Dear Andrew, I admire your forensic focus on this, which is very different from others. I think what has been missed -although it's obvious - is the bizarre attitude of public schools to homosexuality, which as many have observed, was fundamental to the experience of going there, whether you liked it or not. (I found "In Memoriam" very moving in that respect, because it took it all seriously.) From today's viewpoint, as you say, it's easy to miss the public homophobia, but the weird 'see/not see' attitude of public schools to homosexuality at the time is even more obscure. But that was what was behind all the reticence, don't you think?
Which "In Memoriam"? I can only think of the Tennyson one, which doesn't seem to me to be about homosexuality so much as love, death, fate, God, and similar subjects.
And my own experience of public school attitudes to homosexuality was odd, because I arrived at Marlborough the same year that the first 16 girls were admitted to the sixth form. the effect on 800 adolescent boys was horrendous. In that atmosphere to be accused of being "queer" was to be accused of being weak. The attitude was completely Roman -- sex was about domination and submission. The only boys who did not worry about being "queer" were the very few who actually were gay by nature, and not by force of circumstance. I have no idea if any of the endless talk led to action.
This led me to believe that there is no such single thing as "homosexuality". But genuinely single sex schools may have been different. I don't know. I wasn't there.
Well I was just ahead of you. Girls arrived in my A level year. Their arrival was a breath of fresh air. Before that, an endless foetid atmosphere of homsexual suspicion, as you describe. I felt lucky. I think the weak/strong thing was different too. It was about power. One of the ways you could escape the weak/strong "athletic" thing was to go completely the other way, camp intellectual etc. So I did. By In Memoriam I meant a novel by an American OM, Alice Winn about what happened to weak/strong gay/straight people in 1914. She calls Marlborough Preshute, and uses the old Marlburoan texts. Heartbreaking.
Thank you for this, Andrew. I agree with what you have written, with one small caveat. I’m not sure that, even in the culture of the 1980s, the abuses of John Smyth would have been seen as consensual sado-masochism. Almost all of the victims report blood having been drawn, which is one of the thresholds that separates consensual sado-masochism from GBH.
Was no blood drawn in Operation Spanner? You're right that the offence would have been GBH, but the framing story would surely have been consensual SM. How else to explain the way so many of the victims kept coming back? I suppose the other possible framing would be "evil cult leader". Thinking with my mouth open here, but that would also have worked for the tabloids. It depends which style of prurience sold better.
Dear Andrew, I admire your forensic focus on this, which is very different from others. I think what has been missed -although it's obvious - is the bizarre attitude of public schools to homosexuality, which as many have observed, was fundamental to the experience of going there, whether you liked it or not. (I found "In Memoriam" very moving in that respect, because it took it all seriously.) From today's viewpoint, as you say, it's easy to miss the public homophobia, but the weird 'see/not see' attitude of public schools to homosexuality at the time is even more obscure. But that was what was behind all the reticence, don't you think?
Which "In Memoriam"? I can only think of the Tennyson one, which doesn't seem to me to be about homosexuality so much as love, death, fate, God, and similar subjects.
And my own experience of public school attitudes to homosexuality was odd, because I arrived at Marlborough the same year that the first 16 girls were admitted to the sixth form. the effect on 800 adolescent boys was horrendous. In that atmosphere to be accused of being "queer" was to be accused of being weak. The attitude was completely Roman -- sex was about domination and submission. The only boys who did not worry about being "queer" were the very few who actually were gay by nature, and not by force of circumstance. I have no idea if any of the endless talk led to action.
This led me to believe that there is no such single thing as "homosexuality". But genuinely single sex schools may have been different. I don't know. I wasn't there.
Well I was just ahead of you. Girls arrived in my A level year. Their arrival was a breath of fresh air. Before that, an endless foetid atmosphere of homsexual suspicion, as you describe. I felt lucky. I think the weak/strong thing was different too. It was about power. One of the ways you could escape the weak/strong "athletic" thing was to go completely the other way, camp intellectual etc. So I did. By In Memoriam I meant a novel by an American OM, Alice Winn about what happened to weak/strong gay/straight people in 1914. She calls Marlborough Preshute, and uses the old Marlburoan texts. Heartbreaking.
Oh. I will have to read this. No time for more now
Thank you for this, Andrew. I agree with what you have written, with one small caveat. I’m not sure that, even in the culture of the 1980s, the abuses of John Smyth would have been seen as consensual sado-masochism. Almost all of the victims report blood having been drawn, which is one of the thresholds that separates consensual sado-masochism from GBH.
Was no blood drawn in Operation Spanner? You're right that the offence would have been GBH, but the framing story would surely have been consensual SM. How else to explain the way so many of the victims kept coming back? I suppose the other possible framing would be "evil cult leader". Thinking with my mouth open here, but that would also have worked for the tabloids. It depends which style of prurience sold better.