From: maffray@imag.fr (Frederic Maffray)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: L'homosexualite en France
Date: 16 Oct 92 17:36:45 GMT
Followup-To: soc.motss,soc.culture.french
Organization: IMAG Institute, University of Grenoble, France

[sorry if you see this again]

In article <1992Oct12.143740.7870@ircam.fr> francis@ircam.fr (Joseph Francis) writes:


Dear Monsieur le Jojo, you seem to disagree with me on quite
a number of points, but I think that we're in agreement when
you write

> I just don't see the same France.

Indeed, Paris is not all of France. IRCAM is a place for
avant-garde music, which is not very representative of French
culture at large, and I think that you personally gravitate
in a very special universe. (I mean, Xaviera Hollander and
whatsisname from Army of Lovers don't leave messages on my
answering machine...) So with all due respect I think that
you don't have a totally unbiased view of things.

We've both said what our experience tells us, but there are
a few points I would like to comment on further:

>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?

Mitterrand is just not an interesting person in this
respect.  But the press, and not just the trash press, dotes
on the pecadillos of movie stars, singers etc., what guy
sleeps with what girl in show business, the n-th wife of
so-and-so, the n+1-th (n+1-st?) baby of a ministress, etc.
On the other hand you can read countless articles on Mylene
Farmer, possibly the most popular singer among teens these
days, without ever seeing it mentioned that her paramours
are of her own sex.  Same for many others, Charles Trenet,
Patrick Juvet, Catherine Lara, etc.  It may be vaguely known
that they are g/l/b but one just does not talk about those
things in magazines or on TV. I call that uptightness and
hypocrisy.

>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.

I don't quite see your point but you're also missing mine.
Vichy did arrest homosexuals and hand them over to the Nazis
who killed them in concentration camps; but this fact is not
taught in French history.  In The Netherlands they have a
"Homomonument" to remember such events.  In France when gay
groups want to lay a wreath during WW2 commemoration
ceremonies, they are heckled and hissed and booed by
Respectable Resistants who claim that they did not fight the
Germans to see those perverts defile the monument.

If you're willing to see our difficulty in coming to terms
with Vichy persecution of Jews as proof of an unsolved
antisemitic tradition, then to what do you ascribe the
callous obliviousness wrt to gay victims?

>>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.

And have you noticed all the public anxiety (compared to,
say, the demise of the TV channel La 5 a few months ago)?

Let's hope the ex-readers will subscribe to Bear Hunters.

Speaking of TV, you mention all sorts of things. OK, there's
tits and ass and "full frontal" nudity, and maybe that's a
change from NBC, but what does that have to do with public
awareness of gay things?  M6 shows in the late evening some
ridiculous pseudo-erotic het films -- watching AfterDark on
my macintosh is more exciting -- and a pay channel (Canal+)
has American straight porn a few times a month after
midnight. In other words, until the mid-80s sex not allowed,
now het sex is mandatory.  Big deal.  As for B&D, uro, etc,
I don't see any of that on my screen (not many people have
cable in this country) nor in the cable magazines.

As for AIDS it seems clear to me that the governmental TV
campaigns are not efficient. From what I've heard or read I
think that everybody working seriously in AIDS prevention is
convinced that these ads are but a waste of money.  They are
not informative; they won't talk about body fluids, sperm,
blood, oral or anal sex -- that's what I mean when I say
that there are things one just does not talk about on public
TV.  And they are not persuasive, since so many people
continue to engage in unsafe play. There have been reports
showing that, while people being interviewed have perfectly
integrated the message at the verbal level ("we protect
ourselves" like the government tells us to), words do not
turn to acts.  Pharmacists say that people don't dare to buy
condoms.  In summer resorts where the population increases
tenfold the condom consumption hardly grows, etc.  Those TV
ads are just too prudish to be effective.

>>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.

There is something insidiously dangerous about this "fight
for what, we have everything?" attitude. And again I think
that you're seeing things through rosy glasses.  For example
the CUC is tentative.  and the Socialists are merely paying
lip service to it; they don't want to scare off their more
conservative voters. The Right will be back to power in five
months, so the most likely bet is that you can wave bye-bye
to the CUC until the late 90s or later.

Another example is Minitel.  The France Telecom commission
which administers Minitel servers and gives permissions (in
typical French bureaucratic arbitrariness) is infiltrated by
extreme-right wingers who are very active promoting their
anti-gay agenda, with the benediction of the Socialist
Minister. Already they have obtained the banning of several
gay servers. In the long term all gay minitel networking is
threatened. This has been going on for months, unnoticed by
the media.  So where do all those nice hip hets who like gay
bars because they're such fun stand on this?  All those
enlightened French liberals who don't miss an occasion to
speechify about and mock American "puritanism" and
"Political Correctness", when it comes to exposing and
standing up against French backwardness, uptightness and
censorship, they are nowhere to be found, because they don't
want to be likened to perverts.

Interestingly there was a TV program about gay life in the
provinces a few days ago.  In all fairness I can say that
what people talked about was very much similar to what I
have been saying here: the almost total lack of visibility,
the absence of public gay cultural models to adhere to, the
enormous social pressure to conform (to the heterosexual
norm), the uncomprehensiveness of the entourage, even among
the young generation, the isolation.  You said "it's not the
70s any more", but precisely someone remarked that in the
provinces (the program was recorded in Rennes) things have
changed very little in fifteen years.  There's a very small
ghetto, little social organization, and virtually no concern
from the rest of the population.  I'll pass over the fact
that they did not fail to invite a representative of the
Associations of Catholic Families, save that I could have
bet it.  Beyond what was actually said, what was remarkable
was the evident thirst of talking from the gays invited.
It's obvious that they felt that TV does not offer much
occasion to speak in their own name.

---
Frederic Maffray