Gayfriendly E-Book

Sylvie Tissot

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 434

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

What does it mean to be gayfriendly? Having gay friends, supporting gay marriage, remaining unfazed when one's son or daughter comes out? Going to gay bars or questioning one's own sexual orientation? There is no single model of 'gayfriendliness', but rather different attitudes which vary according to age, sex, country and life circumstance. Acceptance of homosexuality has undeniably grown, and homosexuality is increasingly seen as one form of sexuality among others. But embedded in this liberal vision is a perspective that is more troubling. Based on interviews with gayfriendly straight people in the liberal neighbourhoods of Park Slope in New York and the Marais in Paris, Sylvie Tissot shows that stereotypes remain and control of gays and lesbians has not disappeared. Acceptance is directed towards those who are of the same socioeconomic background, who proclaim their wish to emulate traditional norms of family life, and who do not make any other demands. Gays must be normal but not completely so, similar and at the same time different, in order to meet the not always conscious conditions of acceptability. Gayfriendliness has managed to dispel violence and discrimination and has accompanied the invention of less conventional lives. But, as Tissot shows, it has not yet liberated itself from the clutches of heterosexual domination which still structures our society and our ways of thinking.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Why Park Slope and the Marais?

Notes

1 Becoming Gayfriendly

Reticence, recognition, indifference: three different generations

The learning processes

Notes

2 Gay Respectabilities

The right to love each other American style and sexual freedom in France

Good neighbours, good husbands and wives, good parents

Gayfriendliness within the family

Notes

3 Heterosexual Women as Allies

Feminine compassion

The ‘fag hag’ and her ‘gay best friend’

Women rebelling against marriage

Notes

4 The Frontiers of Gayfriendliness

A race and class norm

Visibilities and invisibilities

Notes

Conclusion

Banal homosexuality

New normalities

An equality still out of reach

Notes

End User License Agreement

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Begin Reading

Conclusion

End User License Agreement

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Gayfriendly

Acceptance and Control of Homosexuality in New York and Paris

Sylvie Tissot

Translated by Helen Morrison

polity

Originally published in French as Gayfriendly. Acceptation et contrôle de l’homosexualité à Paris et à New York. © Éditions Raisons d’Agir, 2018 © Éditions Raisons d’Agir, 2021, for the abridged and updated version.

This English edition © Polity Press, 2023

This book was supported by a grant from University Paris 8 / Ouvrage publié avec le soutien de l’Université Paris 8 (Laboratoire CRESPPA – UMR 7217)

Polity Press65 Bridge StreetCambridge CB2 1UR, UK

Polity Press111 River StreetHoboken, NJ 07030, USA

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-5327-3

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022947062

The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.

For further information on Polity, visit our website:politybooks.com

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the Franco-American Commission and its late director, Arnaud Roujou de Boubé, and the Institute of Public Knowledge (New York University) and its director Eric Klinenberg. This research was carried out with the help of a grant from the Fulbright program.

I would also like to thank the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at New York University and the NYU Institute of French Studies.

Thank you to my friends Lisa Metcalf, Jane MacAndrew, Elizabeth Norman, Ernesto Power, Miriam Ticktin and Frederic Viguier, who were always ready to lend an attentive ear and to offer me their invaluable advice and logistical support in New York.

The final version of this book is the result of many discussions and numerous re-readings. My sincere thanks to Pierre Brasseur, Samuel Carter, Raphaële Chappe, Vanessa Codaccioni, Lionel Cuillé, Virginie Descoutures, Jeffrey Escoffier, Sébastien Fontenelle, Stéphane Gerard, Kathleen Gerson, Stéphane Gerson, Jen Jack Gieseking, Pierre Gilbert, Colin Giraud, Karim Hammou, Gaëlle Krikorian, Michèle Lamont, Cynthia Lawson, Saba Le Renard, Arnaud Lerch, Audrey Mariette, Ellis Monk, Bruno Perreau, Wilfried Rault, Camille Robcis, Juliette Rogers, Catherine Romatowski, Todd Shepard, Hilary Silver, Anna Skarpelis, Judith Stacey, Michael Stambolis-Ruhstorfer, Stephanie Steiker, Pierre Tevanian, Florence Tissot, Mathieu Trachman.

INTRODUCTION

Late 2012: in France, hundreds of thousands of people were protesting against the draft bill to legalize same-sex marriage which would finally be approved in 2013. I was in New York at that time, where this movement, known as ‘La manif pour tous’ (‘Protest for all),1 was viewed with an astonishment that tarnished American perceptions of France’s reputation for sexual progressiveness. In the course of my research, I encountered many Brooklyn residents, such as Isabelle, a 38-year-old lesbian, French like myself, but settled in New York on a permanent basis. She was living in the southern part of Park Slope, an area still in the process of gentrification, where she and her wife had bought an apartment. When I asked her if she had ever found herself on the receiving end of insults, or violence, she replied:

No. Never in New York. In fact, the only time it happened was when some people were making fun of us – ‘Ah, the two lesbians at the next table’ – and they were French people in a restaurant! I didn’t say anything, although I could have said ‘Look, I can understand what you’re saying.’ It wasn’t very nice. They weren’t saying anything really bad, but when people are making fun of you and you’re right next to them, it’s not very pleasant. But that’s the only time it’s ever happened. Here it’s more a matter of complete indifference.

