Premise- we’re at a fancy dress evening reception/party with everyone being the absolute upper crust of society from several different countries. Many couples dance in the center of the room. Suddenly, two men start dancing together. They are behaving exactly the same as the other couples- no snogging, no touching other than leading and following- so nothing is odd about their behavior except the fact that both are men. What does the rest of the room do?
I’m guessing the rest of the group would be far too well brought up to mention anything at the time, but would probably not invite the men back to their party. Or would someone intervene and make them stop? Or would it be no big deal?
I’m not as familiar with European customs as American ones, but I can answer in the American context. I’m assuming this is a mixed-sex dance and there are sufficient ladies to dance with? Because if it’s a single sexed party, or if there aren’t any free ladies, it’s not an issue. But I think, assuming there were women there without dance partners, it would be seen as rude to them. So, I think it would be considered inappropriate.
There were lots of women available in this case. So the only issue here would be ignoring the ladies?
And if I understand you right, it would not be thought of as, oh let’s say queer, for men to dance partner dances together if there were no ladies available? Would there be any stigma about who led and who was “the woman”? Or if it was that common, were there special rules for same-sex dancing about who led, where hands go, etc?
I originally wrote this because I just got back from seeing the new Sherlock Holmes movie (for the record, I give it about a 7.5 out of 10 if you don’t know Sherlock as written and a 5 if you do). In it, two male characters at a mixed sex party dance part of a waltz together, and nobody bats an eye. It struck me as less than factual, and I am delighted that I might have been wrong.
It might be considered odd if there were women around, but if there weren’t, and you wanted to dance, then what were you going to do?
In that particular society, there were probably a hundred other etiquette issues at stake before you even got the fact that they were both dudes. (Starting with, “who are these two no-name rapscallions and how did they get in here?”)
On the other hand, this would have been not too long after the Cleveland Street scandal; I’m not sure if in London there might have been any heightened sensitivity to that kind of thing as a result.
I will point out, lest you get the wrong idea, that the 19th century wasn’t particularly gay friendly. It’s just that two men dancing together wasn’t seen as a particularly gay thing.
I think that it would be one of those things where everyone who didn’t know that homosexuality existed would just think it might odd, and suspect that the two men were playing some sort of mind game with everyone else. But everyone who did know of the existence of homosexuality would be too uncomfortable to talk about it, particularly given the lack of any other evidence.
In the end, I’d probably expect the hostess to get her two bulkiest servants to usher the two men out.
I would think that given the social conventions at the time, they would both be asked to leave the event, and would be afterwards ostracized by high society.
In a culture where just the injudicous mention of a ladies name could get you sent to Coventry, something of this sort would be considered beyond the pale.
“Beware of Hungarians bearing gifts.”
“Don’t you mean Greeks?”
“Greeks, Hungarians… any one of those countries where the men dance together.”
-The Super on One Day at a Time
Oscar Wilde was convicted and sent to prison for the crime of buggery in the late 1800’s. The story goes that the only reason lesbianism was not a crime in Britain was that nobody could figure out how to explain to Queen Victoria what such a law meant.
Of course, the whole British thing is to “not cause a scene.” The perps would probably be escorted out afterwards while something else distracted everyone. I’m surprised nobody in charge would go to the band and quietly suggest they take a break for a few minutes. I assume someone would tell the authorities who would investigate every aspect of the relationship in the pre-Miranda days. Certainly, the two would be socially ostracized. The thing with Wilde was that he had his own circle of tolerant and like-minded friends so he was not hung up on attending blue-blood events.
There’s no evidence that Queen Victoria had any particular feelings about lesbians and no evidence that anyone had any particular problems bringing up the matter with her. The story that she struck out the portions of a bill outlawing homosexuality which dealt with women or that people struck it out before showing it to her is an urban legend. The bill was always solely about male homosexuality. The people who proposed the bill simply didn’t care about female homosexuality:
http://www.forteantimes.com/strangedays/mythbusters/353/victoria_and_the_lesbians.html
I know, but it makes for a nice story…
“Hem, hem… Why should it be illegal to lick cats, Mr. Pitt? My cat licks itself all the time…”
Also, the difference between strict law and enforcement is often a large one. First, Wilde had the temerity to sue the father of one of his “friends” when the fellow left a letter on display at the club’s desk addressed to “The notorious buggerer Oscar Wilde”. There’s something known as the Oscar WIlde principle, which says it’s a bad idea to sue when you know you will lose. Doubly bad idea when you are suing over an illegal act that you are guilty of.
Wilde used to prattle about how love was something beautiful and undescribably special between two artists who shared the same love of art, etc. When sued, the father of his “friend” trotted out a number of young male prostitues who described his parties and made him sound no better than any old lecher who preyed on underaged - which he was. Even after he lost the lawsuit, the authorities gave him a day to skip the country before anyone was going to come and arrest and charge him. He simply chose not to. He was not charged the moment the evidence was made public, but not until after the civil lawsuit was over.
So enforcement was not the same as the letter of the law. High society London semed happy to giggle and whisper behind their hands, and the non-conformist simply were careful to keep quiet, and as the saying goes, not do it in the street and scare the horses.
Right.
"“For Oscar Wilde posing as somdomite”, actually. And technically, Wilde didn’t lose the lawsuit. He dropped it when Queensbury’s lawyers announced they were going to call the male prostitutes.
In fact, I suspect that the situation presented in the OP would be unlikely to do more than raising some eyebrows precisely because society at this time was so repressed sexually. I think that in polite society, it wouldn’t cross anybody’s mind that those two men could be displaying publicly their homosexuality, so everybody would probably assume it’s some sort of joke they’re not private to, or that one of the guy is showing dance movements to the other or some other mundane reason they arent aware of.
Except maybe if it was somehow common knolewde that those two men were homosexuals and lovers (even though they probably wouldn’t be invited in the first place in this case), and even then I’m not sure people would immediately assume it’s a deliberate provocation (I write provocation because I think there’s no other way to qualify a public display of romantism between men at this time).
From what I understand, out on the American frontier where there were few women (the California gold fields, for example) people would still hold dances and just have most of the ‘couples’ be men. Those weren’t civilized European balls, of course, more like rowdy drunken hoedowns, but when there are only 3 girls in the room, what else are you going to do?
I’d expect people at a proper ball to be annoyed, though. Letting ladies go partnerless (and there is always a surplus of ladies) is rude.
Barbara Tuchman in “The Proud Tower” (which focused on 1890s/pre-WWI European affairs) relates the story of an elderly high-ranking officer in the Austrian military who was prone to making appearances at prominent society balls, pirouetting around in a ballerina’s tutu. This apparently was considered quite amusing, right up to the point when, just having completed a performance to the acclaim of the crowd, he dropped dead on the spot of a heart attack. I seem to recall that due to rigor mortis setting in, they had trouble re-dressing him in suitable attire for the funeral.
Two men dancing briefly in 1890s England probably would have been considered a jest, depending on the company I suppose. Society types of the period weren’t universally straitlaced by a long shot.
Right, no doubt the men- unless very highly placed in Society, such as Royalty- might find themselves considered “eccentric” and find less invitations coming their way. But Sherlock Holmes was already a well known eccentric, and no-one in their right mind would invite him to a proper Society even anyway.
Comparing European continental society of the time with British society of the time, would I think be comparing chalk with cheese, to put it mildly.
According to this cite from Victoriana magazine.
So there you go.
(and given the ball in question was at a diplomatic conference in a fairly isolated looking castle, the host failing to come up with enough woman to cover all the diplomats and their clerks and such doesn’t seem unlikely.)
Great cite!