by lissaredshoes
“The naming of hidden pleasures is blasphemous.” – Our Lady of the Flowers, Jean Genet
Straight porn has all the emotional intensity of limp fish on Quaaludes. Gay male porn, on the other hand, is an animalistic orchestra of groaning, grunting and spurting amidst heated entanglements of hard bodies, boners and beautiful asses. Plenty of straight men love girl-on-girl porn. The same is true for straight women. We love to watch hot naked men get it on – and we don’t really care who they fuck. So, what are my homoerotic proclivities doing on a crime blog? This piece, although inspired by thoughts of gay pornography, is really about ‘film noir’ and other horny affectations of crime.
Most of us will recognize ‘Film Noir’ as an evocative and stylish form of crime drama that emphasizes cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Think of writers Jim Thompson, David Goodis, and many other dark masters of noir, where sex, however disturbing, is the very engine that drives the plot (rather than a dash of titillation to spice things up). Stirringly, the darkness of the genre is the ultimate hiding place for an array of misfits whose presence is disturbing, but also seductive in its cast of femme fatales, butches and weaker males. Thus, it is the perfect setting (if only in subtext) for “deviants” or “perverts.” Queer characters give ‘film noir’ a knowingness, a modish cachet, by challenging the status quo with controversial characters, thus, creating a quivering “walk on the wild side” for straight audiences and a sense of empowerment for marginalized viewers.
In 1992, the crime thriller-cum-passionate-love tale, Being Home with Claude, debuted internationally in a quiet quiver of shock and awe. The film, directed by Jean Beaudin, is set in the dark underworld of Montréal, based on a play written by René-Daniel Dubois. Edgy and aggressive, this dark psychological thriller centres on the confession of a gay prostitute, Yves, on the brutal slaying of his gay lover, Claude. Awash in the hues of steamy noir, the black and white flashbacks reveal the details of Yves’ crime of passion as a brutish homophobic detective interrogates him in a prominent judge’s office (one of Yves’ “johns”).
I vividly recall squirming, rousingly in my seat, as the opening sex scene erupted from the glowing, distended screen. On that evening, in the darkness of the theatre, I experienced the erotic disruption of gay porn on my burgeoning sexuality. The effect was unexpected. The scene – explosive and sexy as hell. The first 8 minutes is one of the most striking sequences I have ever seen in a film. It masterfully evokes the sensations of electric sex as it moves towards its horrific, climactic end: Yves slashing Claude’s throat. The film is a disturbing and wildly erotic tale of two men from different sides of the track. Yves is a gay prostitute, and Claude, a recently engaged, well-bred college student. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that their hot, clandestine affair was doomed from the start.
Yves: “I wasn’t stoned. It was worse than that. I was in love.”
Yves wants Claude to die in his pleasure and so murders him at the very moment that Claude is writhing gloriously and ejaculating inside him. Yves loves Claude so much, and Claude loves Yves so much, that Yves knows there will be a time when Claude has to face the harshness of being gay in an intolerant society. Yves wants Claude to live forever in his pleasure and innocence; he wants to face his fate, with Claude inside him, filled up with Claude’s love. Yves slices Claude’s throat during their mutual ecstasy because he wants to terminate their passion before it turns hateful, bitter or dangerous (Oh, the irony). Under the guise of steamy film noir, their forbidden love and sexy affair becomes a powerful, even sympathetic, motivation for murder.
I found this film to be erotically charged and compelling. Not because I get off on brutal sex slayings, but because I was intrigued with its theme of forbidden love and an electrifying sex scene. I was 25 at the time, in art school, and had a gay father who had shared lots of racy stories about the ‘seedier’ side of gay sex – cruising in parks or getting off in public bathhouses or washrooms. It all seemed so dangerous, yet wildly intoxicating.
A police officer in tight pants poses as a chicken in Hollywood in 1964, waiting to be solicited by male customers cruising by in cars. Image by Bill Eppridge
In some ways, the film reflected back to me, my own heated desire for clandestine affairs and raging anonymous sex – a behaviour that was not (and in many ways still isn’t) very acceptable in women. The beauty of this film (and film noir in general) is in how it challenges societal norms by engaging audiences with fringe characters and deviant subtexts that add to its decadence, intrigue and psychosexual commentary.