Her reply could have brought an abrupt end to the question which this book sets out to explore: is acceptance of homosexuality more advanced in Paris or in New York? The everyday acceptance which prevails in the famous American city, the rights which have been successfully won and, even more, the enthusiastic celebration of a certain gayfriendliness contrast not only with the reactionary movement of the Manif pour tous in 2012–13 but also with the fact that, in France, the cause of gays and lesbians is associated with more reservations, less enthusiasm and a lower level of institutionalization. Yet, in their own way, Parisians are also gayfriendly and are undoubtedly becoming ever more so, as demonstrated, for example, by the fact that, on the initiative of the city’s mayor, rainbows were painted on the pavements of some streets in the gay district of the Marais. Indeed, in both cities, on an institutional level and among many of the residents, there is a condemnation of homophobia which seems to mark the end of decades of stigmatization, hatred and persecution. Rather than establishing winners and losers, in this book I set another objective – that of understanding the individual journeys each country has undertaken in order to achieve this social progress by focusing on what are essentially two different ways of being tolerant. I am not, however, simply proposing a comparison. My research aims to explore the profound ambiguity of this progress, which it seems is no sooner celebrated than immediately challenged. Indeed, as early as the 1990s, when demands relating to marriage, family or joining the army were first beginning to be voiced, certain writers had pointed out the pernicious effect of these victories. Using terms such as ‘normalization’ or ‘homonormativity’,2 a barrage of criticism targeted the changes in gay lifestyles and the end of the subversiveness previously associated with them. Gone were radical protests against society, in conjunction with black, feminist or anti-capitalist movements. Relegated to invisibility, from then onwards, were the places where people could meet up for recreational sex and alternative forms of sociability. Instead, mainstream organizations, supported by affluent white gays, thanks to the efforts of large-scale fundraising operations, were demanding social integration through access to marriage and family life,3 and large-scale campaigns, referred to as ‘homonationalism’ or ‘pinkwashing’, were reclaiming the LGBT cause for commercial or imperialistic ends.4

In comparison with these studies, my ambition was twofold and, as will become evident, necessitated a sociological investigation. My first objective was to understand the exact nature of a social progress which, as is often the case (take the achievements of the civil rights movements or indeed of feminism), is not a linear phenomenon. It cannot be described simply in terms of a shift from intolerance to tolerance, from hatred to acceptance, but rather as a process in which new boundaries are mapped out. In its wake come new rights and, at the same time, new constraints. Considerable advances have certainly been made in the legal approach to homosexuality. In 1981, France rejected the World Health Organization’s definition of homosexuality as a mental disorder. Repression had officially ended, and the last documents discriminating against homosexuals had been scrapped. In the USA, a similar process occurred, although it was not until 2013 that the Supreme Court declared as anti-constitutional the so-called anti-sodomy laws still in force in fourteen states. In both countries, the battle against various forms of discrimination had taken over from the fight against criminalization, and, until it was eventually legalized, same-sex marriage was a high-profile legal and political issue. In France, the law on the Pacs (Pacte civil de solidarité)5 in 1999 paved the way for the recognition, in 2013, of the right to marry and adopt children. On the other side of the Atlantic, where same-sex marriage had been recognized by several states since 2003, the Supreme Court declared in 2015 that any attempt to forbid such unions was anti-constitutional.

If then, in spite of this progress, the era of equality has still failed to arrive, could it be because a certain resistance persists at the heart of public opinion? In reality, public perception has evolved in parallel with legal changes, as numerous surveys and investigations indicate.6 In Paris and in New York (but the same could also be said of many other cities), rejection of homosexuality seems even to be considered an outlawed attitude, relegated to ancient history. In the districts of the Marais and Park Slope where I carried out my research, the presence of gays and lesbians among the friends, colleagues and neighbours of heterosexual residents had become commonplace, and support for same-sex marriage was often self-evident and even enthusiastic. In short, these heterosexuals were (and often declared themselves to be) gayfriendly. This gayfriendliness nevertheless brings with it considerable ambiguity, as is evident from the comments of some of the residents I encountered, in spite of the fact that all of them were adamant in their rejection of homophobia. Take, for example, the case of a Parisian man, formerly an enthusiastic connoisseur and client of the bars in the Marais, who voiced his support for same-sex marriage (though at the same time describing the institution as ‘outdated’ and ‘tacky’) but then expressed reservations about same-sex parenting, a view shared by his partner, who stressed the idea of a necessary ‘difference’. Or a woman from New York who had made a donation to the campaign for same-sex marriage and expressed her delight about living in an area where the schools her son might attend were ‘gayfriendly’, but who nevertheless mentioned that her lesbian friends, of whom she had many, all living as couples, did not adopt a ‘stereotyped’ look (such as short hair). The comments made by these two interviewees, both of whom we shall encounter at a later stage, indicate two things. Firstly, they reveal the existence of two national models, based on different combinations of the elements defining respectability (marriage, sexuality, family, etc.). Secondly, as is apparent, there are multiple criteria associated with gayfriendliness, and the attitudes involved are not always coherent. Rather than defining the exact nature of gayfriendliness and casting light on any divergencies from such an ideal, I have instead set myself the goal of demonstrating how acceptance and distancing can coexist within the same person and how a particular neighbourhood can be inclusive while still excluding certain groups or individuals. What exactly are the constituents of this new and, in some respects, surprising attitude, which no sooner seems to eliminate rejection than it imposes a new set of distances? Readers will have to decide whether the transformations it has generated are welcome or disappointing, whether they should be celebrated or deplored. And those heterosexuals who consider themselves tolerant, and are determined to be so, might perhaps find some food for thought in all of this.

