Class and Homosexuality in Empire: A Conversation with Dr. Whisnant

Today has been a bit of a head trip in terms of research. I had a meeting with Wofford's own Dr. Clayton Whisnant, who also researches homosexuality and Empire, although his focus is on homosexuality, masculinity, class, and the German Empire. Despite these differences, our talk was incredibly fruitful and I gained a ton of new perspectives and resources. For example, Dr. Whisnant is interested in the intersections between class identity and sexual identity. I've never really pursued the class dynamics behind homosexuality; certainly, they are there, but at best they are background noise in the realm of scholarship that I consider "interesting." Still, Dr. Whisnant's insistence that class identity is related to sexual identity is an important one. In his view, gender presentation is strongly related to class so that working class gay men were more likely to be highly effeminate, while middle class gay men were more traditionally masculine. These middle class, masculine homosexuals were invested in their masculinity in a way that Dr. Whisnant argues can be read in their sexual preferences. To keep up their masculine performance, they frequently chose sexual partners that allowed them to express dominance; such partners could include effeminate, working class homosexuals, over whom the middle class men held more economic and gender power, or colonized men, over whom the middle class men held racial superiority (and gender power, as Anne McClintock argues).

I never asked Dr. Whisnant which came first, the class or the sexual preference, but even so it's obvious that there is something to be said for the relationship between class and sexuality in Empire. Given this reading, Dr. Whisnant's argument makes middle class homosexuality a drama of masculine identity, while my research so far has mostly ignored the gender politics at stake in favor of the sexual politics. Class and economics were undeniable factors that contributed to the rise of imperialism. If it is true that they also influenced sexual preferences so that there seems to be a link between class, homosexuality, and sex between Englishmen and colonized men, as Dr. Whisnant suggests, then perhaps exploring the class dynamics in Empire would be a worthwhile endeavor.

All in all, I really enjoyed my conversation with Dr. Whisnant. My head hurts a little bit from all of the new information, but "no pain, no gain," right?