrete examples. The soi-disant
Enlightened elite is by a large percentage lesbian and gay.

>In fact if you look at the recent history of various Western
>nations, you'll hardly find any that has so rich a tradition
>of violent and repressive reaction to the progress,
>visibility and empowerment of minorities -- from the Dreyfus
>Affair to Vichy to Le Pen.

You aren't speaking of Progress, you speak of Nationalism.

A detail of all of these is their opposition not to 'minorities' but
to a minority, peoples of semitic origin, specifically Jews. France
has a long and continuing history of anti-semitism. Period. One could
also point out the persecution of the Hugenots, the French Revolution,
the period which produced the Communards, The Terror, etc. The
'French' (which is: the Breton? the Basque? the Alsaciennes? Which
Language?)  react to things which are not 'French'. If there were gay
nationalists, I suspect they would be embraced with arms as open as
for anyone.

>In 1962 the French National Assembly declared homosexuality
>a "national plague". Police harassment ruined many people's
>life. I know of one case, a brilliant young mathematician
>who committed suicide when forced through a psychiatric
>treatment after he'd been arrested during a routine police
>raid in a gay bar. That was only 25 years ago, and I've
>heard of more recent cases.

This also derives from a period which has France entering into
a war with Algeria, among other things, one of the most Fascist
periods in French history outside the Vichy government. I suspect
there were more than a few lives ruined for similar reasons.

>Gay liberation ideals and struggles developed after May 68,
>but the general attitude towards gays was still mostly scorn
>and hostility, even from the Left, and sometimes violence.
>The topic continued to be taboo in the French media, save
>for the occasional confessional-like TV program about "The
>Painful Problem of Homosexuality", where a courageous naive
>gay person would be confronted to a psychiatrist and a
>priest lecturing him about his sins.

Yes and No, I think. French television is so awful anyway, I feel
sorrier for the heterosexual lives aped out in public. 

>There was essentially no gay press until the late seventies.

True. And, surprisingly, the national gay magazine "Gai Pied" is
closing. This month is the last issue.

>In the 80s the coming to power of the Socialists at first
>generated some hope but soon proved to be be an illusion, as
>revealed for one example by the negligent handling of the
>AIDS crisis. The government AIDS information ads are laughly
>prudish -- save that this is no laughing matter.

I must disagree strongly. I haven't seen any country in Europe with
more direct condom-use ads than France, and more direct "HIV+ doesn't
mean death" ads. All gay bars have plenty of free condoms and
lubricant sacs in Paris, and there are pamphlets displayed in all bars
on specifically how to have safer sex, photographically illustrated. A
second series of the phamplets is cartoon-illustrated.

>There are
>things that one just does not talk about on French TV lest
>the viewers would be offended.

This is national (not cable) television which shows, after 11pm, women
masturbating watching men masturbating watching young women in skirts
playing tag on a windy day waiting for a bus, or alternatively, women
masturbating while painting totally-frontal nude american-style black
bodybuilders posing. Cable TV has evenings of sex 'olympics' style
shows mixing gay, straight, lesbian, transvestite, transsexual, S&M,
B&D, piss, snuff, and comedic style hard core pornography. This is
television which asks Catherine Deneuve how she masturbates in prime
time. This is a country where a hit song and video was "Lemon Incest"
by Serge Gainsbourgh (melody by Chopin, I must add) sung by he and
his daughter. This is a country where Prince's "Sexy Mother Fucker"
plays on radio and MTV uncut; where full-frontal nude 16-year-old boys
stepping on grapes in the south is on the News; I could go on and on.

>As a result the young French
>generation is quite underinformed on AIDS, compared to
>Dutch, Scandinavian or Anglo-Saxon countries.

This is a country where the teenaged-audience targeted magazine "Maxi"
had a "Fuck Aids" issue where there were condoms inserted in the
magazine. This is the country where there are ads, in the summer, in
all the metros and streets in 6 languages how to ask for Condoms in
French at a pharmacy ("*condom, the only safe way to have sex").

>There are more
>AIDS cases in Paris than in all of England. (This does not
>keep people on the nice-liberal bourgeois Left from railing
>against Anglo-Saxon "puritanism" and, you can guess, against
>"Political Correctness", which is So Contrary To Our Great
>Gallic/Latin Traditions.)

I'm totally mystified why young gay men in France still fuck, ooh la
la, without condoms. I've had to leave sex clubs where I just couldn't
take being around it. I think it relates more to pretence of being
butch than ignorance. Condom ads are ubiquitous.

>In verity American gay minority politics, with its focus on
>power and space and networking (Gay Pride days, ACT-UP, etc)
>has turned out to be a better inspiration for French gays
>than traditional Republican assimilationism and discretion.

Possibly. But what are they to gain? Civil Rights? They have that.
Aids research? The virus was discovered in France. AIDS information?
The ministry of health continues to vary and amplify its campaigns.
Legal Marriage? That's in the works. Social acceptance? Impossible to
legislate.

>1990s mainstream popular French culture is still rather
>sexist and homophobic, and not unfrequently racist, with few

I can't disagree. But I don't see the same homophobia you do.

...
>press. But what can you expect from a country where 15% of
>the population vote for the neo-Nazi extreme-right party of
>Le Pen and 30% express agreement with his ideas? What goes
>around comes around.

The most right-wing population comes from the most heavily Arab
immigrant areas of the south. I don't think you can characterize the
population as a whole. That's like saying all americans are
potentially KKK types when that has its roots in the American south.

>For the rest it must be recognized that little in the world
>is more enjoyable than strolling through the Marais on a
>sunny late-summer day, after lunch at Goldenberg's in good
>company, and sitting in any of the many gay cafes with good
>late seventies music and lycra displays...

And having gay men scream "dominatrix" when you walk through the
night wearing black rubber.

-joe


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