Interestingly, the societal difference in attitude towards `promiscuity’ amongst gay and heterosexual men is starkly different from the general attitude toward heterosexual promiscuity. For `straight’ men, whether or not they are already in a relationship, multiple sexual encounters are a sign of manliness, and something to be proud of – say, like a modern Tarzan, swinging his swollen member through the Urban jungle. However, for gay men, it is the reverse – reviled and viewed as abhorrent. Even more poignant, for me, is the fascinating parallel in how women’s own “abhorrent” behaviours are also reviled, condemning them to purgatory as “prostitutes,” “whores” or nymphomaniacs” as they prowl through the night like wild predators.
Even today, but to a lesser degree, many gay men (or others who buck against sexual norms) cannot always be open about their sexuality. They remain within the closet and resort to secret ways of seeking out mutual stimulation and adventure. In the 1960s, 
a vicious extortion ring rose in New York City (famously referred to as “The Chicken and The Balls” case), where men posing as police (bulls) and bait (chickens) preyed on prominent gay men. The “johns” were baited by the “chickens” and entrapped by the “bulls.” Once caught in compromising positions, the bulls would explain the penalties for violating sodomy laws or corrupting a minor, and then demand an outright bribe to avoid their arrest or imprisonment. The necessity for gay men to live double lives (work by day and carouse by night) made them especially vulnerable to exploitation or arrest. During the 70s and 80s, many “family” men like my father were gay or bisexual. They resorted to the anonymity of cruising to avoid exposure and the loss of family life (despite the risks of bashing or arrest). Exposure might mean job loss or concentrated homophobia from colleagues and former friends, particularly in small towns where “everyone knows everyone else.”
Beyond the need to fulfill their biological desires, many gay men (and promiscuous women) cruise specifically for the immediacy, thrill and excitement of anonymous sex. In one sense, gay men are acting out stereotypes of male sexuality. In another sense, women are acting out “against” the stereotypes of female sexuality (which may also help to explain their secretly raucous excitement over watching gay porn).
It is not surprising that over the ages, sexual deviancies have (and continue to be) criminalized in the form of sodomy laws or other public “obscenity” laws. Despite open protests to sex in public places, cruising is not new, and will never stop. It has been going on for hundreds of years, and its history is a part of the history of our cities and public spaces. As cities grew and populations became more anonymous, new opportunities for chance encounters arose, for straight and queer people alike, and the figure of the stranger took on an erotic allure. Parks have always been places where strangers meet for overlapping and divergent reasons. By day, children play, families’ picnic, tourists take respite, neighbours walk their dogs and joggers jog. By night, teenagers park cars to make out, hookers and hustlers ply their trade, lovers swoon under the moon, and gay men get it on.
n 1947 in Paris, Brassaï took this shot of Jean Genet, notorious thief turned author (The Thief’s Journal; Our Lady of the Flowers) – born Dec. 19, 1910, d. 1986.
Recently, a friend introduced me to the writings of Jean Genet, which he described as “the ultimate decadent crime fiction.” Just as ‘film noir’ celebrates the “sexual otherness” of its more deviant characters, so does Genet. Immersed inside his masturbatory prose of criminal and homosexual games with an imagined cast, his enlightenment erects itself like a delicate lotus rising out of the muck. Genet wrote Our Lady of the Flower while he was in prison. Interestingly, his introduction to prison turned out to be one of depravity and lust as he suddenly had access to an endless “dark hole” of male sex. His prose is a poetic revelry of his insidious lust, but also a remarkable expression of how the “pen” (penis?) can release the depravities of the soul by dragging its humanity out of the shadows and into the light:
“But this hoarse, hasty, scrupulously careful voice that is panting with incipient pleasure, suddenly breaks. Genet’s hand puts down the pen; one of the scenes is hastily finished off: “and so on” another ends with a series of dots. The next moment, Genet, still in a swoon, moans with gratitude: “Oh, I so love to talk about them! …
… I dream of the lovers’ garret. …
This time the word is subject; Genet wants to be heard, to create a scandal. This abandoned “where I am I can muse in comfort” is the giggle of a woman who is being tickled. It is a challenge.”
– Our Lady of the Flowers, Jean Genet
Click below to view lissaredshoes’ previous posts:
Missing on Christmas Eve: The Grisly Discovery of a Young Man’s Body
Bring in the Clowns: The Nefarious Paintings of John Wayne Gacy
Stalking Is Not a Love Song (Unless You’re Sting)
Sex Police and Other Sordid Tales: Censorship and the Criminalization of Art in Canada
The Deathly Siluetas of Ana Mendieta
lissaredshoes is a visual artist and writer living in Canada who writes about art and the criminal justice system with a special focus on wrongful convictions and the role media and arts play in contemporary culture. She runs her own blog, My Spotted Couch, a website for her visual art, and writes occasionally for Galleries West.http://spottedcouch.wordpress.com/