Colloque

La construction de l’homosexualité: sodomie et syphilis dans l’Espagne moderne

Cristian Berco

Membre a labase

Cristian Berco

Résumé de la communication

Much scholarship has focused on pre-modern homosexual eroticism as a sexual practice unrelated to a gay identity that only emerged in the 19th century. Although early modernists have questioned this theory, they have focused on European urban sexual subcultures. This paper will examine the construction of homosexual eroticism in Spain between 1500 and 1800 as conceptually, culturally and medically separate from heterosexuality through discourses on syphilis and its treatment. Utilizing a combination of medical, hospital, and judicial records, I will analyze how the silence on the homosexual transmission of syphilis constructed heterosexuality as intrinsically distinct from same-sex practices. Not only was syphilis understood as a heterosexual disease but, when confronted with evidence of same-sex transmission, physicians and patients recurred to non-normative channels for treatment. Likewise, because women were usually blamed for the transmission of syphilis, popular discourses built same-sex eroticism into a safe alternative practice to prevent infection. Finally, if evidence of sodomitical syphilis surfaced, transvestites used it to make the obvious case for a female identity, thereby denying same-sex sin. Ultimately, the conceptualization of syphilis as heterosexual and the silences surrounding same-sex transmission of syphilis helped to demarcate, in medical and cultural terms, intrinsic differences between homosexual and heterosexual practices.

Résumé du colloque

Le 11 mai en soirée, le documentaire "Les Fros" (ONF, 2010) sera présenté. La réalisatrice, Stéphanie Lanthier, sera présente et fera une brève allocution pour présenter son film et répondra aux questions du public après le visionnement. Le 12 mai en soirée aura lieu le vernissage de l’exposition « Projet Stanstead ou comment traverser la frontière » à la galerie d’art Foreman de Bishop’s. L'événement est une collaboration entre la galerie et notre colloque. Le grand public, les chercheurs présents au colloque et les artistes pourront échanger lors de ce cocktail-vernissage.