I am referring to heterosexuals here because, as well as setting out to analyse a new and intriguing approach, the second goal of this book is to demonstrate that, as a result of these new attitudes, not only has the place of homosexuality in contemporary societies changed but heterosexuality too is in the process of being reconfigured. A historic change has in fact taken place, and heterosexuals have changed as a result of the emergence of gay and lesbian movements. It is not simply that they have become more tolerant but, rather, that they are heterosexuals in a different way, the result of giving up some of their privileges (exclusive access to marriage and to family life) but also of claiming others (an insistence that gays and lesbians be ‘respectable’ and a cautious and controlled promotion of sexual tolerance). If interviews with gays and lesbians are included in this research, the originality of this book is that it focuses attention on heterosexuals and examines the new place homosexuality now occupies, not only in their opinions but also in their own biographies, in their relationships as professionals, friends and neighbours, in their public and private, social and intimate life. Heterosexuals are, of course, by no means neglected in social science research – in reality they are even omnipresent – but they are rarely studied in their own right.7 Where homosexuality, whether regarded as a pathological condition or not, is constantly examined and scrutinized, heterosexuality seems rather to be taken for granted. In contrast to this perception, a number of studies have tried to measure and describe the wider acceptation of homosexuality;8 others, also recent, have focused on heterosexuality itself. Several years after Monique Wittig called for an investigation into the ‘political regime’ of heterosexuality,9 Jane Ward,10 for example, turned her attention to a heterosexual culture which was structured by masculine violence, but which also revealed contradictions, surprises and, as she hopes in her role of sympathetic ally, potential for emancipation. It is along the same lines as certain critical studies on heterosexuality,11 and with the same determination to switch perspective from the dominated to the dominant, that I intend to offer my contribution. It is important to point out here that bi and trans people are not absent from this book. The question as to whether gayfriendliness has, over the course of the last few years, been transformed into LGBT-friendliness is one which deserves to be addressed. Nevertheless, I maintain that this new heteronormativity has been shaped primarily as a result of a certain relationship with gays and lesbians.

As a sociologist specializing in urban environments, I have chosen to conduct my research by carrying out a field study, extending over a period of several years, in two areas of Paris and New York. I interviewed ninety-five people, two-thirds of whom were heterosexual (I will return to the exact terms of the investigation at a later stage), some of whom I also socialized with informally by frequenting certain cafés and shops, local groups and food cooperatives, churches and synagogues. This approach enabled me to penetrate below the surface of what was said and, by partially integrating their social circle, to expose the norms generated and passed on in various local institutions. Conducting the investigation within prescribed areas produced rich results, making it possible to understand how, where, when and on what basis relationships develop between people of different sexual orientations – whether neighbours, parents with children at the same school or clients in a café. Beyond a rainbow flag and staunch support for same-sex marriage, how does the much vaunted gayfriendliness manifest itself in concrete terms? Only a field study would be capable of bringing substantiated answers to this question.

As a result, I was able to identify two main outcomes which I shall outline briefly here, allowing readers to explore them in more detail in the pages that follow. First of all, as other studies have shown, far from the ‘fantasy of completion’,12 gayfriendliness brings in its wake powerful injunctions, strong reservations, implicit demands – the very word ‘tolerance’ indicates that what is tolerated remains problematic.13 However, the quid pro quo of progressivism cannot simply be reduced to an ‘assimilation’ or a ‘normalization’. In other words, heterosexuals do not expect gays and lesbians to resemble them, or at least that is not all they expect. Of course, the fact of being surrounded by people ‘like them’ (couples who want to get married, for example) is a powerful motive for acceptance. But this acceptance – and here lies one of its ambiguities – is also rooted, just as conclusively, in the subtle and measured appreciation of difference. Otherness itself is positive when it is an element of a valued ‘diversity’, for yourself and your children, and of a rich sociability, or when it is a characteristic of a ‘cool’ district, but on condition that this otherness is an acceptable one. In the Marais and Park Slope districts, gays and lesbians must be respectable, which does not mean they must be like heterosexuals. They must be normal, but not completely so, similar but still different, in order to meet the strategic, and not always conscious requirements for empathy with homosexuality. More than heteronormativity, a control is exerted over the exact way of being gay, and this can vary enormously – another indication of this power – depending on the time, the place or on those involved.

