Censoring Sexuality

Despite Western culture’s roots and much touted pride in its classical Greek and Roman legacy, the sexual freedoms of the ancient world have had no place in the official cultures of Western societies. As late as the 19th Century, homosexuality was the “love that dare not speak its name”.

In Censoring Sexuality, Paul Bailey examines and analyses the various kinds of censorship—political, literary, cultural—which have oppressed and silenced homosexual men and women. Such a history of censorship extends, of course, way beyond Europe. American puritanism has hugely impacted not only on the lives but also the art works of writers and film-makers whilst the moral values of Hollywood have influenced generations.

Discussing artists as diverse as Marcel Proust, Benjamin Britten, W. H. Auden and Terence Rattigan, Saki and Ronald Firbank, Censoring Sexuality explores the true nature of “camp” and the rich tradition of subversive and comic art created by the censoring of the sexual.