Gay communist spies and KGB honey traps - The surprising history of the Lavender Scare

[rallamajoop]

Poking through the old slashfic archives for The Man from UNCLE, one soon notes that where other fandoms have hooker AUs, MfU has the popular Illya Kuryakin: Gay KGB Honey Trap fanon backstory. Like so many old 90’s slash tropes, this one seems to have waned in popularity in today’s (at least theoretically) more culturally sensitive times, which

Comments

[threecee]

Very interesting and well-researched.

I don't know if you have come across the MfU story by Mishka titled "the Black, White, and Lavender Affair" which deals with the Lavender Scare combined with the Red scare impacting UNCLE. The link is here if you are interested: http://www.chromeandgunmetal.com/chrome/archive/7/theblack.html

[rallamajoop]

I swear I'd have written so much more fic in this fandom by now if I didn't keep getting stuck on these research tangents. XD But it's all so interesting!

I have read that story - ran into it quite coincidentally just a few weeks back (it did some great stuff on the history, though it felt rather rushed to me on how fast the relationship happens. Ah well, so it goes with fic ^^; ). It was definitely one of the ones I had in mind when I mentioned having seen at least a couple of fics that did delve into the subject. The other that comes to me off hand was Waging World Peace, which I don't recalling having as much directly to say about the Lavender Scare, but certainly made much out of 60's homophobia and the idea that the Soviets expected gay spies (like Illya in that story) to be easier to control.

[threecee]

I understand, I get lost in researching minutiae too.

I agree that they seemed to rush into the sexual relationship too quickly in the Black White & Lavender Affair. I find that with a lot of "first-time" stories.

[fiorenza_a]

I tend to set all my stories within the universe of the show - I have written the odd slash story - but only from the perspective of the guys. I don't put U.N.C.L.E. in the wider/real socio-politico context because I see it primarily as a fantasy show.

But I'm endlessly depressed by the nasty little closed minds which prevailed for so much of the 19th and 20th centuries.

It's one of the reasons my researches tend to be limited to artefacts and language. It seemed every link I clicked on about the era led to yet another injustice. No wonder there were two world wars - so much hate of the 'other'.

I haven't had time to study your post in detail, but it's a terrific piece of work - well done :0)

[rallamajoop]

Well, depressing as the Lavender Scare absolutely was, there are a few brighter spots mixed into the bigger picture. I do think there's an excellent case to be made that Mr. Waverly would come from that generation of British spies where it was an open secret that many of their colleagues (and half their bosses) were homosexual, and no-one found it noteworthy or objectionable. There can be fun to be had playing with parodies or subversions of 'realistic' historical homophobia too. And I'm still a little floored that all those gay-KGB-honeytrap-Illya fics have so much plausible historical basis (for better or worse).

It's certainly not a subject I'd want anyone to feel obligated to address in fic, when UNCLE was so deliberately conceived to be a light-hearted exercise in escapism. I wouldn't even know how you'd fuse a lot of this stuff with the canon UNCLE universe in any particularly organic way. My own tolerance for stories built around 'realistic' depictions of historical prejudice and misery tends to be on the side of low, so I do

[fiorenza_a]

I do read and enjoy the more realistic fic - I just have no yen to write it