Quentin Crisp writes about his life struggles and successes as a flamboyant, unabashed gay man in 20th century London; his autobiography including retellings of his failures, opinions on sexuality and experiences with various people in his life. Throughout his narrative, the reader gets a glimpse into the heteronormative society that circulates misinformation and condemnation of queer individuals and heavily impacts Crisp’s view on homosexuals.
At times, it is evident that Crisp consciously opposes society’s condemnation by choosing daily to be himself, but he cannot help his thoughts from being tainted by the surrounding oppressive heteronormativity. His entire life, Quentin is taught that homosex is intrinsically wrong, only being acted upon in sexual urgency, and homosexuals are unnatural in their desires for sex—their desires deriving solely from sexual disorders. Crisp’s story is a biting critique of this heteronormative society and the ways it selectively condemns homosexuality to the point that queer love cannot be found.
Heterosexuals in this day in age categorized homosexuals as sex-crazed “perverts,” however, Crisp’s narration seems to subtly say that the dominant culture is, in fact, responsible for producing this distorted reality. It is through these fabrications that Crisp severs the connection between sex and love for himself, admitting to the reading in the end that he does not know what love is. In adolescence, Quentin Crisp is introduced to sex as an act that should be disassociated from the participants’ sexual identity, especially if the two participants are males.
Crisp asserts that the boys at his all-boys boarding school who were queer did not usually participate in the male-on-male sex acts because they “seem to realize that these jolly get-togethers are really only a pooling of the carnal feelings of two people who deep down are interested in their dreams of girls” (Crisp 15). Crisp has been raised in a culture that condones homosex if their intentionality is rooted in a heterosexual mindset—if the two boys are having sexual relations because they are horny and are thinking of a woman while they engage, the sex is written off as “a pooling of carnal feelings” (Crisp 15).
This way of thinking completely writes off the legitimacy of true homosexual sex, implying that homosexual actions are a choice made in times of sexual urgency. Contrary to this ideology, I argue that any homosex is rooted in homosexual attraction and the societally-held belief that heterosexuals will have homosex if they are horny enough is a heteronormative, ignorant rationalization. Nevertheless, this fallacy is learned and adopted as fact by Crisp as a young man and it becomes the basis for his warped views of sex and love, specifically as it applies to him as a self-proclaimed homosexual.
Crisp is never given any examples of homosexual relationships beyond hook-ups and prostituted sex, neither of which are healthy or loving relations. Furthermore, he is taught that homosex is unnatural and can never be an intimate act that combines two people into one: “Americans serve it plain, but sad to say, about the physical practice of homosexual intercourse there tends to be something contrived… The two participants will never be one flesh… for homosexuals, sex is reduced to an indoor sport” (Crisp 154). Crisp asserts that homosex does not allow for the unification of two people into “one flesh. His views directly align with societal views that state homosexual sex is not only unnatural, but that homosexual love is illegitimate and inferior to heterosexual love-in heterosexual sex, “the sex act can be natural, unnamed, inevitable, and lead to a total oneness” (Crisp 154). Crisp, along with society, believes homosex is just “an indoor sport” and is incapable of intimacy or love. Crisp continues to reinforce this engrained belief during his time working for art schools.
While modeling for art students, he has many awkward encounters with some of the female students who are nterested in him-one time he is approached by a woman who tries to kiss him. Crisp ignores her pursuit but when he brings this up to his friend, he tells Crisp, “if she had been good-looking and as masculine as you are feminine, would not her advances have been acceptable? “” (Crisp 130). Crisp tells the reader, “By asking this question he [his friend] showed me that to him and doubtless to many other people, an effeminate homosexual was simply someone who liked sex but could not face the burdens, responsibilities and decisions that might crush him if he married a woman.
This idea seemed to me totally erroneous” (Crisp 130). Crisp challenges the idea the belief that homosexuality is a choice and gay men choose not to face the problems surrounding marriage. However, he uses another fallacy in his argument to dismiss the first incorrect ideology: Crisp says that his friend’s comment “left out altogether the devouring preoccupation with the male sexual organ which, as soon as his erotic habits are completely formed, becomes the main and finally the only interest in a homosexual’s life…
Between two men [a relationship] consists of each using the utmost force of his personality to gain access to the sexual organs of another” (Crisp 130). Crisp believes, as society has told him, that homosexuals are only interested in “gaining access” to penises and this is the sole purpose for their sexual endeavors—horniness. This is fascinating because Crisp does not always seem to be craving sex and says multiple times throughout the book that “for many years I was at least happy enough to live without sexual encounters at all” —implying that, for him, sex was used to make him feel better when he was unhappy (Crisp 48).
Many times, what Crisp says and how he acts conflict, showing how easy it is for people to get confused on what is true versus what is not when society hurls multiple different heteronormative statements at the public, claiming them all as fact. Crisp constantly struggles to differentiate reality from the figment of society’s imagination in regards to queer identities; the distortions about queer sex and love hit Crisp especially hard when he enters his forties.
During this time in his life he experiences a midlife crisis, stating that, “I became a loathsome reminder of the unfairness of fate. I was still living while the young, the brave, and the beautiful were dead” (Crisp 168). Crisp no longer feels the thrill of his life and finds the remainder of his life to be monotonous, as if there is nothing left for him to accomplish: “Whatever I could hope to do or say or be, I had done and said and been” (Crisp 171-172).
While he is wallowing in self-pity about the boring destiny of his remaining life, Crisp decides he needs something to fill what time he has left. Expectedly, he decides to use what he usually does to fill a void in his life-sex. Crisp admits that, for him, “[sex] is only a mirage, floating in shimmering mockery before the bulging eyes of middle-aged men as they stumble with little whimpers toward the double bed” (Crisp 173). This statement seems to imply that he is giving in to his desires, not because of sexual pleasure, but for the sake of intimacy, even if it is a facade.
Crisp’s “midlife crisis” is actually him finally realizing that he does desire human intimacy, regardless of the fact that society, and he himself, have said that homosexuals only have sex for pure carnal purposes. Crisp attests that he is “uninterested” in human relationships and does not believe they exist-I argue that this is a cop out for his true feelings that are more difficult to discuss (Crisp 177). Crisp blames nature for his inability to find the type of relationship he wanted, but I blame society.
It was not Crisp’s fault that he could not find a gratifying human relationship, it was society’s for setting up a system that spreads misinformation about homosexuals. Heteronormative society has set Crisp, and every homosexual, up for failure to find human connection because they assert that gay individuals are dirty, not real men, sexually perverse, unlovable and unwilling to love. Based on this tragic lie, it is no wonder that Crisp did not find the unconditional love he was seeking for and, in fact, he confesses that he does not “know what the expression [love] means” (Crisp 211).
For Crisp and quite frankly most humans, sex is an avenue to get closer to another human being physically and the way that many people best receive love. Contrary to what sex typically stands for in heterosexual relationships, sex between men is written off as anything but a desire for intimacy; yet sex is what Quentin turns to in his moment of heartache and despair—it is the only way for him to self-soothe and meet his need for human connection.