If power relations manifest themselves more by the exertion of a control over difference than by an insistence on resemblance, and if, in spite of undeniable progress, they remain brutal, it is for a reason which reflects the other major outcome of this investigation: gayfriendliness, in the striking forms it has assumed today, originates from the top of the social hierarchy and from within a very specific circle which can be explored by focusing on the Marais and on Park Slope. It is a social environment composed of wealthy residents, rich in cultural capital, who value and actively encourage diversity.14 There are no conscious strategies, but there are powerful interests, which are indeed just as much moral as economic. And it is in the heart of previously gay districts which, with the gradual advance of gentrification, have shaken off their marginal or alternative status that a certain way of associating with and of valuing gays and lesbians has evolved: hence the perhaps surprising choice of an investigation which focuses not on the places where homophobia is particularly rife but, rather, on those where residents openly, and sometimes with considerable energy, cultivate tolerance.

A century ago, sexual relationships between men were confined to very different spaces and associated with various illicit locations, such as those in certain poorer districts of New York, studied by George Chauncey.15 Today, the change has come from the professional classes, which, of course, does not mean that other social classes are less tolerant but simply that they are tolerant in different ways. This class issue is a crucial one. First of all, it explains why this way of being tolerant has imposed itself on the public space, to the detriment of forms of acceptance which exist in other social groups and which remain largely invisible. In fact, alongside this gayfriendliness comes the notion that, today, the most tolerant people are to be found in the most highly educated social groups. In reality, this notion reflects their own perception of themselves, an attitude which currently attracts a broad consensus and which I challenge in this book. Returning to the place of gays and lesbians today, the issue of social class manifests itself in a very different way. It is indeed a crucial one, given the extent to which it shapes this particular mode of tolerance by insisting that gays and lesbians conform to certain demands: a social respectability based on the separation between public and private life (and the relegation of sexuality to the private sphere), a detailed consensus on the places and the moments where homosexuality can be visible, and even desirable, the integral role played by homosexuality in the definition of good taste and cultural distinction,16 a strict control over the (correct) way of behaving, and the exclusion of anything which might appear vulgar. As we shall see, these demands weigh heavily not only on gays and lesbians but also on heterosexuals, who, in their role as gayfriendly citizens, are required to be ‘good’ people and respectable neighbours, keeping a firm check on ‘others’ but also on themselves, and maintaining a close watch on their own behaviour and language, choosing their friends and their children’s school with care.

Why Park Slope and the Marais?

In order to study the characteristics of gayfriendliness and the lifestyle with which it is associated, I conducted my research in the heart of two districts where heterosexuals cohabit alongside a gay population which has been visibly present since the 1980s.17 This coexistence takes different forms in New York and in Paris. In the Marais, the visible gay presence is largely a male one and is concentrated on a few streets in the fourth arrondissement and, in particular, in bars which attract a sometimes exclusively gay population. In Park Slope, on the other side of the Atlantic, lesbians are often to be seen in couples, though their presence in the public space is less obvious. In contrast to the historical centre of Paris, with its narrow streets frequented by tourists, the district of Brooklyn, with its wide roads and extensive park (Prospect Park), is now home to gentrifiers who have moved there from Manhattan with their children. On one side of the Atlantic there is the fourth arrondissement, known as much as a ‘historical district’ or ‘Jewish quarter’ as a ‘gay’ area, and now included in a ‘Marais’ which takes in part of the bourgeois third arrondissement. On the other side, there is the area gradually extending towards South Brooklyn as the process of gentrification advances, a district favoured by heterosexual and homosexual families, as opposed to the betterknown gay areas of New York that are situated in Manhattan. If the choice of the Marais, unique in France, was an obvious one, that of Park Slope might seem more surprising, given the proliferation in New York of districts which could legitimately lay claim to a ‘gay’ label, such as the Village or Chelsea, and which might compare more easily with the Marais. Apart from the fact that I was determined to resist an excessive focus on male gay areas, Park Slope provides an opportunity to see, more clearly than anywhere else, a gayfriendliness which is part of the prevailing values of residents who are as proud of their wealth and their family-based lifestyle as of their progressive values.

In fact, in these gentrified districts, one group now ‘sets the tone’, and this group has similar characteristics in both cities. These residents are predominantly white, are university graduates and come from a socio-economic level which situates them firmly within the middle and upper classes. Their residential history led them to move into a district which was either still working class, in the case of the older residents, or else in the process of gentrification, post-1990. It was at this point that many of them became homeowners for the first time. The socio-demographic reality, as recorded in the census data from both countries, confirms the considerable influence potentially exerted by this group.18 Operating just outside the most bourgeois districts19 and openly sharing certain progressive values, the heterosexual gentrifiers of the Marais and of Park Slope form a relatively united and committed group, and it is this group that forms the focus of this sociological scrutiny.

The similarity in terms of profile justifies the choice of sites, both of which have undergone substantial gentrification. True, the brownstones – those nineteenth-century town houses – of Park Slope have little in common with the seventeenth-century mansions standing shoulder to shoulder with the Hausmann architecture in the Marais. The wide streets of Park Slope, typical of the checkerboard layout of major American cities, contrast with the dense network of narrow streets in the historical centre of the French capital.20 Prospect Park, which adjoins Park Slope, provides additional space for the local residents, in contrast with the densely constructed Marais. There are, however, a great many similarities. In both cases, gentrifiers describe the local architecture as ‘ancient’ or ‘historic’. And this symbolic rehabilitation brings with it another phenomenon common to both districts, which is the meticulous and virtually complete renovation of the building stock, a process which, for several decades now, has been the sign of a ‘super-gentrification’.21 Since the town planning of the two cities does not allow for space to be occupied in the same way, each district has its own forms of gayfriendly sociability. But, ultimately, what dominates in these areas are the places enjoyed by gentrifiers from all sexual orientations, and in particular the restaurants where organic food is a must, where the atmosphere is ‘cool’ and the prices very high, where a certain bohemian spirit – or at least what claims to be so – sits alongside powerful forces of distinction.

