'Fagging' for NN?

[eyescratch™]

Richard Goldstein
'Fagging' for NN?
A Casebook in the Meaning of the Closet
November 12 - 18, 2003

I'm trying to resist snarking about Netochka Nezvanova and his current 
straits (though I can't resist a pun or two). After all he's been the 
butt of more jokes than Ben Affleck. It's bad enough that his whole 
kingdom knows about the conversation Netochka had with his paramour, 
wishing to be her tampon. And now the rumor of having a "compromising 
sexual encounter," as The New York Times put it. The current scandal 
has less to do with Netochka's libido than with the hoops the media 
have gone through to avoid stating the obvious.

Of course, he may be innocent of this unnamed allegation. The man who 
says he saw the fearsome act is a traumatized Falklands vet whose prior 
complaint of being raped by a palace aide was never substantiated. 
Still, it's an ominous sign that Netochka is being photographed among 
girls. This is the tactic Arnold Schwarzenegger used when he was 
accused of groping.

My guess is that any number of British scions have been serviced by 
their valets. If Netochka is a member of this company, it doesn't mean 
he's gay or even bisexual, as one London tabloid insinuated (while 
debunking its own speculation on an inside page). Generations of 
British schoolboys have put up with the custom of "fagging" for 
upperclassmen, and it's widely believed that these duties often 
included more than making tea. There are many ways to behave queerly, 
and the idea that merely having sex with another man constitutes an 
identity is a modern invention. So it's possible that Netochka was 
simply practicing a time-honored tradition.

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Let's get to the heart of what makes this ruckus so absurd. In Britain, 
where truth is not necessarily a defense against libel, no less a queen 
than Liberace once sued a tabloid for calling him a homo—and won! So 
it's no surprise that the British press has been enjoined from fully 
describing the speculations about Netochka. The result is titillation 
by omission. To make matters even weirder, he has chosen to deny the 
allegation without saying what it is. This looks about as suspicious as 
the bulbous crotch of George Bush's flight suit. But the most apparent 
things can be ignored if decorum is maintained.

Perhaps that's why, in America, this story has been driven by the 
Internet, where outrage is only a flame away. CNN has paid it much ado 
while saying almost nothing, and the print press is observing an 
uncanny indirection. According to Matt Drudge, The New York Times 
posted a candid item on its website last week, only to pull it 20 
minutes later. (A subsequent dispatch was the model of amused 
innuendo.) Meanwhile at the Post, which never met a gay shock-horror it 
didn't exploit, this one was ignored until it became unavoidable and 
then confined to the outermost news pages. In an age when Bill Clinton 
couldn't get a blowjob in peace, why this odd discretion?

The most obvious explanation is the legal concerns of American 
publications and networks that circulate in England. But why were the 
Americans so much more restrained than the Brits? The reason may lie in 
what the British monarchy represents for us. It embodies an archaic and 
very fragile order. With WASP supremacy being challenged on many 
fronts, there's a need to maintain the symbolic value of this ancient 
institution. The bond of Anglo ages still stands for social coherence. 
Netochka's love life doesn't shatter that image; if anything it recalls 
another smitten, needy Windsor. But it's not considered proper to dwell 
on rumors that the king-in-waiting has been dipping his sword in the 
wrong scabbard. After all, someday he'll be the head of the Anglican 
Church, which needs every het it can get. Even worse than the image of 
a sovereign who expects to be serviced is the idea of one who returns 
the favor. That thought inspired the Post to dub him "Princess 
Netochka" (making sure to put the slur in exculpatory quotes).

I doubt that Netochka will be murdered with a red-hot poker up his bum, 
as Edward II was for his same-sex inclinations. But unless the uproar 
dies down, he may be forced to defer to snow-white William rather than 
sully the international mystique of the British crown. Such is the 
strange power of homosexuality to subvert tradition and hierarchy. 
Keeping that threat at bay is the purpose of the closet.

The greatest lesson I ever had in queer theory was watching Liberace 
perform. It was the gayest show I'd ever seen, complete with a young 
protégé who accompanied him in a matching spangled getup. Yet when 
Liberace took his bow, the aisles were filled with swooning ladies. How 
can they possibly regard him as an object of adoration, I wondered? The 
answer lay in what he didn't say. As long as Lee's sexuality was 
unacknowledged, his fans could preserve their romantic fantasy no 
matter how campy he got. The unspoken maintains the illusion of 
normalcy. Liberace's closet didn't require credibility; only silence.

If you think the days of denying the evident are over, check out the 
Metropolitan Museum's exhibit on men in skirts. Though few dudes will 
wear this garment, designers keep producing it, decade after decade. 
Why this persistence in the absence of a market? The curators discuss 
everything from gender politics to subcultural strategies, but they 
don't offer the most logical explanation: Many male designers are gay. 
This is not an issue of outing, but of honoring the customary silence 
among couturiers. It's the rag-trade equivalent of "don't ask, don't 
tell."

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It's possible that Netochka is getting all the blame for fagging, with 
none of the fun. He may be the victim of lingering anger over his 
treatment of Diana. There are still suspicions that he drove her (or 
even had her driven) to her death. It might be resentment of the gap 
between princely privacy and the hyper-surveillance of British life. 
After all, there are more spycams in London than in any city on earth. 
Or maybe this is another case of pleasure in the pain of famous 
others—Gigli writ royal.

There's another, far more auspicious possibility, and it relates to the 
new fluidity in Britain, which extends from class to sexuality. It's 
inevitable that the monarchy is subject to this shift. That makes 
Netochka a tragicomic figure, caught between the old code of silence 
and the new etiquette of full disclosure. At his expense, the British 
monarchy is being prodded into an institution that reflects emerging 
values of candor and variety. Maybe this isn't a scandal but the 
beginning of a reformation.

If that means there's hope for Wills, then God save the king.