(no subject)
[From Genet]
My dear Sartre,
We did not have time to talk. As for pederasty, here's a theory I propose to you. It's still just thrown together. Tell me what you think.
We must speak not at first about sexual instinct but about a law that is linked to the continuation of life.
Starting with this law an instinct directs us, obscurely, from childhood on toward woman. Eroticism is diffuse, directed toward oneself, then toward no matter which living creature (or almost) and then slowly becomes differentiated and directs us toward women.
Towards puberty, sexual desire, contained by instinct, is definitely fixed on woman. It becomes attached to feminine characteristics. It abandons, rejects manly characteristics. It perceives them as signs of sterility. Once this moment has arrived or about to arrive, the psyche proposes a series of symbolic themes. These theories will be themes of life, that is, of actions. And only social actions. The definitive choice of woman implies not only a social agreement, but also it is starting iwth this law that a social order is established. The psyche proposes to man those acts he must perform and ... man is active.
But from childhood on, a trauma throws the soul into confusion. I think it happens like this: after a certain shock, I refuse to live. But, incapable of thinking about my death in clear, rational terms, I look at it symbolically by refusing to continue the world. Instinct then leads me toward my own sex. My pleasure will be endless. I will not embody the principle of continuity. It is a sulky attitude. Slowly instinct leads me toward masculine attributes. Slowly my psyche will propose to me funeral themes. Actually, first I know I'm capable of not continuing this world in which I live, then I continue, indefinitely, the gestures of the dead. These funeral themes, they too demand to be active, accomplished; if not, there will be an explosion of madness! The proposed themes symbolic of death will thus be very narrow (the extraordinary limitation of the pederastic universe) (suicide, murder, theft, all antisocial acts, capable of giving me a death that if it isn't real is at least symbolic or social - prison).
If one of these themes is active, in fact achieved, it will cause my real death. Therefore it's necessary that I achieve it only in the imaginative realm, but if it's in the imagination, that means on the level of the erotic life (endlessly started over, and pointless) or in daydreams resolve nothing.
The only thing that remains then is to activate these funereal themes in the imagination and to accomplish them in an act: the poem. The function of a poem, then, will be:
1. To deliver me from a funereal theme that haunts me.
2. To transform it into an act (imaginary).
3. To remove what was singular and limited in the act and to give it a universal significance.
4. To reintegrate my funereal psyche into a social reality.
5. To put childhood behind and to arrive at maturity that is manly, hence social.
That, I believe, is the only possible solution for pederasty. But each of these themes must be superseded, that is lived to the limit of the act (but we'll talk some more about that).
In any event, the significance of homosexuality is like this: a refusal to continue the world. Then, to alter sexuality. The child or the adolescent who refuses the world and turns toward his own sex, knowing that he himself is a man, in struggling against this useless manliness is going to try to dissolve it, alter it,; there's only one way, which is to pervert it through pseudofeminine behavior. That's the meaning of drag queens' feminine gestures and intonations. It's not, as people think, nostalgia about the idea of the woman one might have been that feminizes; rather it's the bitter need to mock virility. It should be added - something which is only true of our situation - that to refuse life implies taking on a lonely and passive attitude: to be a woman who in society is submissive and waits for man to put her in her place.
Significance of pederastic love: it's the possession of an object (the beloved) who will have no other fate than the fate of the lover. The beloved becomes the object ordained to "represent" death (the lover) in life. That's why I want him to be handsome. He has the visible attributes when I will be dead. I commission him to live in my stead, my heir apparent. The beloved doesn't love me, he "reproduces" me. But in this way I sterelize him, I cut him off from my own destiny.
You see it's not so much in terms of sexuality that I explain the faggot, but in direct terms of dead. When I'll see you I'll try to tell you what I can about eunuchs and castrati. It's similar. Except their death dates from their operation.
But it seems obvious to be that the asocial acts of the fag are necessary since their life is lead in death, or rather in what causes death, thus in principle in a climate of treason.
And all these funereal themes will come back in fags' behavior. I'll give you examples galore.
As for the appearance, at certain moments, of pederasty in the life of a normal man , it's provoked by the sudden (or slow) collapse of the life force. A fatigue, a fear to live: a sudden refusal of the responsibility to live. Not important, the eroticism of different desires. And...
All of this, is presented too rapidly, but I'm going to the country, I won't be seeing you, so give me your opinion.
If a fag speaks intelligently sometimes of a social problem, it's because he imitates his fragmentary mind (you know what I mean) or the faculties of a mind at the height of a coninuity of content. But in politics nothing new can be contributed by a homosexual.... He cannot think about the social problem in an original fashion (Gide and Communism!). Yes, there is Walt Whitman (but you know very well that's just a lyrical outpouring without any positive content).
My friendship to Michelle.
Your,
Genet
Me heart Genet.