For the purposes of this research, thirty-nine people were interviewed in France and fifty-six in the USA, during a period extending from 2011 to 2016. Of the ninety-five people interviewed, fifty-eight were heterosexual and thirty-seven were gay and lesbian, self-identified as such.22 Some personal connections enabled me to initiate the research in both countries, using an initial criterion to the effect that those involved should live in the chosen areas, broadly defined as the third and fourth arrondissements in the case of Paris and Park Slope in New York, extending as far as the streets situated to the south of what is now generally called South Slope, where Isabelle lived. I also interviewed a few people living in neighbouring areas that had been similarly gentrified, sometimes more recently. These included areas such as ‘Arts et Métiers’ in the third arrondissement or the tenth arrondissement near the place de la République in Paris and Prospect Heights and Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn. In order to avoid the effects of social proximity, efforts were made to vary the profile of participants in terms of age, gender and area of activity, but with a focus on gentrifiers from the middle and, in particular, the upper classes. A determination to reconstitute local networks and interpersonal links led me to systematically invite those interviewed to introduce me to their friends and neighbours. Finally, over the course of five one-month stays between 2011 and 2015 and a six-month stay in New York in 2012–13, I carried out a series of observations of a more ethnographic type, for example in the famous food coop or the Park Slope Methodist church.

Most of the interviews were conducted in the homes of those involved, and, in the case of heterosexual couples, care was taken to avoid the joint presence of both partners on the basis that this is not always conducive to discussions about gender norms and sexual experiences. The welcome I was given – and I shall come back to this at a later stage – varied considerably, depending on whether I was interviewing a man or a woman. I often requested a second interview and sometimes managed to stay in touch with the interviewees, though with limited success, for, while those interviewed took a certain pleasure in demonstrating their open-mindedness for more than an hour at a time, and while, in general, they appreciated the chance to discuss current issues and to express their opinion of the two countries (sometimes drawing on periods of time spent abroad), the possibility of being interviewed again, having responded (or not, as we shall see later) to the most intimate questions, touching on sexuality for example, put them somewhat on their guard. In the course of the interviews, I elicited participants’ opinions on homosexuality by asking a number of different questions, on issues such as same-sex marriage, for example. I also, and in particular, attempted to retrace ‘gayfriendly trajectories’, marked by contacts with homosexuality (a conversation with parents during childhood, a high-school friend coming out, an influential media personality, etc.) and in the context of family, matrimonial, professional or even sexual experience. It was at times a difficult process. While almost certainly glossing over certain thorny episodes from their own past, those interviewed also gave voice to their doubts, in particular regarding children. It was indeed in precisely this context, when I asked them about the possibility that their own children might be gay, bi or trans (or might one day become so) that the most deep-seated reservations were expressed. Let me therefore thank my interviewees not only for giving me their time but also for sharing some of the intimacies of their private lives and, in so doing, revealing the contradictions which also form the subject of this book. For, if being gayfriendly is often taken for granted, it is also the result of a long journey, as we shall see in the first chapter.

Notes

1.

The movement known as ‘

La manif pour tous

’ (LMPT) – ‘Protest for all’ – first emerged in 2012 in protest against the government’s decision to allow same-sex marriage. The title is a reference to ‘

Le mariage pour tous

’ (marriage for all).

2.

L. Duggan, ‘The new homonormativity: the sexual politics of neoliberalism’, in R. Castrovano and D. Nelson (eds),

Materializing Democracy: Toward a Revitalized Cultural Politics

. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002, pp. 175–93.

3.

M. Warner,

The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of the Queer Life

. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.

4.

J. Puar,

Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times

. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017.

5.

In France the

Pacs (Pacte civil de solidarité

) is a legal union between people of either sex. It was introduced in 1999.

6.

In the USA, in 2002, 60 per cent of those questioned considered that same-sex marriages should be recognized by the law and should provide access to the same rights, as opposed to 37 per cent ten years earlier (G. Herek, ‘Beyond “homophobia”: thinking more clearly about stigma, prejudice, and sexual orientation’,

American Journal of Orthopsychiatry

, 85/5 (2015): 29–37). More generally, the percentage of those who considered homosexuality as something ‘bad’ went from 75 per cent in 1987 to 56 per cent in 1998 (J. Loftus, ‘America’s liberalization in attitudes toward homosexuality, 1973 to 1998’,

American Sociological Review

, 66/5 (2001): 762–82), while, in France, the percentage of positive responses on the acceptance of homosexuality, 27 per cent in 1995, reached 44 per cent in 2006 (E. Schweisguth,

Le libéralisme culturel aujourd’hui: le baromètre politique français (2006–2007)

, Paris: CEVIPOF, 2006).

7.

The pioneering work of Jonathan Katz (J. Katz,

The Invention of Heterosexuality

. New York: Plume, 1995), which draws attention to the emergence of the term at the end of the nineteenth century, demonstrates that the use of these categories to describe sexual identities (whether homosexual or heterosexual) is historically a new development.

