[Marxism] Robert Duncan's "The Homosexual in Society"

[David Thorstad]

Thanks to Louis for posting this piece, which was new to me. It is 
useful to uncover unknown or neglected pieces of the gay and left past. 
Duncan's article is interesting not so much for raising issues that 
burst forth following Stonewall (it doesn't do that nearly as much as, 
say, the article Christopher Phelps recently discovered by H. L Small, 
"Socialism and Sex," published in a Socialist discussion bulletin in 
1952 [published in /New Politics,/ summer 2008]), but for what it leaves 
unsaid. Although it is impossible to know how aware Duncan was of gay 
and left history, judging from this article he knew very little, and 
that in itself suggests how thoroughly the early support for homosexual 
rights by the left (especially in Germany and England), as well as the 
decades-long writings and activism by homosexuals themselves, was 
obliterated by the Stalinist reaction and Nazism. When Duncan's article 
appeared, it was only ten years since Stalin reintroduced the tsarist 
law against homosexuality.
    Had he known about this early history, he would have avoided several 
mistaken assumptions, such as his assertion that "Almost coincident with 
the first declarations for homosexual rights was the growth of a cult of 
homosexual superiority to heterosexual values." That is untrue. Quite 
the opposite, in fact, as demonstrated by much of the early German gay 
movement, beginning with Ulrichs in the mid-nineteenth century and 
continuing with both the assimilationist third-sex group of Magnus 
Hirschfeld (the Scientific Humanitarian Committee) and the mostly 
bisexual pederast group Der Eigene, as well as figures like Edward 
Carpenter, John Henry Mackay, Edwin Bab, and many others. The tendency 
of some to view homosexuality as superior to heterosexuality (e.g., 
Stefan George, Hans Blüher) was very much a minority phenomenon. To 
refer to this subset as "Zionists of homosexuality" is amusing, but 
hyperbolic, and unfortunate especially in view of the subsequent crimes 
of Zionism.
    He is also wrong (out of ignorance, perhaps) to say that "Among 
those who should understand those emotions which society condemned, one 
found that the group language did not allow for any feeling at all other 
than this self-ridicule, this 'gaiety'...." The language devised by 
homosexual activists during the early years was actually varied and 
rich, and mostly bore no relation to "self-ridicule."
    Even in his 1959 commentaries, Duncan shows no awareness of 
Mattachine or ONE. His focus is mostly on critiquing a"homosexual cult," 
to an extent that in places suggests internalized self-oppression.
    A few of his phrases are pithy and revealing, including: "To insist, 
not upon tolerance for a divergent sexual practice, but upon concern for 
the virtues of a homosexual relationship!" (This does point toward the 
radical outlook--now mostly gone--of the Stonewall rebels. I especially 
liked "The law has declared homosexuality secret, inhuman, unnatural 
(and why not then supernatural?)"