8.

J. Dean,

Straights: Heterosexuality in Post-Closeted Culture

. New York: New York University Press, 2014; W. Rault, ‘Les attitudes “

gay-friendly

” en France: entre appartenances sociales, trajectoires familiales et biographies sexuelles’,

Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales

, 213/3 (2016): 38–65.

9.

M. Wittig,

The Straight Mind and Other Essays

. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992.

10.

J. Ward,

Not Gay: Sex between Straight White Men

. New York: New York University Press, 2015, and

The Tragedy of Heterosexuality

. New York: New York University Press, 2020.

11.

See L.-G. Tin,

L’invention de la culture hétérosexuelle

. Paris: Éditions Autrement, 2008; C. Ingraham,

Thinking Straight: The Power, the Promise and the Paradox of Heterosexuality

. London: Routledge, 2005; C. Deschamps, L. Gaissad and C. Taraud (eds),

Hétéros: discours, lieux, pratiques

. Paris: Epel, 2009; and J. Dean and N. Fischer,

Routledge International Handbook of Heterosexualities Studies

. London: Routledge, 2020.

12.

S. D. Walters,

The Tolerance Trap: How God, Genes, and Good Intentions are Sabotaging Gay Equality

. New York: New York University Press, 2014, p. 2.

13.

W. Brown,

Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire

. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008.

14.

S. Tissot,

Good Neighbors: Gentrifying Diversity in Boston’s South End

. London: Verso, 2015.

15.

G. Chauncey,

Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890–1940

. New York: Basic Books, 1994.

16.

P. Bourdieu,

Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste

. London: Routledge, 2010.

17.

C. Giraud,

Quartiers gays

. Paris: PUF, 2014; S. Leroy, ‘Le Paris gay: élément pour une géographie de l’homosexualité’,

Annales de géographie

, 646/6 (2005): 579–601; G. Gates and J. Ost,

The Gay and Lesbian Atlas

. Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2004; J. Gieseking,

A Queer New York: Geographies of Lesbians, Dykes, and Queers

. New York: New York University Press, 2020.

18.

48.5 per cent of the population of the Marais is made up of executives and professionals (in contrast with 8.7 per cent of the population in France as a whole). The population of Park Slope includes 67.3 per cent of whites, 6.4 per cent of Afro-Americans, 6 per cent of Asians, and 16.6 per cent Hispanics (in contrast with 44 per cent, 25.5 per cent, 12.7 per cent and 28.6 per cent for the city as a whole). In this area of Brooklyn, the average income per household is $101,784 per year (the average income is $145,160), as opposed to $53,889 nationally. The statistical data cited here come from a thesis written by Colin Giraud, which focuses on the division of Paris into eighty districts, initially proposed by INSEE [National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies]. In this context, the Marais is defined as ‘a quadrilateral demarcated by the Rue Saint-Antoine and the Rue de Rivoli to the south, the Boulevard Sebastopol to the west, the Rue de Turbigo to the north, and the Boulevard du Temple and Boulevard de Beaumarchais to the east’ and includes 60,536 inhabitants (C. Giraud,

Sociologie de la gaytrification

, PhD thesis, Université Lumière-Lyon, 2010, pp. 123–4). As for Park Slope (67,649 inhabitants), the figures cited are taken from the 2010 census on ‘Park Slope-Gowanus’, which extends from Atlantic Avenue in the north as far as 20th street south (extending beyond the so-called historical district, it includes South Slope). Both districts have a certain heterogeneity, the third

arrondissement

and South Slope having been gentrified more recently.

19.

The average annual income per household is €30,322 and €30,299 respectively for the third and fourth

arrondissements

, lower than that of the sixth, seventh, eighth and sixteenth

arrondissements

(around €40,000 per year). In Paris as a whole, it averages €25,981 (APUR,

Recueil thématique: 1er, 2e, 3e, 4e arrondissement de Paris

. Paris: Éditions de l’APUR, 2017). Compared to that of Park Slope ($101,784), the average income per household is $105,398 in Brooklyn Heights, another gentrified district in Brooklyn, in contrast to $155,213 for the Upper East Side and $190,255 for West Village in Manhattan.

20.

These differences reflect the particular history and geography of the two cities. Paris and New York are the most important cities in the two countries, but the Parisian agglomeration has a population of 11 million people (2 million for the city of Paris itself) as opposed to 22 million for greater New York (and 8 million for New York City itself). Paris traces its origins as a city to medieval Europe (G. Duby (ed.),

Histoire de la France urbaine

, 4:

La ville de l’âge industriel

. Paris: Le Seuil, 1983), whereas New York was founded in the seventeenth century (K. Jackson and S. Schultz,

Cities in American History

. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972).

21.

L. Lees, ‘Super-gentrification: the case of Brooklyn Heights, New York City’,

Urban Studies

, 40/12 (2003): 2487–509.

22.

In the rest of the book, I shall refer to these categories without mentioning the fact that these were self-identified. The term ‘queer’, which implies more fluid identities, is also used in the United States. I have, however, opted to use the terms ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ (and ‘heterosexual’), which most interviewees have found acceptable, with the addition of a few rare alternative self-categorizations. All the names of interviewees have been changed.

1BECOMING GAYFRIENDLY

The younger you are, the more gayfriendly you are. My field study among Parisians and New Yorkers confirmed existing data.1 More precisely, it identified three distinct profiles, differentiated according to age. Contrary to what might be expected, it is not simply that young people are ‘naturally’ more inclined to be tolerant. The age effect is in reality a generational one, linked to the fact that, over the years, homosexuality has been less subject to criminalization and, thanks to the efforts of gay and lesbian movements, has become much more visible. Without wanting to make it the year zero of a groundswell which was already emerging in the mid-1960s, the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York, and the start of a similar movement in France some two years later, marked a turning point. The reality of being heterosexual today is a direct heritage of this revolution but also of the events which followed it, notably the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, the reorganization of the American conservative right wing around ‘family values’ (and a more liberal approach to the defence of ‘diversity’), and the increased banalization of homosexuality in popular culture in 1990s America.

Beyond the apparent consensus, these historic changes manifest themselves differently in the comments made by those interviewed. Anxieties, whether explicit or abstract, predominant after the Second World War, persist in the older age groups, while two different attitudes emerge in the following generations, shaped by the politicization and then the banalization of homosexuality. The aim of this first chapter is to retrace and analyse the different processes through which people learn to be gayfriendly. These learning processes vary from one generation to the next but are also influenced by variations in life experience. The heterosexuals, both men and women, who took part in the research had, in given historical circumstances, followed a particular path which had allowed them to form an image of homosexuality sufficiently positive and dedramatized to fit in with their own lives. The transformations involved are sometimes on a considerable scale and must be kept in mind if we are fully to understand the nuances, discrepancies and even contradictions which characterize the gayfriendliness of those interviewed.

Reticence, recognition, indifference: three different generations

It is an established fact that acceptance of homosexuality varies according to age. But as well as the degree of acceptance (demonstrated in particular by the fact that homosexuality is no longer regarded as abnormal or immoral), what equally distinguishes the three generations of Parisians and New Yorkers who were interviewed is a readiness to recognize and name homosexuality and the role it plays in their existence, a phenomenon observed in both cities. Comparing these three groups provides an opportunity to measure just how great a distance has been travelled: from a world where homosexuality ‘simply didn’t exist’, remembered by the older age group, to that of the young urban dwellers for whom, as they put it, it is a ‘non-issue’. And for the intermediate generation, who have gradually internalized the negative connotations of homophobia, in their words: ‘It would be uncool to be un-gayfriendly.’

‘It simply didn’t exist’

The New York and Parisian heterosexuals born between 1930 and 1955 and interviewed in the context of my research were all, with the exception of a few single or divorced women, married couples. All of them were white and owned their own homes, and all belonged to a privileged class. Having moved to the districts in question during the early stages of gentrification, they often lived in the most fashionable areas, near Prospect Park in the case of the New Yorkers and in the fourth rather than the third arrondissement for the Parisians. The majority had moved into the Marais or Park Slope before the dramatic rise in property prices during the 1990s. The men tended to have jobs which were socio-economically superior to those of the women. While the latter are (or were) housewives, teachers, social workers, therapists or librarians, the men pursued careers as lawyers, bankers, engineers or business executives and, more rarely, as teachers or musicians.

The responses to questions about homosexuality were never marked by any open hostility, an indication of a gayfriendliness they all to some extent share. Many, particularly in the United States, were openly supportive of same-sex marriage. But, at the same time for most of them, this expression of tolerance was also tempered by certain reservations. Total equality in terms of rights was rarely sanctioned, and the subject which, for many, remains ‘complicated’ was often met with hesitation and embarrassment. This is the reticent generation. We even find an enduring reference to the notion of ‘perversion’, a legacy of the medicalized treatment for homosexuality which was introduced at the end of the nineteenth century,2 in the interpretation of homosexuality as a pathology, which sometimes surfaces when homosexuality is linked with paedophilia, even when any such link is rejected. After holding forth at considerable length about the relativity of moral values and her own inclination to be tolerant, Parisian Marie-Pierre, added, making quite clear where her own limits lay: ‘As long as it doesn’t do anyone any harm, or doesn’t affect children …’ This view of homosexuality as an illness also persists in the description of the public behaviour associated with homosexuality. Kathie, a resident of Park Slope, commented, with a sigh, on the fact that women walk hand in hand in the streets.

Public displays of affection … I’m not good about it. Even if it’s men and women, I prefer not to see overt stuff on the street. And two women walking along holding hands … sometimes I look at them and it makes me feel vaguely uncomfortable. And I’m not sure … See … My experience sometimes with homosexuals is that some of their over-behaviour is coming from some neurotic part of themselves … it’s drawing attention to themselves.

The visibility of gays and lesbians with its potential to provoke outrage, as the expression ‘in your face’ makes abundantly clear, generates a certain amount of reticence. In comments on this subject, it is this extreme behaviour, more than just a presence in the public space, which denotes the sexual nature of this visibility. Two representatives from this generation, interviewed in Park Slope, described lesbians as being particularly exhibitionistic, a suggestion which has never failed to surprise me. In Park Slope, whether in the food cooperative or in the famous Tea Lounge café on the opposite side of Union Street, it is not unusual to see women holding hands and sometimes kissing, but, unlike in France, such demonstrations of affection always struck me as somewhat secretive, confined to certain moments and certain spaces, and essentially very constrained.

In contrast to the visibility actively campaigned for by gay movements, the necessity to exercise ‘discretion’, if not incompatible with the acceptance of rights, demonstrates the ongoing presence of a certain asymmetry, particularly in social circles associated with heterosexuals, and is a way of relegating gays and lesbians to an invisibility, the degree and circumstances of which can be controlled. The financial resources of members of this generation (even if they by no means represent the most numerically significant group)3 and their long-standing presence in the area confers on them the authority to control the public space. The denunciation of ‘ghettos’ and of ‘communitarianism’, which we will encounter again towards the end of this book, among some retired Parisians is a clear indicator of the same aversion. Mathieu expresses his hostility to ‘gay culture’, which, for him, means that ‘certain singers are favoured because they are gay’, overturning the normal order of discrimination in the name of a universalism which rejects social filters: ‘For me, talent should come above all that.’

For a certain number of residents in the Marais, the rejection of a visible homosexuality is absorbed into a more general mission to control the immediate area by imposing strict markers on the space in line with the norms of their class. Some of these residents, deeply committed to their neighbourhood, firmly reject any appropriation of the space which might be detrimental. The privileges to be defended are clearly those of a social class, but they are also those associated with their heterosexuality. So, for example, Gaston cannot bear to hear the Marais referred to as a ‘gay ghetto’. On the other side of the Atlantic, Kathie deplores the fact that Park Slope is known as a ‘lesbian community’. The presence of homosexuality is not in itself scandalous, but, if it is to be acceptable, it needs to take its place within a ‘diversity’ that includes other groups. Among the older residents, the rejection of certain words clearly demonstrates a distancing from a reality which is neither completely familiar nor completely accepted.

For these interviewees, the absence of any categorization using the words ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ also reflects the fact that they have only recently become aware of such categories. A mixture of invisibility and of targeted repression was in fact typical of the post-war society in which they grew up. In the United States, although legislation has been ever more repressive since 1981, homosexuality had been identified as an issue of national security since the 1950s. Gays were driven out of the army and out of federal administration; they were closely monitored and hounded and were very often the target of police brutality.4 If, conversely, homosexuals in France enjoyed a ‘supervised liberty’ during the interwar years,5 Liberation did nothing to change a repressive legislation, and in 1960 Mirguet, a Gaullist deputy, proposed an amendment which would take ‘all appropriate measures to fight against homosexuality’, described as a ‘social scourge’.6 Regarded as ‘against nature’, homosexuality was either forced to become invisible or was relegated to certain hidden spaces. It was absent from public debates – except when denounced as perversion – and, in America at least, present in popular culture only in a coded manner, as the book The Celluloid Closet7 clearly analyses. The comments made by Jean-Philippe, a 75-year-old gay Parisian, were indicative: ‘I am not judged,’ he says, referring to the second part of his career in a publishing house, where he regularly turned up accompanied by his partner: ‘My homosexuality was absolutely not a problem.’ A very different story, on the other hand, in the right-wing newspaper where he had previously worked for many years and where, ‘If I turned up in suede shoes, the financial director would accuse me of being a real hepcat.’

When asked about the post-Second World War decades, heterosexual interviewees recalled the extent to which homosexuality was something which could not even be spoken about and still less discussed in family circles: ‘It was kind of sealed,’ Anthony explained. It simply did not exist, or was never talked about, others confirmed. Occasionally someone knew of the existence of a gay uncle or of a lesbian shopkeeper, the subject of furtive and embarrassed allusions rather than open discussions. More broadly, this silence on the subject of homosexuality was also a silence on sexuality in general. ‘People didn’t discuss sexuality either. Nothing like that was ever talked about! I’m not sure if I even knew of its existence,’ said Marie-Pierre, gesturing with her arms to explain what she meant: ‘We didn’t know anything. It was radio silence. Basically, the body went from the head to there (she indicated her stomach) and began again at the knees. Between the two, there was just a big gap.’

If the terms ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ are rarely pronounced by this generation, it is also because they tend to favour ‘homosexual’, a term partly rejected by the following generations because of its medical connotations. Asked about Park Slope and its reputations for gayfriendliness, Kathie referred to lesbians but used the word with a certain amount of hesitation: ‘I don’t know if that’s a nice word – female homosexuals, lesbians.’ The term ‘lesbian’ almost seemed like a dirty word, and other words, such as ‘queer’, favoured by the youngest generation, were still unfamiliar. More than anything else, this disconnect with the vocabulary in common use today reflects an absence of familiarity with a system of categorization. Whatever their feelings, they simply did not categorize individuals as ‘gay’ or ‘straight’. In the words of one interviewee, homosexuality (no doubt when this is not too visible) is something to which they paid no more attention than they did to blonde hair. The absence of such terms also stems in part from the fact that certain people in their entourage were indeed gay but did not necessarily draw attention to the fact, or at least not in the presence of certain of their heterosexual friends. As Ben observed, ‘With some people, I don’t even know their sexual orientation. They could very well be gay. I just don’t know. It’s funny! We don’t talk about it so often.’